Nothing about playing a musical instrument is comfortable for the body. Holding up a clarinet -- or worse, a flute -- or contorting one's hands through guitar chords takes its toll.
And too often when musicians are injured, the medical advice they get is to just stop playing. That's what happened to Kee Fedak when he was a music student at university. He's now a chiropractor and cofounder of the Performing Artists' Health Center in Arlington, Texas.
"I think my experience with the medical doctor is what a lot of students and a lot of professionals experience," he says. "I was told that I need to stop playing for six months and see how it goes. Well, you can't tell a musician to do that."
After university, Fedak studied piano performance at the esteemed Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and at the University of Montreal. He then turned his attention to another calling, and went to Parker College of Chiropractic in Dallas. As a musician himself, he says, he understands how emotionally devastating an injury can be if it prevents you from playing.
"It's very, very dangerous when a musician is told to stop playing because if they're away from their instrument for even a day, it affects their technique and their ability," says Fedak.
Good health reasons
It's not just a matter of staying in the groove, though. Fedak points out some good health reasons for musicians not to stop playing when they're injured.
"If they have to stop for a week or two weeks or, say, even a month, that can be a lot more damaging than good because the tone in the muscles starts to decrease," he says.
The injuries that musicians get are as varied as the instruments they play. Cellists often have problems with their shoulders. Drummers tend to have tendonitis and low-back pain. Brass players sometimes have neck problems. And because playing any musical instrument involves repetitive motions, all musicians are susceptible to cumulative trauma disorders such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
Having an injury can be especially difficult for students of music, says Fedak. They are often forced to change their major within music, out of performance and into composition or history. And some leave their music education behind altogether.
"For professional musicians it's the same thing," says Fedak. "I've seen professional musicians who've injured themselves playing and it's like cutting off an arm for them. They can never get it back. And they have to do something else, some other job that they never dreamt that they would do. That can be extremely depressing."
Biomechanics are key
Fedak's experience with his own injury and medical treatment is part of the reason he got involved with the Performing Artists' Health Center, which opened this past June.
"One of the things that we pride ourselves on in this clinic is that we spend a lot of time looking at the biomechanics, looking at how the musician is holding their instrument, sitting at their instrument," says Fedak. "Because playing any kind of musical instrument is unnatural. There's no way you can say that playing the violin is natural for the body."
And unlike computer equipment, musical instruments can't be redesigned to fit the body better. A flute with a bend in it to make it easier to play no longer sounds just like a flute, says Fedak. It's a different instrument. And while some ergonomic violins have been built with body-contoured slots cut out of them, that's simply not an option for many professional concert violinists.
"If you're a concert master with a major orchestra, you're probably playing a priceless violin and if you have a problem, you cannot cut into a Stradivari," says Fedak.
Chiropractors offer relief
So, if the instruments can't change and the show must go on, musicians are limited in what they can do. That, says Fedak, is where chiropractic comes in. He says that chiropractors' approach to health care -- seeking out and correcting the cause of pain and stiffness -- is ideal for musicians.
"As a student of chiropractic and a musician at the same time, I saw a direct benefit to the musical community in what chiropractors can do. Chiropractors get to the heart of the mechanics of the body and we have seen some dramatic results."
Fedak and his partner Franz Pavalock have cared for professional orchestral musicians in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, as well as students taking music at various Texas universities. But it's not just classical musicians who injure themselves playing. The Performing Artists' Health Center also sees rock and blues musicians who play in area clubs and bars. And it isn't just musicians who play instruments who use the center, either.
"Singers, for instance, they benefit enormously from chiropractic because you can free up the rib cage, free up the back of the neck," says Fedak. "They can breathe a lot better, and because most of the time they're standing on stage, their ability to project their voice is enhanced, as well."
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