To the Editor:

Many thanks to the Review for bringing attention to something rarely discussed in the Conservatory — musician injuries. I believe the Conservatory must take more responsibility for educating students about injury prevention and supporting those who are injured. Playing-related injuries are issues that musicians face throughout their careers. According to Playing (Less) Hurt by Janet Horvath, a survey of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians found that 76 percent of respondents had experienced a serious injury that required them to take time off from their instrument.

I discovered the Conservatory’s regrettable paucity of resources and the institutional denial surrounding student injuries last semester when I began experiencing playing-related pain in my left arm. My injury grew worse for several reasons.

First, because there is no musical injury specialist in Oberlin or nearby, I was left to diagnose myself with the help of WebMD and friends. I had no idea what was wrong with my arm, only that something was wrong. At first I thought it was tendonitis, but when the symptoms I found online did not line up with what I was feeling, I realized it must have been something else. It took me two months to get an appointment with a musical injury specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, at which point I finally received a diagnosis. Not only was this wait frustrating, but over the course of those two months, my injury grew significantly worse.

Second, during the time of my injury I was playing in orchestra. Although I knew I needed to take time off to let the injury heal, I felt pressure from faculty members to push through despite my injury. I am not alone in this experience. I have had friends who were forced to keep playing in orchestra (under threat of failure) even though they were too injured to practice, which only exacerbated injuries which might otherwise have improved.

A third factor which worsened my injury was a chamber music coach who threatened to fail my group if I did not play in coached rehearsals. Although I could not play without pain, I was forced to keep playing in the chamber group so that I could meet my graduation requirements on time.
In the end, my injury took over two months to heal, I had to drop out of an important competition and nearly canceled my graduate school auditions. If I had been allowed to stop playing for just one week when I first injured my arm, I be-

lieve I could have healed completely in a timely manner. While I am not blaming the Conservatory for causing student injuries, I would like to call on the faculty and administration to create an institutional environment that not only works to prevent student injuries, but also offers support for injured students. It would be relatively simple: Oberlin needs a musical injury specialist who can help students immediately after they become injured. We need an injury prevention and management class for all first-years. Deborah Vogel’s class is a start, but as the Review article mentioned, it has very limited spots. Finally, students should not be punished for being injured. While it is inconvenient to find a substitute player for an injured student, not doing so may jeopardize the injured student’s future career. A conservatory of Oberlin’s caliber should be doing everything in its power to ensure that its students are prepared — musically and physically — for .ir Student Sen- enon catheir professional careers.