Eye vibration

[Ken Crawford]

Does anyone else ever experience vibration in the eyes that distorts your vision enough to make it hard to see your music? It typically happens when playing low at elevated volume. Just wondering if maybe I have loose eyes or if this is common.

[Donn]

I've had some troubles like that while reading. I bet a quarter it will help if you can set the music higher, so you aren't looking down at all.

[Rick F]

Some of the symptoms mentioned above have to do with a "strobe effect". LED lights and similar are firing at 60 HZ. When playing your horn there is all different frequencies that may cause your eyes to vibrate some. The differences between the two frequencies can cause another frequency - a difference between the two frequencies - that you see as beats. Same effect as two people playing the same pitch but a little off so you can hear beats in the pitch. If you're using a light to shine on your music that is fluorescent (which fires @ 60 Hz), try switching the bulb to an incandescent type with a glowing filament.

[tubapix]

I notice it when playing forcefully. It actually gets bad enough to blur my music. My horn actually vibrates greatly too so I attributed the eye vibration to that. Don't know if the aforementioned suggestions will work but I for one am willing to try them.

[Dan Schultz]

Sustained low notes in general tend to blurr my vision. I think it's more of an energy/air thing. Donuts before my Saturday morning Dixieland rehearsals does the same thing!

[imperialbari]

I have experienced this with low playing on bassbone as well as on tuba. The effect is worsened if you wear glasses that do not vibrate in sync with your eyes.

I cannot guarantee that you can avoid this effect entirely. Not that you could or should avoid the vibration of your lip area, but the degree of the efficiency of the transmission of the vibrations of your lips to your eyeballs and to the seat of your glasses is strongly related to the stiffness of the soft tissue in and around your nose, in your cheeks, and in the surroundings of your eyes.

There were periods when I warmed up almost right out of bed after sleaping in a winter-cold bedroom. Of course I had brushed my teeth first, but in cold water.

Turned on the morning news on the TV and started doing flexibility and low range work. On the worst days the blurred view was accompanied by a terrible itching around my nostrils.

Soon found two remedies that worked well in tandem. Drinking a lot of water. And giving my nose, including the tip and the nostril area plus my cheeks, my chins, and my eyes a very thorough rubbing. If there is any itching in the temple area, do a rub there also. Stretching your lips also helps.

The water will boost your blood pressure after the nightly dehydration. The rubbing will make sure that the said areas are well bled, which takes out their stiffness.

Klaus

[sousaphonehero]

I notice this every time I play sousaphone at a basketball game and I happen to glance at the scoreboard when I am playing lower than F (1 note below the bass clef). It especially gets wavy when I go down to the next partial (BBb and below) and in both of those ranges at extreme volumes (like I play most of the time in pep band). I talked to all the other tubas and they said that they experienced the same thing. Must just be physics or whatever.

[Rick F]

"Must just be physics or whatever.".

Yes, it's basic science called a strobe effect. Read about 6 posts above.

[southtubist]

Read the section "Suggested relationships to ghost sightings":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound" target="_blank

Stated here the resonant frequency of the eyeball is around 18 Hz. In this case, the theory is that a fan was causing "ghost sightings" by being close to the resonant frequency of the eyeball. The tuba can easily get into that range. It's pretty interesting stuff to read about.

I know ya'll academic scholars don't like wikipedia, but I'm too lazy/ignorant to look for something else.

[timothy42b]

Some of the symptoms mentioned above have to do with a "strobe effect". LED lights and similar are firing at 60 HZ. .

I don't think so. LEDs are running on DC, no Hz at all. Fluorescents may run at 60 Hz or much higher if electronic rather than magnetic ballasts.

I think two different things happen.

One is your glasses shake.

The other is you play with too much tension around your eyes or maybe in your throat - when I get the effect of blurred vision it's because I'm doing something wrong.

This effect is well known on trombone in the pedal range.