My Playing History

 A further challenge: Playing Diatonic Blues Harmonica when you wear dentures...

I am not a dentist. Your mileage may vary. Please seek the advice of a professional if you are considering dental work of any type. What I am about to relate is my experience and my experience only. What do others have to say? I don't know.

Alright...

I've played harp for over 35 years now, most years at least semi-professionally if not professionally. And for 30 years I played with my natural teeth. And for about 15-10 years before I got my dentures, I played with progressively worsening dental problems. I did all this because of two things:

1) My problems started when I had some bad dental work done, and a very...shall we say..."hardy"...gum infection was introduced to me. OK, sh_t happens, no tragedy, but it led to a progressive decaying of the bone beneath my gums. As a result, teeth started to loosen, I had chronic and sore gum infections, consequent poor health and an occasional steady diet of antibiotics. What fun. And I got bridges and partial plates when teeth inevitably did fall out or get so loose I had them removed. But I could play...

2) And I'd read somewhere on the Internet that a person couldn't play blues harp if they had full dentures.

...So I waited and delayed and waited and delayed, and went for about 10 years with pretty constant pain and discomfort, playing a losing game of "keep what I could of my regular teeth" so I could play, because I really was very frightened that once I got dentures I'd lose my music. Waiting was foolish.

Ask your dentist about gum disease, the "domino effect" and ask how often chronic, severe gum disease is cured with all remaining teeth going to remain intact--and ask whether or not the bone grows back. 

Things just got steadily worse. Finally it got to a point where, harp playing or not--I had no choice. If I wanted to have any decent bone to use to keep my full dentures in place and comfortable, I figured I'd better just get 'em and sort out the playing (if possible) later. So I got full upper and lowers.

Here's the news. One week after I got my dentures I was gigging. It took maybe two weeks to sort out all the embouchure problems...all of 'em. 

Biggest problem: I soon realized I had to keep my dentures very firmly in place to play my best--so I tried a number of denture adhesives, and settled on Poli-Grip Free. Pretty much all the adhesives worked well, though, but the "Free" stuff was less overly gummy, less intrusive--and if you try it, I think you'll see what I mean.

So why am I writing this?

Because I don't want any other harp players out there to put off much-needed dental work because they think they might not be able to play. Is getting dentures risk-free? Probably not, but in my case, the only regret I have is that I waited so long. I can play just fine. Tongue-blocks, octave splits, bends, overblows...you name it. Any limitations on my playing have nothing to do with my dentures.

Do I wish I still had all my regular teeth? Well, if wishes would come true, I'd probably want my regular teeth back--but not because of my playing. Eating apples is a bit weird...that's all. Mostly gotta slice 'em first.

'Nuff on this...back to playing.