[Dixielandjazz] Dr. Jazz; Jazz Health; Tuba Callus?

[Dan Augustine]

>Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 14:42:53 -0400
>From: drjz <drjz@bealenet.com>
>Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Dr. Jazz; Jazz Health?
>
>Dear Dan (and others),
  <snip>
>I have a book entitled "Occupational Marks" that contains 4 pages of 
>text, and 6 of illustrations, pertaining to musicians. I wonder if 
>you have the tuba players' "thick callus on [your] right little 
>finger tip", as opposed to the French horn players' "same callus but 
>on the left little finger tip"!?
>Fred
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Fred and others--
     Hmm. This 'tuba callus' on the right pinky intrigues me.  I've 
been playing tuba for 50 years, and i have no such callus.  Further, 
i can't figure out how anyone would get one in the course of normal 
tuba-playing.  The right little-finger rests lightly on the tuba's 
fourth-valve top--if there is one--and on nothing (by elegant 
necessity) if there isn't one.  And that fourth valve is little used 
in most musics.
     Perhaps it's the tip of the right little-finger that strikes 
hardest against the surface of one's music stand or chair while 
drumming the fingers and counting measures of rest: 204/-2-3-4, 
205/-2-3-4, 206/-2-3-4--BLAT!!  1/-2-3-4, 2/-2-3-4...  That would 
account for the pinky's radical keratinity, eh?

     Dan

P. S. Note how i have dexterously eschewed the most obvious pun, a 
form of humor to which fools aspire and wise men stoop (Bierce).
-- 
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**  Dan Augustine     Austin, Texas     ds.augustine@mail.utexas.edu  **
**    "I believe I will dip my pink-and-white body in yon Roman tub.  **
**     I feel a bit gritty after the affairs of the day."             **
**            W. C. Fields in _My Little Chickadee_ (1940)            **
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