Honestly, while I completely go with the word of our medical experts (they
are the experts, after all), I question the sincerity of the results of the way the rehearsals are being handled based on a single study. I found that article (way back in like September/October) shortly after the recommendations of the AFM:
- Wear a mask when not playing. Non-wind musicians wear a mask at all times.
- Keep a distance of twelve feet from each individual wind player.
- Use plexiglass shielding.
This is on top of all other common sense.
I saw this way back in October about the study, and I had tons of questions that were not in the article. Basically, throw something over your bell, and you'll be safer. This did not add up, and there were potential issues that were not addressed in the article. The article seemed written to just get band directors to justify the ability to get back to rehearsals ASAP, and did not touch on anything else except for bell covers. My issues were:
- What about keyed instruments/flute?
- Why aren't they talking about the extra social distancing?
- What about the plexi shields as recommended by AFM?
- What about the weaker brass students, whose embouchures sometimes leak? Surely there's aerosol coming from there, too!
I made these points on a Reddit post, and someone comes along and says "I'm a band director, and you obviously don't understand how wind instruments work."
Upon looking up the study again after seeing this thread, I found
this page.
So first of all, it became abundantly clear that the purpose of the article was to just push the bell covers to get students back into rehearsals. We can get them back in pile them together, but it's okay as long as you cover your bells! The article definitely talks about the other points from the AFM notice I read, but these points were not in the article that was linked.
(I wish I could find the article; but that was too long ago to find it in an acceptable amount of time.)
Still, my issues with the study are thus:
- It wasn't for the purpose to see how dangerous it is, but to see how we can make people feel safer.
- It was conducted by a single college music department (small sample size).
- It didn't consider different levels of ability re: embouchures.
- Because of this small sample size, there could be similar issues (or lack thereof) in techniques that could cause more or less aerosol, due to using musicians studying with the same teacher. And this is still collegiate-level musicians, so we're not really looking at novice or professional musicians to see any other differences?
- In the video, it doesn't look like they even bothered to look at the other exit points for sound on woodwinds.
- Were tubas even sampled? I'm sure we have issues with smaller wind instruments, but I can't imagine there's a ton of aerosols being launched through 12-20 feet of brass tubing.
Sorry for the long rant. I just can't stand that we're taking all these precautions, but now there's this general "it's okay of you have a bell cover."
As for summer bands, I'm more on the optimistic side. The numbers are improving, and I feel like this summer is going to be a start of some normalcy.
And I live in Florida, where most everything is open...except for brass gigs.
