Musicians: drooling during practice or performance; has anyone ever seen or expe

Question:I've seen performers, especially violinists get a twitchy lip or drool during difficult passages. What causes it, and can it be stopped?
This is a legitimate question and is not related to the joke: what does it mean if the banjo player is drooling from both sides of his mouth? It means the stage is level!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I've seen performers, especially violinists get a twitchy lip or drool during difficult passages. What causes it, and can it be stopped?
This is a legitimate question and is not related to the joke: what does it mean if the banjo player is drooling from both sides of his mouth? It means the stage is level!

I'm a flute player, and while I don't actually drool, my spit becomes so prolific when I play that I sometimes literally choke on it. This especially happens when I double tongue a lot.

During my last year in college, I discovered that almonds actually make it harder for your mouth to produce saliva for a good half-hour. The opposite can be achieved if you dry up when you're nervous by eating something starchy or sweet.

yea i used to be in band at school and when we preform and usuallly when we were going somewhere we were on a bus all night, then we had to be up early and our nerves the night before make it so i couldnt sleep idk about others. and our instructer is really hard on the students. Thats what causees but i dk how it could be stoped

Wow, I didn't know this ever occured. Funny joke, though.

I can only speculate that because the chinrest is pressed against the bottom of the chin, a violinist may be so focused on the difficult passage that they forget there's an item distorting their face and don't keep their mouth closed. Do you ever focus on something and sometimes find that you've placed your tongue in a weird spot--maybe resting on a tooth or your lip? That could be it, who knows?

For reed players, when our embouchure gets tired, it's hard to hold the correct position for long periods of time and spit will bubble out of the corners of the mouth. This even occurs when a reed is misaligned.

I don't know about brass players, so hopefully one stumbles across your question.