When I started my treatment with invisible braces, I never would have guessed that they would have such a profound impact on my music. I was used to dealing with the painful pressure that came from my incisors pressing against the mouthpiece, but with these braces, the pressure was distributed across more teeth, making playing so much more comfortable.
It's amazing to think that such a simple solution could make such a big difference, yet there's not much awareness about this in the music world. I feel like I stumbled upon a secret that I just have to share with my fellow musicians!
After six months of wearing the braces, my teeth were perfectly aligned, but there was still one issue that kept nagging at me: the length difference between my right and left upper incisors. I couldn't shake the feeling that it could mess up my embouchure balance and ruin all the progress I had made.
I even tried continuing to play with the braces on, but there was still something missing. Despite solving the issue of dental pain and mobility, I knew I had to do something about this length difference if I wanted to achieve my desired sound. It was frustrating, but I was determined to find a way to overcome this challenge and take my music to the next level.
The idea of developing an embouchure Aid for me and other musicians started growing inside me together with a very attractive brand name:
In consultation with my Research Supervisor Wouter Verschuren we decided to get in contact with the closest educational institute for Dental Technicians to seek some eager students that would have loved to help me develop my aid. The university we chose was HU University of Applied Science Utrecht, so I contacted them with a very inspirational email that, however, has never returned. After a month has passed, and I was done with waiting any longer for a response, I decided to call the HU and ask for a new email address to reach some student panel or educational reference. After double-checking the new address, I sent again my mail. This time the reply came within the same day, and I was thrilled to be contacted by the Coordinator of the Research Course at the University of Applied Science Kimberley Jazwa-van den Berg. She proposed that she would give me an answer after presenting the idea to her colleagues. After some weeks she offered to host an online meeting with a Dentistry Lecturer and an Industrial Design and Engineering teacher.
For the interview I wanted to make the best impression, therefore I prepared a simple eye-catching presentation with a description of the issue that I wanted to explore, the solution that I was aiming to develop and the kind of support that I was asking from them with particular attention to my deadlines. My audience became really passionate about the topic, particularly the dentistry lecturer Merlijn de Vries who already proposed to me some manufacturing techniques and design variants. The Industrial Design teacher was a bit sceptical and with his questions, he wanted to have clarification on the number of people that in the future could benefit from my Embouchure Aid. At the end of the call, everyone was convinced by my proposal, and they would work on ways to insert the development of my Aid inside their student’s semestral projects.
As time passed, I started to grow some concerns about the timeline that they proposed to me, as the end of the project period at HU would be February 2023. I was also concerned about the product’s post-research property rights. For this reason, after discussing with Kimberly and Wouter, I decided to withdraw from the collaboration with HU and proceeded privately in partnership with dentist Merlijn de Vries, who agreed to help me develop some prototypes. However, he suggested that the HU can still support my project in the future for license aspects rather than development.
Dr Merlijn de Vries is a talented dentist practising at the Medisch Centrum Oost in Hoorn. During the interview at HU, he was very excited about my research, so he sent me an article by the Orthodontics Division of the University van Amsterdam that reviewed all the studies ever done on the relationship between teeth and wind instruments. During our calls, we created a trustful relationship, and we brainstormed together to find be best solutions to my problem. Sometimes my questions were going towards a technological field that was not within his expertise, therefor he suggested passing my questions to a friend and colleague (also at HU) Henk-Jan Van den Heuvel, who has an extremely high-tech laboratory, the Tandtechnisch Centrum Midden-Holland, where he produces and dispatches all sort of dental prosthetics to the whole country.
When the three of us had a call, Henk proposed a very interesting solution. He suggested creating a mask for my teeth in polycarbonate, with the measures that I wanted to adjust. I can wear this shield normally on my teeth and it will provide them with a flat contact surface for the mouthpiece.
Henk’s inclusion in the team not only brought the concept of a very cool prototype, but with him, I can count on a person who is extremely skilled in using the most technologically advanced equipment and techniques.
The Concept
In my opinion, the perfect embouchure dentition is one that doesn’t have any irregularity in the front teeth (Class I occlusion). Since I was not so lucky by nature, my idea was to simulate such circumstances through an orthodontic device to be worn on top of the natural teeth only when playing. This device would be less expensive and invasive than a complete dental straightening treatment, and it would provide support against the embouchure pressure.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the skills to produce anything like this, so I decided to bring my vision to professionals to understand how to create an embouchure aid that would help me play better.
The quality standards that I was looking for were:
- Low Bulk
- Zero Eye Impact
- Maximum Resistance
- Accessible Manufacture
- Better Sound