music

I’ve missed you!

/ carynjoan / 1 Comment

A lot can happen in 2 ½ years.

I missed being a part of the HH community in such a big way with my blog. I am happy to say hello again and let you know what’s been going on since my last entry:

Personal life

  • I got married!
  • Visited London
  • Moved from Manhattan to Queens then again to upstate NY
  • Visited California for the first time
  • Ran my 5th half marathon

Professional achievements

  • Continued my studies for my Master’s degree in Special Education with a Vision Impairment focus
  • Learned how to read and write in 3 codes of Braille (literary braille, braille music, Nemeth code)
  • Started teaching music to students who are blind or have a vision impairment
  • Got a new full time job working for an amazing charity helping people all over the world with vision impairment
  • Completed three internships in Special Ed/Vision Impairment

Hyperhidrosis awareness

  • Told my HH story at the Patient-Focused Drug Development meeting (PFDD) on hyperhidrosis hosted by the International Hyperhidrosis Society in Washington D.C.
  • Wrote about HH for SELF
  • Contributed feedback for the development of a product to help palmar hyperhidrosis

It’s been a pretty busy couple of years for sure. Having a full time job, part time school, and part time music and teaching has kept me involved, but I am happier than ever. I feel lucky to have so many opportunities to combine both my passions for music and for helping people.

A lot has happened, but Hyperhidrosis has always been my constant. I’ve been on and off of iontophoresis treatments (currently off). Summer is coming to an end and I’m looking forward to cooler weather to dry me up a bit. I have had many issues with HH this year and still consistently feel uncomfortable in my skin.

The other day when I was in NYC for work and traveling in the hot subway system, I had a thought that kind of made me feel better. At least it made me laugh. I’m definitely a perfectionist and enjoy when I do things well. So, I thought about HH in a positive way. Maybe I can tell people that I’m just really great at sweating. I exceed the average person at it for sure.

I started a draft of this entry last week because of my increasing longing for getting back into the HH community. Little did I know, my SELF article was circulated on SnapChat last weekend. I don’t use SnapChat, so I wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for my cousin who sent me a screenshot.

SelfonSnapChat

This was very exciting and couldn’t have been better timing. It truly is time for me to start connecting with you all again and I am so sorry for my hiatus while I focused on school. I will finally graduate this December after four years of pursuing my degree in Special Education.

Thank you to everyone who sent me emails after seeing my article on SnapChat this week. I am so grateful that you reached out to share a little of your HH story with me.

Over the next few entries, I plan to elaborate on everything that’s been going on with me for the past 2 ½ years. For now, I just want to say hello again and I look forward to sharing our stories together. Is everyone gearing up for Hyperhidrosis Awareness month this November? I’d love to hear about your ideas to spread awareness. Together, we can make change.

It’s good to be back!

Caryn

 

How Do You Play Flute With HH? An inside look (with video)

/ carynjoan / 6 Comments

Hi all! I hope you’re having a great start to August!

Next month, my quintet, Washington Square Winds, and I will be releasing our very first full length album, THEY’RE ALIVE! The official release date is September 7.

With that in mind, I have decided to share some of my music with you today. Francis gave me the idea for this post as he said he was curious what it’s really like to play a musical instrument with HH. He’s a trombonist, himself! I included a video to show you my thought process when I play and how HH affects me.

This video was taken during my graduate flute recital at NYU in 2011. I’m playing Ian Clarke’s The Great Train Race. It has a lot of cool extended techniques like playing 2 notes at the same time, singing and playing, and explosive air attacks. This was before I started Iontophoresis treatment, so I was definitely sweating a lot at this point.

  • Another thing I worry about is also related to my appearance. HH typically comes with excessive blushing (as if excessive sweating wasn’t enough). Generally when I’m performing and really nervous, my chest and neck blotch up like crazy!! Amazingly, in this video, you can’t really tell! But as I play, I’m constantly thinking about the audience’s perception of me based on what they see, versus what they hear. In the past, I’ve had people ask me if I was okay after a performance because they saw me blotch up. This bothers me a lot because I don’t want the audience to be concerned about me during my performance. I would rather them just listen and enjoy- no matter what I look like.
  • Having sweat on my hands makes it really uncomfortable to play my flute. I’ll be trying to focus on the music while I feel drips of sweat rolling down my arms or starting to feel the pads under the keys get squishy with moisture.
  • HH is also uncomfortable because it makes my fingers swell- A LOT! It can be difficult moving my swollen fingers fast when I need them to. You can tell that right around 45 seconds in this video, there’s a difficult fast passage that could have been a lot cleaner! My fingers weren’t just cooperating!
  • Sometimes the sweat on my fingers will cause me to slip off the keys too- especially if I’m going fast. At 2:17, it’s barely audible, but my finger slipped on a key and I played a wrong note. I recovered really fast though!
  • A clear picture of my mental state is apparent at 2:52. Remember I was playing this without sheet music in front of me. I forgot what came next and paused a little too long!

This was back in 2011, but I still get these same feelings. My philosophy nowadays is: “You love music, so play like you love it. The audience will see this in you and the music will flow more freely”.

I hope you enjoyed listening to some of my music! If you would like to hear more, please ask me about our upcoming CD!

In the meantime, you can check out my flute website: carynfreitag.com
and my quintet’s website: washingtonsquarewinds.org

Thank you for reading,

Caryn