Playing music uses a tremendous amount of your brain. It's no wonder that brain fog from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome can impair our ability to play.
I've been a musician for most of my life. I took piano lessons in elementary school, then switched to violin when I was 10. I started voice lessons in junior high and also picked up a little guitar. I was even a music major for my first year of college.
Then, fibromyalgia hit. I didn't have the energy or desire to play for a long time. When I eventually picked up my guitar again, I had the same issues I'd faced after long absences before, but I could still remember songs and the ability came back with practice.
However, I couldn't remember some songs, and when I pulled out the music I found it incredibly difficult to read. Fortunately, I can still read a chord chart, so I can learn new songs. Later, when I got a piano, I tried to re-learn a piece I'd forgotten, but the notes just didn't make sense to me. Learning a new piece was nearly impossible, no matter how simple. I hope someday to re-learn how to read music, but so far it hasn't been a big focus for me. Meanwhile, I'm happy with my progress on guitar and I know that playing gives my brain a good work-out.
A recent comment here shows that this is something that happens to other people, but not necessarily in the same way:
"I used to play guitar. Just a beginner but I knew all the chords. When I got Fibro in 1997 I couldn't play anymore. Just recently I picked it up again. I could see the chord in my head but my fingers went every where but the right place. I just couldn't do it! I kept trying and now I play over an hour every day! Not perfect but it helps my brain."
That shows the value of persistence -- the skill came back, and stimulating the brain by playing helps overall function.
I recently had the opportunity to ask an expert on brain development about my lost music-reading ability. She said it was likely a problem with retrieval and not something that was truly lost. Basically, instead of being in a handy filing cabinet, it's in a box on a shelf somewhere out in the garage. I can't get to it, but someday, with persistence, I can find it again. I hope she's right. Someday, I will put in the effort to dig it out.
While it hasn't been studied specifically in these conditions, we know that playing music -- and even listening to it -- can stimulate language centers of the brain and improve math skills and memory. If we can overcome difficulties involved in playing, we can not only regain that pleasure, but we may be able to improve our overall brain function.
What's your experience been with playing music since you've been sick? Have you been able to recover abilities? Do you think it's helped cut through the fog? Leave your comments below!
Learn more or join the conversation!
NEWSLETTER | FORUM | BIO | TWITTER | FACEBOOK
Photo © Lanny Ziering/Getty Images
I am our church pianist. After a year of lessons I basically taught myself to play for our church because of the need. Here 8 years later I am still playing and have improved my skills. But when chronic fatigue was brought on by mono, when I am having a flare up or are really tired I will “forget” what I am doing. I can be in the middle of a song and totally forget what the next chord is – even though the music is in front of me it makes no sense. Practice isn’t a factor, because these are songs I can usually play in my sleep. And in other songs, the harder I try to focus the worse it gets…
I have definitely noticed a difference in playing music post-mono. Great article…
My whole life has revolved around music, if I wasn’t singing then I was playing piano or guitar. Now I find myself in a place where it hurts my ears to have it on…much less to try to make the music myself. It slipped away from me slowly so isn’t as painful as just one day waking up and not being able to handle any sound…but it’s still something that I miss. There are days when I think that the sensitivity to sound and the fog/balance issues are the worst things about FM.
I have been a natural musician for 54 of my 57 years. I still can retain most of what I’ve learned over the years, however, I often have trouble with my hands. I will play a piece on the piano/guitar and suddenly a finger will veer off and hit a wrong note and hit it loudly. At first I didn’t like it at all, but now I just laugh and say, “That’s the Fibro” playing. I also play 3 different simple computer card games every morning to try to “organize” my brain. They seem to work well. My level of difficulty goes up and down with the flare ups, but just the process of doing them helps my mind clear up.
When the supply of dopamine to receptors in the brain is not adequate it becomes difficult to concentrate. Dopamine receptors are involved in many neurological processes, including intellectual ability, cognition, memory, learning, motivation and fine motor control. Dopamine receptors also control neural signaling that modulates spatial working memory. In the thinking areas of the brain, dopamine might be considered the neurotransmitter of focus and attentiveness. If the availability of this neurotransmitter has become hampered in the fibromyalgia or CFS sufferer, you can see what problems this could create.
Try just playing by ear and not trying hard. That’s what I did, I gave up trying to read music as something that wasn’t working for me anymore.
It worked for me, enough to allow me the joy of playing again. I don’t do it often, and my fingers don’t work too well, but I enjoy playing accompaniment to the songs on the radio that I like.
I’ve had to learn to accept things as they are, not as I think they should be. It can be very tough to do that.
Once you learn to find the key they’re playing in, you just improvise and let it happen. Most pop and country is in F, E flat, or G.
I had to give up playing the organ.
I play guitar and sing. Well, I play guitar when it doesn’t hurt my hands too much to hold the strings down and when my fingers act like they can actually find the chords. I used to be able to play and sing from memory. Now, with my own songs or covers, I have to have a music stand on stage with me and read almost every song as I play and sing. I attribute all of this to fibro, fog and pain. I’m just glad I can still get out there occationally.
I hope that I don’t forget everything, music has been my life–piano is very hard for me–my neck always stiffened up and I was unable to play–it was very embarrassing..I always wanted to play–I did Jr. Prize speaking in High School–I presented it perfectly on stage that immediatly forgot it. I never remember any of the poetry I write. It is frustrating!!
I was an all-county clarinet player going to state competitions and one fateful day I had a migraine… Since then, I’ve never been able to read music. I’ve been diagnosed with fibro 15 years later!
As a young woman I had a period of depression that started out as post natal but lasted 9 horrible years. It was more than 20 years later that the fibromyalgia started. I have noticed that of the first few years of the depression I have precious few memories even though I was raising my only child through babyhood.
I know this is not directly related to music but I do believe it is related to memory loss. Looking back I do not think the memory loss is as much related to the depression as it is the medication for the depression mostly SSRI’s.
Unfortunately I have learned in the last few years they are a double edged sword. A certain amount can give you your life back. Two much and they can take it all away again.
I have found that I cannot listen to music when I’m bad.
Used to love my iPod and sticking a cd on loud but would
Fry my brain now.
I haven’t played piano in years, but I can still read music. I’m so glad because I want to encourage my g’daughter in her music abilities–violin and guitar. But what saddens me the most is that I have lost my singing voice. I feel like Ariel. I miss being able to sing. My voice breaks and cracks after one bar…. Any one else had this happen, and if so any success beating it?
Oh yes. It has dropped a full octave and is as gravelly as all get out but never smoked a cigarette in my life! Tried to talk to the Doctor about it multiple times because it worries me since I am hypothyroid but they did some test and assured me everything is “just fine”. Yeah right!
Thanks, I thought I was a little crazy or something. Yeah, Nitalynn, we’re “just fine”.
Kathy, I too have lost my singing voice, and I really miss it. I have no breath control is my biggest problem, and I’m so often mucousy on my vocal chords—constantly having to clear my throat. Singing was a big part of my life since I was a little girl.
I noticed the change in my singing voice when I went back to sing in my college choir at Homecoming two years ago. Not only could I not get my breathing down, during rehearsal I kept coming in with the sopranos even though I was singing alto. Luckily, the kids were kind, and one even patted me gently on the shoulder after I did it again during the performance. Sometimes I can’t hit the notes for all the world, and it’s so painful to my ears that I won’t even sing when I’m alone in the car when it happens. One of the things I am mourning the loss of.
It isn’t just music. I am a writer and a photographer. I have been published throughout the year for my writing, and my photographs have been used by the military.
I had FM long before the photography, but in recent years forgetting how to spell, how settings I should use for what, my vision changing so often and the tremors…but the most upseting is memory. I can use a tripod to deal with the for the shakes if there is time and I won’t miss the shot. I carry different sets of glasses and just switch them out until I find one that work for that day.
Yet memory…how did I spell that? Wait that doesn’t look right. Sometimes it is anyway, most times it isn’t. Or I will be typing away and send the message off and my friend will write back asking if I knew I spelled such and such this way or my words will be jumbled up like fitted sheets is shitted feets. It may sound funny but it tears my insides up.
And when I am shooting I need to be able to change ISO Appeture, Speed and other setting quickly. You can’t always just use Auto. It isn’t that I feel embarrassed. I feel lost.
I am so relieved that I am not alone in losing my voice, singing or otherwise. I used to play the piano and the clarinet, now I can just barely stand listening to music. Music was always an important part of my life and I really miss it.
I thought it was just me, i love music but I now find it hard to listen to, painful even and also although I didnt have the best of singing voices to start with I find the energy to breath right for singing has gone – i miss being able to sing along to songs – when I try I get out of breath and soon suffer a sore throat. I hope one day someone will be able to say “oh you just take this” and then everything works again. love and hugs to you all.
I used to enjoy singing and had perfect pitch, but fibro diminished the part of the brain used for music ability, most the time can’t stay on key for an entire song or remember lyrics – it’s like I know I’m off key while singing and can’t even control it. And also being out of breath a lot, hard to hold notes out at all. In singing – if you can’t use spatial ability to form and convey the next line of a song, you’re sunk. Thanks for making me know I’m not the only one whose noticed this side effect of fibro-
I am sooo… glad I read this blog. I have fibro, and over the last year and a half I have lost my ability to sing. I always loved singing, and could sing pretty well through high school (in all county chorus) and in my church (doing solos, and in church choir), so it has had me stumped as to why I suddenly can’t hardly sing at all anymore. It’s hard for me to reach pitch levels I could once handle with no problems, and my throat gets sore and I feel mucus building up on the back of my throat as well. I thought I was the only one having these issues until I read this blog and found that my issues are being experienced by many others too. It feels so much better to know that I am not alone. Thanks!
What about dancing? I used to do some professional/hobbie flamenco dancing after my working schedule just because I enjoyed it so much. I didn’t understand why after so many years I suddendly couldn’t remember all the coreography, I started loosing balance and making the wrong steps…It started to make me feel so stressed out that finally I had to quit. After I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia everything made sense to me.
I have found that the tonal quality of my voice has actually improved, but as others have said, my breath control is not what it used to be. I can still read music, but can’t remember lyrics to songs I have performed many times. I will be devastated if I lose the ability to sing as it is one of the few things that brings me happiness through fibro pain.
It’s nice to know I’m not alone in having my experience with music greatly altered. It causes me sadness that I may never again be able to sweep my bow across the strings of my violin in a way that will resemble music. The violin requires such great multi-tasking skills, which I once possessed. Now, with CFS, I no longer have the muscular endurance to hold my violin steady, nor the fine motor-skills to even hold my bow properly. At best I produce a shaky, screechie tragedy.
It appears we all share in the same loss… I am so glad I asked about my singing voice. I am lucky in that I still love music in that i can still listen, but my tastes have radically changed. I used to love rock-n-roll, but now, can barely listen at all. Now its The Standards, classical, and jazz. But anything too loud, really fast paced, or with too much discord is too much for me.
I have always loved music. Now I’m very indifferent to it. I use to play the guitar and sing. I could listen to it a few times and play it, never learned to read music just by ear. But now, I can’t I can barley play. Just one more thing taken away by this insidious disease.
Iv’e just finished my first 10 week course in clasical guitar. I love it, but when my brain is really foggy, I forget all that i’ve learnt & it makes me panic!! I decided to take lessons in the hope that it would help my memory, also to give me something to be proud of accomplishing. There seems to be a lot of things to greave the loss of with FM/CFS The guitar lessons give me a bit of hope at the moment so I’ll keep at it &hope what i learn sinks in with repetition!
I also use to be able to sing & now my voice cracks. I thought it was the inhailers I use for asthma??
I have a hard time playing my piano too. I have so little time/energy that it is a long time between. I suppose that is the reason; I cannot focus or concentrate either. I have fibro and cervical osteoarthritis.
I have CFIDS, and used to love music. It was going all the time. Now, on rare days, like today, I can listen to very mild, light jazz or bluegrass. Nothing with a definite beat at all ever. Something about that makes me actually angry if I can’t get away from it very rapidly. Strange, strange illness. A music collection from the mid-60’s to the early 90’s, rock, pop, country, classical, gospel, and I can’t bear to have it going in my presence.