Are Invisaligns the best route for a French Horn Player?

Question

I play French Horn, and i want to interfere as little as possible with my playing, but i also badly need braces. My private lesson teacher suggested that i go with Invisaligns. Do they really interfere less?

Answer 1

I suggest going with the regular braces. I play the horn and I did the whole braces thing in high school. I use a lot of mouthpiece pressure, so I know that if I was to go with Invisaligns, I'd break them or I'd make them take longer to adjust my teeth.

When wearing braces while playing, pack on the wax on the upper teeth so you don't destroy the inside of your mouth! I found that I had formed an air pocket in my chin and used waaaayy too much mouthpiece pressure when having braces. These things thankfully only took a little while to fix and now I'm graduating with a degree in music ed and horn performance. :-)

So I guess overall Invisaligns might help if your only moving your teeth slightly, but if it's some big mouth work, go with the metal.

Happy playing!

Answer 2

I had regular metal braces for 5 years of playing... of course, I played clarinet and bari, so it's a little different.

From my own experience though, I found that it wasn't too bad, aside from when they were tightened.  It would be slightly painful to play for a couple days, just from the pressure of the mouthpiece.  

I have known many, MANY trumpet and french horn players who had traditional braces, from junior high all through college, and the braces never seemed to effect them- although they all had callouses on the inside of their lips, which I imagine took some time to form.

However, any shifting of your teeth will cause you to work a little harder on maintaining correct embouchure, regardless of what causes that shifting.

The only plus to getting Invisiligns that I can see is that it won't put too much pressure on the inside of your lips, and would keep you from possibly cutting up the inside of your lips before callouses formed... this may be helpful too if you are in marching band!

In the end, I would think that your teacher knows what he's talking about, and you could always ask the advice of an orthodontist as well... they deal with musicians a fair amount!

Wish I could've been more helpfull!  Good Luck! :)