Background
The Chops Shop creates individualized lessons and strategies for musicians to perform more efficiently and execute music more confidently. Lessons are taught online and in-person through one-on-one and group clinic formats. The Chops Shop is the place to learn and discuss different approaches to playing your instrument as well as how those same concepts can be applied to improvisation, solo performances and having a healthier mental approach to playing music and the tasks of life.
The Chops Shop was launched in 2020 by world renowned jazz trombonist Dion Tucker. During the summer of 2019 Dion developed embouchure dystonia, a type of dystonia that affects brass and woodwind players, which targets muscles in the mouth, face, jaw, and tongue. The involuntary, abnormal movements associated with embouchure dystonia are often very subtle and occur only when the musician is playing, buzzing into the mouthpiece, or forming an embouchure. Symptoms of embouchure dystonia may include air leaks at the corners of the mouth, sometimes accompanied by a tremor, and involuntary contractions of the muscles in the face. For more information about this condition click here.
This condition left Dion unable to perform professionally for several months. During this down time, he began to study his disorder and immediately began a strict training and rehabilitation process. In essence, Dion had to re-learn how to play his instrument. The style of playing and methods he had applied for over 25 years proved to not be the most efficient way for him to play, and ultimately damaged his embouchure.
Within six months, Dion was playing at a higher level than at any point in his career by applying the strategies that he learned and developed during his re-training process. The exercises and techniques that Dion was taught proved to be a much healthier playing style for him. A reoccurring question that he asked himself throughout this experience was, “why is no one talking about the consequences of misuse and overuse of the embouchure?” This inspired Dion to bring his personal experience with dystonia as well as his teaching and performance expertise together to create a platform for such topics to be explored and to share these techniques with other musicians to enhance their musical abilities.