Dennis Najoom on Teeth and Shoulders

Angela Bilger: Do you want to just start at the beginning and tell me how you realized that you needed this work on your teeth done, and how the how process began?

Dennis Najoom: Sure. But before I tell you that, let me make a little statement here: making adjustments to teeth can become a never-ending journey once you understand its potential for improvement. This is a dangerous thing we’re talking about, and I firmly believe you should explore every avenue first, because, needless to say, there are many other factors to making a great player. This is pure physics we’re talking right now, and there are many other aspects that make a great musician. So, that’s the caution on this whole thing. A lot of people have gone down this route because they’ve seen people [who have experimented with changing their teeth] like John Faddis and others, and have really messed themselves up. John Faddis had, and he still does, if you look at him, half of his front tooth missing. And he’s the most incredible high range player you ever heard with incredible endurance and incredible ability to play, and, as the legend goes, he decided to fill up that gap, but couldn’t play, and had the piece taken out again. Maynard Ferguson went through all this too. 

Now to me. I had just graduated from high school, and I went to Tanglewood the summer before going to college. And I met this guy Joe Sugar, a famous band director down in Long Island. I was playing up a storm on a 10 ½ C, incredible high range, no problems at all, but he noticed something in my teeth. He could see something on my lip. I was getting a little bit of a scar on the left side. He said, “I see you’ve got some spaces there and they could be a problem and some people fill these spaces up.” I didn’t think much of it. 

I go to college. My teacher puts me on a larger mouthpiece, a 7C from a 10 ½ C – a little bigger. Well, it went over this area that he was talking about, the edge of the tooth, and I started getting cuts and blisters. I was playing through my freshman year, and I’m getting better in many ways, but boy, much worse in other ways. Roger Murtha was one of the trumpet teachers at Hartt. Ronald Kutik was my teacher there. But Roger would see me and he’d look at my lip and ask what’s wrong – he’d get very nervous. I kept putting benzine or something on it overnight to heal it up. So obviously, serious problem. Can’t go on like this. All of a sudden, what Joe Sugar said to me the summer before rang a bell. Oh, wow – maybe I should try something. My freshman year was done and I got through it. I ended up playing with the Hartford Symphony, Mahler 2ndof all things, and I did get through it. I still had a good strong high range, but the cut would come back every day. So, that summer, I was at home and I thought about it. I did a weird thing. I took a little cardboard matchstick and wrapped it around my left lateral which was very small. You know the incisors are the two front teeth, and the laterals are on either side.My two front teeth were nice and flat, but, since I played slightly to the left, my lip got cut over the edge of my left incisor. So somehow the lip had to be supported so that when I put the mouthpiece on the edge of that tooth, it would not cut my lip. 

AB: These are the top teeth, right?

DN: The top. Logically, if I could build up that lateral and support the mouthpiece, perhaps my lip wouldn’t get cut. So, I took this little matchstick and wrapped it around my tooth, the lateral, and I picked up the horn and played like I could never believe it. I went straight up to a high C without even thinking about it, and before, I had to do all kinds of things to do that, which a lot of people have to do. But it was like night and day. So then, I went to a dentist and he made these things called splints for me, but he made them for the entire teeth, and I’d put the thing on and I couldn’t play on that at all. Splints are artificial teeth that fit over your existing teeth.

AB: Is this the kind of thing that clarinet players often use – these molds to keep their lower lip from getting cut?

DN: You can do that too. That’s another thing I can tell you about. These are made out of a resin composite, little plastic things, they look like teeth and they can slide right over your teeth. Anyway, that wasn’t quite it. But then this one guy said, why don’t you just cut the thing apart? So then, I just used the part that went over the lateral. I did the work myself and I cut the thing apart and I started filing and rounding it down, and I put the thing on and, oh my god, could I play. It was like…. and the thing is I probably should have never done anything more like that, ever. But I would make these out of jet acrylic – it’s a liquid and a plastic. I would make these things all the time, and I had them on both sides, just experimenting like mad. Man, I could play. Then I thought, man, I’ve got to get my teeth capped because the trombone player in the Hartford Symphony did on his bottom teeth and it was great. That was a big mistake. I remember I had to play with Connecticut opera, and I’d just had this done, and I came in with my new teeth and I could hardly play. It was a disaster. I couldn’t do anything. And then, I was already accepted to Tanglewood, and I was going to be in the fellowship program, so this was a panic situation of working on these plastic teeth I had so that I could play. It was constant work trying to form them and shape them and remember how my original teeth were – and I did. I played 1sttrumpet in Petrouchka that summer, and I was able to do it. Just in time I figured this out. I mean, this was really a panic situation, sweating bullets, I can’t play, working on it, working on it, finally I get the point where, holy shit, I can play. I nailed Petrouchka. I mean Gunther Schuller was out there, everybody was out there, and I wasn’t even supposed to play it. But it was my turn and Pete Chapman said, no it’s Dennis’ turn, he’s gotta play it, so they were all just waiting to see if I could. So, I walk in there with my Benge C trumpet and my 3C mouthpiece, and of course I had been practicing it like mad, but I had the dental issue going on. But finally, I got my teeth in such a position, that I sat there and played and it was perfect. It was like holy cow. Everybody was happy. But back then I was also fearless and didn’t know any better, so I had that youth thing going as well, young and strong. So, a lot of factors were going on, and the adrenaline and the whole thing, but that was the beginning of this whole experience. And to be honest with you, it’s been a lifelong pursuit to improve it, and I’ve tried many different things, and sometimes it would work. Sometimes it would be a disaster and I’d have to start again. So actually, at this point in my life I think I finally found something that’s very, very good. I’ve been playing occasionally with the symphony again, I’ve got a Dixieland band, and we play for hours on end, and it’s no problem anymore, but it’s been a lifelong thing.

There are other things that were going on. At Hartt, my trumpet teacher Kutik said “you’d be the same player today even if you hadn’t touched your teeth,” and that was like stabbing me in the heart. But then, the New York Brass Quintet showed up and, lo and behold, at least two of the players were doing the same thing I was. And of course, this just encouraged me. And then I found a configuration –  and I knew was going to be temporary – that really accelerated my playing, and I almost got principal in Montreal, and the following month I won the audition in Milwaukee. What I had done was kind of an extreme thing, was not going to be permanent, but it got me in the orchestra and I was playing Brandenburg and everything like that. But I knew I was going to have to do something to have a healthier situation going forward.

Now I was in Milwaukee, and I was playing pretty good, but I think, “oh, I just changed mouthpieces,” so I redid my structure and that created more problems, but then I got it to a point where it was pretty good again.

AB: When you say you changed your structure, you mean you changed your teeth?

DN: Yes. I redid it because I was relentless. That’s why it’s this endless pursuit. Once you know what the potential is, if there’s anything like, oh man, I can’t quite do that, maybe it’s the teeth – and quite often, it is. It’s purely physical provided you have the other aspects of being a musician. We’re talking absolute physics, nothing else.

AB: Nothing you did ever made permanent change, right? It was always something you could undo and tweak again as necessary?

DN: I could, yes, but most people are not going to be able to do this, because they’re not as crazy as I was, and that’s why I’m very reluctant to talk about this. I mean, you have to try every avenue first before you start fooling around with this kind of thing. Because it really becomes an addiction, too. 

So now I’m in Milwaukee and I’d go down and, fortunately, hang out with Adolph Herseth and I’d see him after concerts. He was nice enough to let a couple of the young guys go out drinking with him, and I’d always fixate on his teeth. I know exactly what Bud Herseth’s teeth look like.

AB: It’s an obsession, it’s like oboists with their reeds.

DN: Yes, exactly. Also, I knew Gino Cioffi – he was the principal clarinet of the BSO –  because I’m from Western Mass in Pittsfield, and Gino had a home in Pittsfield, and I had a girlfriend at the time who lived next door to him. Well, he filed his teeth, and he had all his students do it. The teeth are flat in front, but the bottom edges are shaped in such a way that, if he smiles, you see the slight moon shape at the bottom of the teeth. 

AB: You know, when I went to see Dr. Frucht in New York, he talked about how some brass players with nerve compression (which he diagnosed me as having) have these ridges in their teeth, and sometimes they get those filed down and the problem goes away. It just so happens that I don’t have a ridge there, or not much of one, so I have nothing to file down. But I spoke to a brass player who had a nerve issue in the lip, who filed down the teeth, and it was helpful. 

DN: I did a lot of teeth filing as well. You can file your teeth a lot before it becomes a problem. Want to hear another little story? I was taking a lesson with someone, a great trumpeter, and he had just fallen the day before. He was playing with his daughter and he fell and he hit his teeth against his fireplace and he had these chips in the bottom of his teeth. Now, I was already a junior in college and had been through a lot of this, and he said “yeah, I just did this, and I can’t seem to play as well,” and I said “well, look, go to the dentist and try to have them restored to exactly the way they were,” but he didn’t. He had his teeth filed to remove the sharp edges, and it created a problem for him. Fortunately, the injury wasn’t as severe as it could have been, and over time he was able to regain his abilities.

AB: Let me ask you a question. What do you think about the bottom teeth? I ask because my bottom teeth are angled in at a V toward the back, and I don’t have that contact with the mouthpiece that I sometimes wish I had. 

DN: Oh, yeah. Well I’ve also done my bottom teeth too. If you look at Doc Severinsen’s bottom teeth they have a beautiful arch. Well, not an arch, but they do go slightly forward, the bottom teeth, so I do think you need that support there. The bottom is different. The bottom gives you support and can affect your tone to a certain extent. But the bottom lip doesn’t vibrate the way the top lip does. The bottom lip is more of a support. If you buzz your lips, put your finger on the top lip, the buzz is going to stop. Put your finger on the bottom lip, the buzz will keep on going, so it’s a different function, but very important for support and balance. So perhaps what’s going on is that the lip is going in. A good friend of mine just asked me about this. He’s having the same issue you’re talking about, and I told him about a substance to get.

AB: What is that substance?!?

DN: It’s top secret, I can’t tell you! 

Okay, It’s these little pearls. It’s Crazy Bob’s Teeth or something like that. They’re these little pearls, and basically it’s for Halloween. They’re these little, white plastic pearls and you put them in warm water and they melt and it makes a putty and you can form it, put it in, and make all kinds of weird teeth with it, and then it’ll harden up. You can get them. They’re perennially available. This way you can experiment and build something to put it in there and see if it works before you do something permanent. I didn’t do this, because they didn’t have this in the 60’s. They didn’t have bonding. Here’s another one: Instamorph. Moldable plastic. With these substances, you can experiment and put something there. And if it really works out, you can have your dentist put some bonding there, which is probably not the best thing in the world.

AB: I actually asked my dentist to make something for me, some inserts, but it didn’t work for me. The material felt weird and blocked off four teeth total, I think, and made the sound harsh and unnatural. I feel like having some porousness between those teeth is what I want to feel. But I still think, what if those two front teeth weren’t at a V? Would life be easier?

DN: What happens, if you don’t have the proper support by the teeth, is you have to use more muscular support and the muscles will fatigue. So, the idea is here you want to have your physical structure, meaning the teeth, so that if you do get tired, the physics are still there and you can keep playing. Rather than, once the lips are fatigued, you’re beat and there’s nothing you can do. But if you have the physics there, then you’ll be able to play no matter what. That’s the goal here, to have the physics so perfect. But the thing is everyone is a little different so it’s hard to say you’ve got to do it this way or that way.

AB: You know, my teacher at Juilliard, Jerome Ashby, had a gap in his front teeth and he played beautifully. People play with all kinds of physical setups and it works out, you know.

DN: Exactly, and that’s why it’s such a dangerous thing. There are other factors. In my case, they do need to be [adjusted]. I tried all kinds of things, but my top teeth need to be flatter.

Also, a lot of people today have grown up with braces, so their teeth are really straight, and, quite often, that works out really well. You’re hearing more phenomenal players. They’re not dealing with the screwy teeth as I did growing up. Although my teeth were perfectly even, it was just that the laterals were small which created a space between my left lateral and left incisor causing my lip to get cut by the edge of the left incisor. So, I ended up doing much more than I needed to. It’s a dangerous thing.

Another thing: you hear it said a lot that the human being is very adaptable. It’s very true. It’s very true, but it doesn’t mean this can’t help. There are a lot of ways to get around problems. Those with more irregular teeth, I notice they have to warm up more and be much more careful in their warm up. As my teeth have gotten better and better over the years – actually the last five years that I’ve been retired from the symphony and had a lot of time to retool my playing –  I really don’t have to warm up anymore. It’s best if I do, of course, but people with their irregular teeth have to be very careful for a while to get into it to let everything start to vibrate evenly and all that. 

AB: Let me ask you one more question: do you recommend to your students that they have molds made of their teeth? My teacher in undergrad, Bill Capps, suggested I do that. Thankfully I’ve never had to use the molds, but it does feel good to have them around just in case. I’ve had two made over the past twenty years.

DN: Yes, I do!

AB: It seems like a wise thing for every serious brass player to do.

DN: So, basically other than this journey with my teeth, I’ve never had any problems except for my shoulders. I’ve had to have rotator cuff surgery on both shoulders. One about eight years ago and another in January, and they seem to think it has something to do with the position of the trumpet and holding your arms like that, because that position is all rotator cuff. Do you do Alexander Technique at all?

AB: I do. Yes. I have an Alexander Technique teacher here in Philly, Ariel Weiss, and she’s wonderful. I’ve learned a lot working with her and just realizing that there are places I’m holding and that I’m not as free as I could be. I’ve had shoulder problems also. I had to have a cortisone shot in my shoulder a couple years ago. It was a combination, I think, of playing with my son in the pool, and then going to practice in a place I wasn’t comfortable – we were traveling –  and I was just tense and tired. Also, the horn I play now is heavier than the one I played in my most formative years, and so that’s a factor as well, but I think Alexander Technique is fabulous. 

DN: Yeah, I’m going to start. There’s someone in the orchestra who teaches it, and I’m going to start seeing her now that my shoulder is recovered.

AB:  I think it’s helpful in recognizing your patterns. I mean, it takes time to integrate into your body. And you have to think about it, which is something I’m a little resistant to, because I often like notto think about things. But I think that if you set aside a little bit of time in your practice each day just to check in, that over time, this sense of ease can integrate itself and become your natural way of operating. I think it’s a helpful tool.

DN: Well, that’s what she said. She said the first assignment was just to observe what you’re doing as you’re driving the car or sitting, or doing whatever. Just observe. There are probably so many mannerisms, just the way we grow up, the way we walk, the way your father walked.

AB: Absolutely. And I’ve noticed that even when I’m driving or just going about everyday tasks, I’ll notice, oh, I’m holding something in my jaw there, or I’m holding my arms up, and I don’t need to hold my arms up. I can let them go. Just little patterns that can add up over time and turn into bigger issues.

DN: Yes.

AB: Dennis, thank you so much for sharing this information and your experiences. I understand your reluctance in speaking about teeth, because, you’re right, it is potentially dangerous. But, with the caveats and warnings you’ve put out there, I trust that those who read this will proceed with extreme caution. That said, I do think it’s worth putting out there because it could be incredibly helpful for someone. So, thank you!

This interview took place in June of 2018.