Hello all, after a long lurking absence I am back... mainly because my increasing addition power combined with my musical hobbies have allowed me to indulge in some interesting experiments that haven't really worked out.
Background: am an optometrist who also dispenses (regional norm here in Southeast Asia), who also plays multiple brass musical instruments. Of those instruments, the trombone is proving tricky, since the music stand is more often than not off to my right side and maybe 20 - 30 degrees off center from my main line of sight. Has to be there, since the bell of the instrument is over my left shoulder, and straight ahead of me is the telescoping slide of the instrument, which could sideswipe the music stand. So the music goes on the right and off-center, and I work in a diverse range of venues ranging from standard orchestra layouts to cramped bar gigs (think The Blues Brothers, but without the chicken wire cage).
Which becomes a problem since that's either 1) right where the peripheral distortion is in a PAL, and/or 2) if I crank up my music stand and raise it higher into the progressive's upper half, things aren't quite clear due to the full distance Rx being there.
As I'm the only trombonist I've dispensed for to date (the local music scene isn't too vibrant in that regard, sadly), I thought I'd put it out there for wiser and more experienced folks to perhaps chime in :)
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So, my Rx is approximately
RE -5.00 DS, LE -7.00 DS, Add +2.00
Typically I happily wear a short corridor progressive for daily use without issues at all distances, or designs similar to the Shamir Duo for work since the lack of intermediate doesn't interfere with me doing retinoscopy. Local labs no longer stock bifocal blanks that can accommodate my full distance Rx.
Again, the trombone has stumped me, and my current attempts to find a balance of clarity and comfort when playing trombone have led to the following experiments of varying success:
- Single vision intermediate power for my right eye: Works ok, but I can't always guarantee the placement and distance of the music stand relative to me is optimal and within the depth of field.
- Fudged bifocal/PAL for intermediate/near for my right eye: Also works ok, since it gives me some wiggle room in placing my music stand. No problems with binocular near vision despite the increased power imbalance due to what's binocularly a modified monovision progressive fit. Yes, the bifocal pair is a blended bifocal on RE with a PAL on LE, and it works well enough I've accidentally driven home in it before! But, again, this is contingent on the music stand being limited to a few places (for a fudged bifocal) or presents some distortion (for the fudged PAL).
- Contact lenses for my distance Rx, with either bifocals/PALs/office lenses worn over for the add: Works very well, especially if I put a multifocal contact lens on my right eye that's been fudged slightly to offer some intermediate support at primary gaze, but as always, I'm wondering if I could resolve this with glasses alone.
- Coming soon... ? I'm tempted to try ordering a generic + affordable PAL from my local indie lab (which I'd rather avoid due to how they do business, but optics is optics) whereby I could request zero inset, then fudging it for intermediate/near AND turning the lens sideways so the widest part of the design occupies the entire temporal half of the lens (similar to how I used to flip a Sola Access on its side for various patients, regrettably that lens has been discontinued locally). I figure this approach would allow me some additional wiggle room in placing my music stand.
... of course, I'm aware that the ergonomics of the trombone are against the logic of how lenses are designed, so perhaps a single pair of lenses may not be possible for resolving this matter. It's a shifty instrument that literally changes in size as it is played, after all! :)
As for the other trombonists I work with, they've been blessed with little to no distance Rx (and most are younger than me anyway), so my continuing misadventures with eyesight in music have become a running gag to them. Bless their hearts, I love most of them to bits and wouldn't trade them for the world (especially seeing as how some of their parents are also my patients, and who are likewise amused by their kid's stories of the optometrist whose eyes give him problems!).
For other trombonist eye care professionals who might be reading this and going, "Why don't you just point your trombone downwards under the music stand and keep those sheets straight ahead?"... some conductors and colleagues of mine dislike this due to how it affects the sound, so my experiments continue to try and reach a compromise. Maybe someday if I truly get fed up with this matter, I'll rig up a collapsible contraption that allows me to dangle the sheet music ahead of me in primary gaze, or give up paid gigs on trombone in favour of the horn or tuba (happily, no such issues on those instruments, and less competitors for those gigs... also less gigs overall, but oh well).
Or maybe I'm just overthinking, and should learn to live with slightly fuzzier vision of my sheet music :P
So... how would you rig a pair of glasses for a trombonist?
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