DS has been developing migraines over the past few weeks and I am thinking about taking him to the optician. After observing and chatting to him about these migraines I have noticed they seem to come on whilst he is reading music. It didn't really cross my mind that it could be music score related as I thought it may be an excuse to get out of music practice, but he is developing headaches whilst singing Evensongs as well and he has no symptoms when reading other texts or doing school work. I was just wondering if when I mention it to the optician, he will think I am a loon or this is a common problem amongst musicians and it can be solved through glasses.

I hope this doesn't seem unsympathetic (I'm not - I suffer from migraines too, and they're a real pain) but who cares whether music is a common or "normal" trigger, or even if there turns out not to be a direct causal link between reading music and the migraines in the end? The fact is that your son (I think this is what "DS" indicates) has been developing these symptoms regularly after looking at musical notation. The one certain thing is that there is a problem, and there appears to be a connection with music-reading, so it makes sense to mention it to the optician - even if he or she does give you a funny look! The other certain thing is that no-one on this forum is going to be able to tell you remotely what's causing your son's headaches...

I hope you get it sorted out.

P.S. According to my optician, there's something about the distance at which you read music (further away than a book or computer screen) that can make difficult for the eyes to focus properly. Yours will be able to tell you more, I'm sure.

My optitian has a set of music displays as well as the normal alphabet and word ones they use when doing eye tests.

Had similar issue with my daughter. Not the migraines but problems with reading music in her normal glasses giving her eye strain. She stands with her clarinet right under the music stand and that can't be helpful ....

Opticians said that if her long sight prescription was too strong it would cause difficulties in the mid-distance. So her prescription has been reduced. It hasn't seemed to affect her other areas of vision but to be honest I'm not sure if the reduction in strength is enough as she said it's helped "a bit".


Definitely worth asking the opticians about and once the sight is sorted or even alongside this it's perhaps worth talking to the doctor about the migraines too.

I would take him to the GP first, then the optician if necessary. There are many causes of migraines and eyesight is only one out of hundreds.

Bet you the GP asks if he's had his eyes tested.....

Might also be worth taking some music to the opticians with you as some don't actually know what you will be looking at. Some people I know even take a music stand to help show the distance involved.

Could be stress-related - tension due to all the brainwork going on when doing music? My DS1 peers with his eyes screwed up closely at the piano music so I took him to the optician just to check it out and his eyesight is top notch - it's just a habit he has when he's sight reading.

Glasses and music are a nightmare. I have middle aged eyesight and Common Praise has very small print (IMO) compared with the last Hymns A&M. If I wear my glasses to sing I end up holding the book right in front of my face and moving it up so I don't have to move my eyes - because if I don't the glasses pinch my nose so I don't sing so well!

Reading a book or music copy and watching a conductor at the same time can be tricky with glasses. My optician takes into account that I need to do this, and I find the solution he comes up with works ok - but it needed to be taken into account.

Several of us in the choir find fairy vocals work for us

Simple solution for those who don't like glasses are contact lenses. I used to wear glasses but since I started to wear contact lenses there is absolutely no way that I would wear glasses again.

Many decades ago, I started getting migraines while playing in the local brass band, which rehearsed in a room with rather dim lighting. I had an eye test and my short sighted left eye was discovered. For some years after that, the migraines returned when I needed to get a new pair of spectacles. Now that I have lost accommodation, for music reading I add a pair of 1 dioptre lenses to the specs I wear for driving.

Might there be a connection with blowing/singing? Does he have the same problem with the piano or double bass? If I sing a song which is mostly at the upper end of my range I very quickly develop a headache in the front of my head. I'm not otherwise prone to headaches, in fact I would go so far as to say that I've never had one, but I do get 'silent' migraines. I've not played a wind instrument so I don't know whether it might have the same effect but i can imagine that it might.

I usually go for fairly small frames so I can look over them at the conductor works well but occasionally freaks the conductor as apparently it makes me look stern

I have found that using a lyre for my piccolo when marching is a problem with my contact lense prescrition, it's just too close and I have to work to focus. But if I reduce prescription then I'm not going to be able to see the BM!
When I go I will have to go complete with lyre and pic to get it right...I can't wait to see what the optician thinks!!

You might find you have to revise that opinion in the future!

I used to wear contact lenses pretty much all the time, and glasses only for an hour or so in the morning / evening.
Then I started working in quite a dry office staring at a computer screen all the time. The tipping point came when I was taken out to a very expensive restaurant and I couldn't enjoy it because my eyes were hurting too much. So I switched to wearing glasses most of the time and daily lenses at weekends or if I'm going out in the evening.

I was out last Friday evening with a friend, both of us wearing lenses, both of us 40-something. I was driving to somewhere we hadn't been before (driving is fine, my vision is perfectly OK to drive with lenses in). We couldn't find where we were going so stopped to look in the A-Z. But the print is tiny and we only had the courtesy light in the car and neither of us could read the street names. I also find I can't thread a needle or sew wearing lenses. If I've got my glasses on I can take them off and my near vision is fine, but I can't do that with lenses. My new plan is to get a cheap pair of reading glasses to keep in the car for any future map-reading emergencies!

<<I was out last Friday evening with a friend, both of us wearing lenses, both of us 40-something. I was driving to somewhere we hadn't been before (driving is fine, my vision is perfectly OK to drive with lenses in). We couldn't find where we were going so stopped to look in the A-Z. But the print is tiny and we only had the courtesy light in the car and neither of us could read the street names.>>

Off topic, but this confirms the best bit of driving advice I have ever heard: "never go anywhere for the first time!!"

Now, having discovered that you're local to me I'm wondering where you sing...



tee hee - I have a friend who buys reading glasses from charity shops and puts a pair in every room/bag/coat! My first real "40 something" eyesight moment came at a school reunion a couple of years ago when all 3 of us picked up a menu in the restaurant and simultaneously put it straight back down on the table again to get it in focus... It was trying to read the small print on christmas stocking present instructions that finally made me cave and get my eyes tested!

Obviously I need to go and see an optician but I was wondering if anyone had come across Convergence Insufficiency. DS symptoms seem to match some of them and interestingly it is associated with ADHD. If anyone has CI, I would be interested to hear how you cope whilst reading music.

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A friend's son was diagnosed with this about six months ago. He is a very good French horn player (approaching grade 8 at 13) and it doesn't appear to have hindered him reading music. Like Tonedeafmum he was given exercises to do.

Well I feel very guilty. I took DS to an optician and when he was asked to read the top line with his right eye he could not see a thing - not even the board! So, his brain has been working extremely hard to see with one eye. I just don't know how he didn't notice before.

Not your fault. It's amazing how we compensate for these things when we aren't aware that it's not 'normal'.
Also I was told when my children were younger that some problems develop as the child grows so were not always present.

Took until I was 10 before anyone spotted that in me. It was at primary school in a test where they covered my left eye first and I was done for.
Before this I had had some eye tests, but they would cover my right eye first, so I'd be able to read it fine with my left eye. Then they'd cover my left eye, I couldn't see a darn thing, but I'd do as much as I could of the chart from memory. It's an eye test you see, so getting as many 'right answers' as possible was what I assumed the goal to be...

That happened to me the first time I went to a Japanese optometrist...Japanese optometrists have so much junk on their walls that the truly short-sighted need a little help to find the chart! This type of uneven vision is apparently hereditary...and sure enough, I've passed it on to both my sons, poor wretches.

It is hard for kids to know that everybody else doesn't see things the same way that they do. Sounds as if your DS is about to get some new glasses?

Meanwhile, for the over 40s...I found the multifocal/varifocal (whatever they call them in English now) lenses made a huge difference. I couldn't see students' work on their desks when I was standing, and had trouble seeing faces a few rows away clearly...new glasses...problem solved! Funnily enough, I was happy with those glasses for years when translating (computer screen-intensive), but once I started teaching again, I soon realized that my decade-old prescription needed an update...definitely a different set of visual tasks involved.

I needed glasses for ages but my mum didn't believe me, which is odd as our whole family is terribly short sighted. I was so pleased when I got my glasses at age ten. I never realised it was possible to read the names above shops. Don't beat yourself up. As eyesight problems usually develop slowly it's normal to adjust rather than realise there's a problem.

My optician used to say that there was no such thing as bad eyesight, just different. But it never fooled me. I knew that it was not as good to be unable to make out a hand in front of your face!

Thanks everyone, I feel slightly less guilty now! Ten seems to be the age, and yes OH (wears bottle tops) is the one to blame for the duff eye genes! Wouldn't it be amazing if glasses could solve his ADHD symptoms? I can only dream....

It might certainly make it easier for him to concentrate. I feel very zoned out without my glasses and I actually can't hear as well. It comes in handy if I'm at a really bad concert as I can take off my glases and get away from whatever is offending me!

I've thought DS had hearing problems for years! It's all falling into place!

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For a few years I needed glasses for reading smallish print, books, newspapers etc. Earlier lasy year I started seeing the music on the piano/organ a bit blurred. I mentioned this when I went for a test last summer. I was recommended Zeiss 'Clairlet' lenses , which are supposed to be sort of 'reading + a bit extra length'. They were super. Pity I lost them a couple of weeks ago, somehere between my office, my Dads, Flobianos church, and my Otley hotel. The church organ is 3 manual so the music a bit further away than usual, that wasnt a problem so I didnt use them (I might not have had them in fact). Now Im back to my old reading glasses, and I can read the piano music OK again. Very strange, but I guess sooner or later my sight will deteriorate again and I'll have to get some more of those 'Clairlets'

As others have said, don't feel guilty. By the time I had my elder daughter's eyes tested she was minus 2.5 in both eyes. And certaintly in her case it was music that finally prompted me to do something about it - she kept wanting the music stand closer and it had got to the point where I couldn't move it any closer But her teacher had assured me that she was sitting right at the back of the classroom and could see the blackboard perfectly well

Another bad mother here - daughter (age 7 and a half) was -4 in one eye and -4.5 in the other by the time I twigged and got her to the optician. She'd realised she probably needed glasses but tried mine on without me realising (only minus 2) but decided not to tell us as she thought they wouldn't work for her. No wonder she completely fluffed her grade 1 sightreading .

I have the problem of double vision, which is horrible. I can sometimes see two notes when there is only one. My terrible eyes are:
left eye: -0.5
right eye: -5.0
This can cause bad headaches. I can concentrate on a piece of music, then have to look away for a moment to stop headaches.

Eyes are amazing though. Close up, I can see very good (using my left eye predominantly. The right eye, if I want to see size 12 font it has to be about 2 inches. Any closer it's blury. Any further away, it's blurry.
My eyes can be said as

So it is common and nothing to worry about