Visual conditions of symphony musicians

Professional symphony musicians work in a very stressful environment which requires them to remain in asymmetric postures for long periods of time. The maladaptations (i.e., astigmatism and anisometropia) made as a result of the stress and the asymmetric postures are investigated. Forrest's astigmatism theory is restated and related to the musician with clinical data to support the theory. Stress management through imagery for the musician is discussed. A study is also discussed which shows that good sight readers in music use a fundamentally different eye scan pattern to read music from the pattern that they use to read written language.