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Randall: I was interested in your post because I, too, am a musician and music teacher, now age 56/8yrs. PD. I retired after 30 yrs of teaching choral and instrumental music largely due to PD. I still perform in a limited fashion, on the trumpet.(Sinemet, Mirapex, and Pallidotomy surgery have helped quiet my tremor enough that I get by.) My main area of performance, however, is the voice, and PD has caused a steady decline in my ability to sing, so only rarely do I attempt it any more. I do teach a few voice lessons. I think it's inevitable that music performance suffers with PD. Tremor, masking, bradykinesia, dyskenesias, all make music-making difficult. Still, it is possible I think to enjoy music making at a dimished level. I know that PD has been with me at least 10 or12 years. It affected my performances as a tenor in the professional chorus of the Oregon Bach Festival, under Helmut Rilling. After 6 seasons there, singing well, I began to have vocal difficulty. Most people as they advance in age lose some facility in performance. I have had to content myself knowing I've lost more than most, and still, I'm very thankful I can still participate. I'm doing very well in most respects, and have run a support grooup in the Tacoma WA area for about 5 years. It's well-attended, 35-45 each month, and doing that has helped me divert attention from my losses, and do a worthwhile service. One thing I don't do, is deny my illness. When I was teaching I used to tell the classes that they may notice certain 'unnatural" movements or lack of expression in my face. If I seemed to stare, it was not because I was being rude. Otherwise, when teaching sight singing using Kodaly hand signals, or conducting with a tremor, the students (some of the students) might 'mimic" my tremor or some such thing. It seemed to work better for me to be up front about that. Good luck to you as you deal with PD. There's lots of ways to cope, as evidenced by the variety of individuals who contribute to this listserv.