Laryngeal Articulation During Trumpet Performance: An Exploratory Study

Music teacher’s reports suggest that the respiratory function and laryngeal control in wind instruments, stimulate muscular tension of the involved anatomical structure. However, the physiology and acoustics of the larynx during trumpet playing has seldom been studied. Therefore, the current paper describes the laryngeal articulation during trumpet performance with biomedical signals and auditory perception. The activation of laryngeal musculature of six professional trumpeters when playing a standard musical passage was analysed using audio, eletroglottography (EGG), oxygen saturation and heart rate signals. Two University trumpet teachers listened to the audio recordings, to evaluate the participants’ laryngeal effort (answers on a 100 mm Visual-Analogue-Scale (VAS): 0 “no perceived effort”; 100 “extreme effort”). Correlations between parameters extracted from the EGG data and the perception of the audio stimuli by the teachers were explored. Two hundred and fifty laryngeal articulations, where raising of the larynx and muscular effort were observed, were annotated and analysed. No correlation between the EGG data and the auditory evaluation was observed. However, both teachers perceived the laryngeal effort (VAS mean scores = 61±14). Our findings show that EGG and auditory perception data can provide new insights into laryngeal articulation and breathing control that are key to low muscular tension.