Effects on Posture in a Jazz Setting

How does a teen trumpet players posture change based on what they are playing in a jazz setting?

Researcher

Jenn Matthiesen

Class of 2019

Problem Statement

There is a problem with band kids using correct posture in High School Jazz bands. Despite attempts to teach kids correct posture some are still doing things incorrectly. This has negatively impacted quality of music making the music less enjoyable. I am doing a study to see if I can find a correlation between bad horn angle and what is being played in high school jazz bands.

Hypothesis

When a trumpet player starts to solo then their trumpet will get closer to the ground.

Proposed Method of Study

Significance and Value of Study

Definitions

I plan to do correlation research by observing trumpets in a normal jazz setting and measure their posture at multiple points in a song in order to note any significant changes during the song and any possible causes for those changes. While not changing any variables personally.

To help further tone and sound of jazz bands across the nation along with making them look better. If it is possible to know why a person has bad posture it is easier to address the problem.

Teens in this study were between 9th and 12th grade.

Solo quality is how well a solo sounds.

Posture is used interchangeably with horn angle and horn distance.

Results

Conclusions

Significance and Implications

66.67% of the time also known as thirty soloist horn distance to the ground will decrease and then after the solo increase again. Then .089% of the time or four people’s horn angles will decrease during a solo and will stay decreased after the solo has ended. Overall, this means that 75.67% of the time a trumpet players horn angle decreased during a solo.

It was also found that 22.22% of the time also known as 10 people there was no change in the trumpet player throughout the whole song. Overall, 24.33% of the time there was not a decrease during solo.

Overall, my hypothesis was proven correct. 75.66% of the time when a trumpet player has to play by themselves their trumpet will get closer to the ground.

Next Steps

Looking into a gender affect.

Trying to find a link between this study and confidence.

Teachers could use this in order to know that this is a issue that needs to be addressed and watched out for.

Students could use this if they are looking for common mistakes to avoid when trying to solo for the first time.

This is something that could be added to scales of rating jazz solos as another possible thing that affects the quality.

Key Sources

Dalgleish and Spencer (2014): Identify the fact that trumpets can have bad horn angles and bad posture in general.

Sehmann’s study (2000): Sehmann focused on the idea of why having bad posture can negatively affect playing.

May’s study (2003): On making a scale to rate jazz solos after her students created them.

Smith’s study (2009): Also created a scale to rate improved jazz solos that took into account fourteen different things.

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