A preliminary study of the effectiveness of two breath management exercises on three aspects of flutists' performance: Duration, breath control and tone quality.

摘要

This project was designed to investigate the effects of the administration of two breathing exercises on a population of flutists. The subjects acted as their own controls and measurements were taken at each of four visits, spaced three weeks apart. Subjects performed three musical examples and were given the opportunity to practice each example once prior to the trial. Measurements of loudness, duration, tone quality, and peak flow readings of subjects' breathing as well as a health history were recorded at each visit. The experimental variable was introduced at the end of the second visit and subjects were given diaries to record practice habits and progress with breathing exercises.;The total subject population (N=23) was comprised of a variety of ages and subject playing experiences to facilitate this preliminary study. Initial data analysis allowed for subjects to be grouped into three broad categories of flute playing experience: Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced. There was significant improvement in subjects' ability to sustain the musical examples during the course of measurement, with the Advanced group showing the most improvement. It will be important for future research to examine the effects of breathing interventions on larger subject populations with controls for experience level.