Investigating mouth–mouthpiece interaction in brass playing with a sensor-equipped mouthpiece
When it comes to developing their skills and analysing playing errors, brass musicians are largely limited to their subjective perception. They can often only guess why they mastered a piece of music brilliantly the first time, but failed the second time. The project DigiMouth aims to establish an empirically grounded, sensor-based framework that quantifies mechanisms of tone production and translates measurements into evidence-informed feedback. Building on a low-threshold sensor mouthpiece developed in 2022 by the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences in cooperation with the Department of Music Acoustics – Wiener Klangstil, the system measures essential embouchure parameters during ecologically valid performance without perceptible interference with playing. Ongoing engineering refinements encompass hardware/firmware optimisation, calibration procedures, uncertainty characterisation, and artefact mitigation to enhance accuracy and reproducibility.
The research comprises structured data collection across different levels of proficiency (beginner, advanced, professional), recording sensor data such as mouthpiece force and intraoral/mouthpiece air pressure during standardised tasks with annotated score metadata (pitch, dynamics, articulation). Analytical procedures integrate time- and frequency-domain feature extraction with statistical modelling to quantify within- and between-player variability, identify predictors of successful tone production, and delineate expertise-related differences. Findings inform the design of pedagogically meaningful visualisations and targeted practice interventions, developed via user-centred methods and iteratively evaluated for comprehensibility, usability, and learning impact.
The project advances foundational understanding of brass tone production across proficiency levels and establishes an empirical basis for data-driven pedagogy.
References
Amann, P.; Chatziioannou, V.; Pascal, N.; Willmann, R. (2025). Embouchure parameter variations across brass musicians of different levels of proficiency. Proceedings of Forum Acusticum / Euronoise 2025, Málaga, Spain.
Amann, P.; Chatziioannou, V.; Pascal, N.; Willmann, R. (2023). On the capabilities of a digital mouthpiece for real-time recording of embouchure parameters in brass musicians. Forum Acusticum 2023: 10th Convention of the European Acoustics Association.
Amann, P.; Pascal, N.; Chatziioannou, V.; Willmann, R. (2023). A digital mouthpiece for the autonomous analysis and improvement of brass musician performances. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Fourth Vienna Talk on Music Acoustics, Article 035022. Acoustical Society of America.
This research is funded by the Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft (FFG).