Movements of the Tongue during Lip Trills in Horn Players: Real-Time MRI Insights

OBJECTIVE: Movements inside the oral cavity during lip trilling in horn-playing are poorly understood and controversial, particularly with respect to pedagogy. Developments in real-time magnetic resonance imaging (RT-MRI) allow representations of oral cavity movement during lip trill performance on a MRI-compatible horn to be recorded and quantified. METHODS: We present RT-MRI data on 11 highly skilled horn players obtained from serial images acquired at acquisition times of 33.3, 18.2, and 10.0 ms (i.e., at 30, 55 and 100 frames/sec) as they performed sixteenth note, whole-step trills between Eb4 and F4 (concert pitch) at two tempos, ~60 bpm and as fast as possible. RESULTS: For fast trilling (mean speed 178.3±24.7 bpm), 7 of 11 subjects exclusively utilized a tongue movement strategy, 3 used both a tongue and jaw strategy, and 1 exclusively used a jaw strategy. For trilling at ~60 bpm, all 11 subjects used a tongue movement strategy. CONCLUSIONS: We suggest using these movement strategies in teaching whole-step trills.