Measurement of tooth displacements and mouthpiece forces during brass instrument playing

In order to assess the actual load on front teeth and tooth supportive tissue during brass instrument playing, a measuring system was developed permitting simultaneous recordings of mouthpiece forces and incisor deflections. By the application of strain gauges, the mouthpiece itself was converted into an extra-oral force transducer, whilst an intra-oral metal appliance similar to a removable partial denture served as the base for strain gauge transducers sensing incisor displacements. The measurements only slightly affected the handling of the instruments under examination (trumpet, french horn, tenor horn, and tuba) and yielded the following average results for three to five players per instrument: peak force values were in the range of 29 N (tuba) to 50 N (trumpet), and the respective peak displacements were 43 microns and 100 microns.