The relationships between pulmonary functions and playing clarinet performance

According to researchers, compared to people who don't play the clarinet, respiratory functions of the clarinet players are in a better condition. Researches found that compared to people who don't actively play the clarinet and people who don't play any brass instruments, respiratory functions of the people who play the clarinet are in a better condition and people who play the clarinet actively have physical advantages because of this (Sagdeo and Khuje, 2012). While the researches in this field study the effects of brass instruments, including the clarinet, on the respiratory functions of people, it was observed that the effects of the respiratory functions on playing the brass instruments weren't studied. This study, which was started with this fact in mind, aims to study the relationships between respiratory functions and clarinet playing performance. In this descriptive study, relational model was used. This research is conducted on eight (one girl, seven boys) 9th grader clarinet players; 4 students from İstanbul Avni Akyol Highschool, 2 students from Edirne Fine Arts Highschool and 2 students from İstanbul Özel Mimar Sinan Fine Arts Highschool in the 2015-2016 school year. These students took a demographics information test, a clarinet performance test in four parts and the respiratory function test. The students took the clarinet performance test and the respiratory functions test again after playing the clarinet for 30-45 minutes at the sixth week of the semester. It was leraned from the clarinet teachers that the students attented the classes regularly during the semester and then they took the tests again. Aforementioned tests were taken by students at the end of the semester twice with a 30-45 minutes clarinet performance in between. The performances were recorded with a professional voice recording vehicle. The respiratory function test was performed with a professional spirometer. The outcome of this research was turned into numerical values and analysed by SPSS software package. After the average value and standard deviation were deduced, the difference between the data that is collected at the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester was calculated with the help of Wilcoxon rank-sum test. To understand if there is a relationship between the respiratory functions and the clarinet performances, Pearson correlation coefficient of these values was calculated. According to the respiratory function tests, it was confirmed that there were positive developments in FVC, FEV and MVV values at the end of the semester compared to the beginning of the semester. According to the performance tests, the crescendo-decrescendo performances and in the clarinet performence in general, positive developments were observed. If there was a difference in the values of the clarinet performances but no difference in the respiratory function test values, that would indicate that there was no effect of the respiratory functions on playing the clarinet, but the development observed in the FVC, FEV and MVV values show that these values have relation with playing the clarinet. When the correlations are observed, the relationship between PEF value and the clarinet performance is clear. The outcome of this research shows that respiratory muscles, which is one of the most important factors that effect the respiratory functions, develop and this development effects playing the clarinet positively. Keywords: Clarinet, Clarinet Education, Respiratory Functions