Jazz expertise and its relationship to pitch and rhythm placement among trumpet players

Graduate and undergraduate trumpet students (N = 16) were asked to replicate a 16-measure jazz solo using a written transcription and the original solo recording. We divided subjects into two groups based on level of jazz experience. Performances were recorded and analyzed comparing pitch, onset and duration of 12 selected target pitches with those of the original recording. No differences were found for any of the three variables between experience groups or between recordings made with a full accompaniment and those made with only metronome clicks. Differences in direction of pitch error were also not significant. Significant differences were observed in direction of onset error when subjects were accompanied only by the metronome. Findings suggest that student musicians can quickly and accurately recreate a performance of an unfamiliar musical style. Correspondingly, such performances may be of limited use in assessing students' knowledge of diverse genres.