The Japan Association of Music Dentistry Holds First Meeting
Background and Purpose
The first meeting of the Japan Association of Music Dentistry (JAMD) was held on March 22 at the Yamaha Yokohama Office in Yokohama Symphostage. The association brings together dental and music professionals to exchange ideas across disciplines and address oral health challenges faced by performers.
The JAMD was established based on joint research conducted under a comprehensive collaboration agreement between the Institute of Science Tokyo and Yamaha Corporation. The meeting was organized by the Music Dentistry Research Project at the Institute of Science Tokyo, with support from Yamaha.
For wind instrumentalists and vocalists—performers who produce sound through blowing or vocalization—the condition of the oral cavity and embouchure* are important factors supporting performance. The JAMD aims to foster cross-disciplinary discussions among dentists, performers, and researchers to better understand and address oral and dental issues associated with musical performance. This initiative is unprecedented in providing a framework for experts in dental care and music to come together and collaboratively address shared challenges.
*Embouchure: Refers to how the lips, teeth, jaw, and surrounding muscles are used and positioned in wind instrument and vocal performance. It has a significant impact on tone, articulation, and performance stability.
Overview of the First Meeting and Future Outlook
The inaugural meeting was held at Yokohama Symphostage, one of Yamaha’s key facilities in the greater Tokyo area, and brought together more than 70 participants, including dentists, musicians, and researchers, both on-site and online.
The program began with presentations by six dentists, followed by a plenary discussion involving all participants. This created a unique forum for dialogue, where dentists and performers brought their expertise together to explore shared challenges.
Participants shared cases rooted in performers’ experiences, including the impact of wisdom tooth extraction timing and molar loss on wind instrument performance. They also discussed instances in which discomfort arises only during performance despite no apparent issues immediately after treatment, as well as cases where performance is impaired even though clinical examinations and imaging reveal no abnormalities. These discussions highlighted the nuanced and highly individualized challenges faced by performers.
They also highlighted a gap between clinical evaluation and performers’ actual sensory experience. Participants identified the need to translate performers’ subjective sensations into the language of medicine and research, while also emphasizing the importance of communicating professional dental and research perspectives in a way that performers can clearly understand and relate to.
The discussions further underscored that the relationship between musical performance and dentistry includes aspects that cannot be fully captured through medical evaluation alone, and that conditions and backgrounds vary from performer to performer. Continued dialogue of this kind is expected to foster earlier and more effective collaboration between performers and dental professionals, while also identifying new challenges for research, clinical practice, and education, and contributing to their resolution.
Yamaha has long collaborated with external researchers and medical professionals to study the physical demands placed on performers and the challenges associated with musical performance. Through initiatives such as the JAMD, Yamaha will continue its research and development efforts aimed at addressing the social challenges faced by performers.