The Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree is well established as a terminal, practice-based degree for performers, composers, and conductors, particularly in North America. DMA curricula often include a written output such as a dissertation or research document, but it is unclear whether these documents serve a scholarly or pedagogical function (Green, 2003). This ambiguity reflects broader tensions between artistic practice and research in university settings (Borgdorff, 2012; Phelan & Nunan, 2018), and DMA programs have been the subject of past debate (Glidden, 1982; Stegall, 1981). Analyzing written DMA outputs may shed light on how these documents function in practice, but they have received scant attention (Baik & Chu, 2025; Chu, 2022). In other fields such as music education, researchers have employed quantitative methods and content analysis to create bibliometric, thematic, and demographic profiles of doctoral and published research (Kantorski & Stegman, 2006; Miller, 2025; Sánchez-Marroquí & Vicente-Nicolás, 2025).This pilot investigation analyzes 249 written DMA outputs from trumpet players (2005-25), providing a bibliometric overview alongside thematic analysis. Based on Frayling’s (1994) framework, documents were sorted into three categories: (a) research into art, investigating artistic practices and objects; (b) research through art, facilitating artistic practice; and (c) research for art, in which artistic practice becomes the primary mode of inquiry. Documents were also categorized for explicit connections to the author’s artistry (Bergdorff, 2006). Thematic content analysis was used to identify common topics, research fields, and methods.Analysis found extreme variance in document types and lengths. Most (185 of 249) did not establish a connection to the author’s artistic practice, and only 41 were categorized as research for art. The most common themes were “trumpet repertoire,” “pedagogy,” “performance guides,” and “notable trumpeters.” The most common fields were “performance practice,” “musicology,” “pedagogy,” and “music theory.” The most common methods were “performance practice analysis,” “historical analysis,” “pedagogical analysis,” and “theoretical analysis.”Results indicate that DMA writing requirements are quite heterogeneous, and there is commonly a divide between authors’ artistry and written research. Moreover, authors overwhelmingly relied on fields and methods emphasized in the core music curriculum (music history, music theory, and pedagogy), and other fields and methods were used much less frequently. This study has implications for DMA students and supervisors as well as future investigations of DMA programs and research outputs. Additionally, there is a need to investigate the reluctance to embrace artistic research within music, particularly in the North American context.