The Science and Psychology of Music Performance: Creative Strategies for Teaching and LearningRichard Parncutt, Gary McPherson What type of practice makes a musician perfect? What sort of child is most likely to succeed on a musical instrument? What practice strategies yield the fastest improvement in skills such as sight-reading, memorization, and intonation? Scientific and psychological research can offer answers to these and other questions that musicians face every day. In The Science and Psychology of Music Performance, Richard Parncutt and Gary McPherson assemble relevant current research findings and make them accessible to musicians and music educators. This book describes new approaches to teaching music, learning music, and making music at all educational and skill levels. Each chapter represents the collaboration between a music researcher (usually a music psychologist) and a performer or music educator. This combination of expertise results in excellent practical advice. Readers will learn, for example, that they are in the majority (57%) if they experience rapid heartbeat before performances; the chapter devoted to performance anxiety will help them decide whether beta-blocker medication, hypnotherapy, or the Alexander Technique of relaxation might alleviate their stage fright. Another chapter outlines a step-by-step method for introducing children to musical notation, firmly based on research in cognitive development. Altogether, the 21 chapters cover the personal, environmental, and acoustical influences that shape the learning and performance of music. |
Contents
Environmental Influences | |
Motivation | |
Performance Anxiety | |
Brain Mechanisms | |
Music Medicine | |
From Sound to Sign | |
SightReading | |
Intonation | |
Structural Communication | |
Emotional Communication | |
Body Movement | |
Solo Voice | |
Choir | |
Piano | |
String Instruments | |
Practice | |
Memory | |
Rehearsing and Conducting | |
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The Science and Psychology of Music Performance: Creative Strategies for ... Richard Parncutt,Gary McPherson No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
ability accuracy achievement Acoustical Society activity auditory aural behavior bowing pressure brain chapter child choir chord cognitive communication complex conductor context cues Davidson dynamics effect embouchure emotional ensemble Ericsson example experience expression feedback finger focal dystonia formant Friberg fundamental frequency Gellrich gestures Hallam important improvisation increase individual influence instrumentalists International intonation involved jazz Journal of Research Juslin learning listeners McPherson melody memory motivation motor movements muscles music acoustics Music Education Music Perception music performance music psychology musical development musical expression musicians notation one’s Parncutt patterns performance anxiety phrase physical pianists piano piece pitch players playing practice problems professional Psychology of Music reed rehearsal repertoire Research in Music sightreading singing skills Sloboda Society of America sound strategies string stringed instrument structure suggests Sundberg task teachers teaching technique tempo tend theory timbre tone vibrating vibrato visual vocal folds vocal tract voice vowel