Psychology of Music current issue

Preparing for memorized cello performance: the role of performance cues

Chaffin, R., Lisboa, T., Logan, T., Begosh, K. T. — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:40:49 PST

An experienced cello soloist recorded her practice as she learned and memorized the Prelude from J.S. Bach’s Suite No. 6 for solo cello and gave 10 public performances over a period of more than three years. She described the musical structure, decisions about basic technique (e.g., bowing), interpretation (e.g., dynamics), and five kinds of performance cues she attended to during performance (expressive, interpretive, intonation, and basic technique separately for left and right hand). The 38 hours of practice provide the most comprehensive empirical account to date of preparation of a new piece of music for performance. The cellist repeatedly took the piece apart section-by-section and then re-integrated the sections into practice performances in each of five stages: exploration, smoothing out, listening, reworking and preparation for performance. The location of starts, stops and repetitions identified the changing focus of practice in each stage. The cellist organized her practice around the musical structure, developed interpretation before working on technique and practised memory retrieval at each stage. When she wrote out the score from memory, better recall of expressive and structural performance cues showed that they served as landmarks in a hierarchical memory retrieval organization.

Perceptions and predictions of expertise in advanced musical learners

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:40:49 PST

The aim of this article was to compare musicians’ views on (a) the importance of musical skills and (b) the nature of expertise. Data were obtained from a specially devised web-based questionnaire completed by advanced musicians representing four musical genres (classical, popular, jazz, Scottish traditional) and varying degrees of professional musical experience (tertiary education music students, portfolio career musicians). Comparisons were made across musical genres (classical vs. other-than-classical), gender, age and professional status (student musicians vs. portfolio career musicians). Musicians’ ‘ideal’ versus ‘perceived’ levels of musical skills and expertise were also compared and factors predicting musicians’ self-reported level of skills and expertise were investigated. Findings suggest that the perception of expertise in advanced musical learners is a complex phenomenon that relates to each of four key variables (gender, age, musical genre and professional experience). The study also shows that discrepancies between advanced musicians’ ideal and self-assessed levels of musical skills and expertise are closely related to gender and professional experience. Finally, characteristics that predict and account for variability in musicians’ views and attitudes regarding musical expertise and self-assessments of personal expertise levels are highlighted. Results are viewed in the context of music learning and implications for music education are discussed.

From death metal to R&B? Consistency of music preferences among Dutch adolescents and young adults

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:40:49 PST

The structure of music preferences has been investigated extensively. However, development of music preferences in terms of consistency of music taste is as yet understudied. In this study, intra-individual consistency of music taste was assessed among Dutch adolescents and young adults over three points in time in a 21-month period. An internet-based panel of 236 participants was asked to list their top three favourite artists or bands, and to rate their preferences for a range of music genres. Genre ratings were grouped into five styles: pop, urban, elite, rock and dance, using factor analysis. Thus there were three measures of music taste for each participant over time: favourite artists, preference for musical genres and styles. Findings indicated that favourite artists tended to have a high turnover rate, that genres were rated relatively consistently with moderate to high q-correlations (between .41 and .67), and that style preferences were highly consistent (q-correlations between .77 and .86). Differences in consistency over time across gender and educational level were not substantive, but age was positively related to music taste consistency. It is concluded that music taste is already well developed in early adolescence, and crystallizes further during late adolescence and early adulthood.

Music performance teachers' conceptions about learning and instruction: a descriptive study of Spanish piano teachers

Bautista, A., Del Puy Perez Echeverria, M., Ignacio Pozo, J. — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:40:49 PST

There has been little research into the conceptions music performance teachers have about learning and instruction, by either psychological or educational researchers. The main aim of this study was to describe the conceptions of 45 Spanish piano teachers from music conservatories, by analysing their differences according to the variable ‘Years of teaching experience’ (YTE). Three groups of 15 teachers were studied as follows: (1) highly experienced teachers (more than 15 YTE); (2) experienced teachers (between five and 15 YTE); and (3) novice teachers (less than five YTE). Data was collected using written open-ended questionnaires, and analysed by means of the lexicometrical method. Three different conceptions were identified between these groups: direct, interpretative and constructive. The findings suggested that the less experienced the teachers were, the more sophisticated, complex and adapted to music education their conceptions about learning and instruction were. Psychological, educative and curricular implications are discussed.

A limiting feature of the Mozart effect: listening enhances mental rotation abilities in non-musicians but not musicians

Aheadi, A., Dixon, P., Glover, S. — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:40:49 PST

The ‘Mozart effect’ occurs when performance on spatial cognitive tasks improves following exposure to Mozart. It is hypothesized that the Mozart effect arises because listening to complex music activates similar regions of the right cerebral hemisphere as are involved in spatial cognition. A counter-intuitive prediction of this hypothesis (and one that may explain at least some of the null results reported previously) is that Mozart should only improve spatial cognition in non-musicians, who process melodic information exclusively in the right hemisphere, but not in musicians, who process melodic information in both hemispheres. This hypothesis was tested by comparing performance of musicians and non-musicians on a mental rotation task before and after exposure to either Mozart or silence. It was found that performance on the mental rotation task improved only in non-musicians after listening to Mozart. Performance did not improve for non-musicians after exposure to silence, or for musicians after exposure to either Mozart or silence. These results support the hypothesis that the benefits of listening to Mozart arise because of activation of right hemispheric structures involved in spatial cognition.

Book review: MARC LEMAN, Embodied Music Cognition and Mediation Technology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. 320 pp. ISBN 9780262122931 (hbk) $40.00/{pound}22.95

Gingras, B., McLean, A. — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:40:49 PST

Book review: ADAM OCKELFORD, Music for Children and Young People with Complex Needs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. xiv + 299 pp. ISBN 9780193223011

Darrow, A.-A. — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:40:49 PST