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Towards a holistic understanding of musician’s focal dystonia: educational factors and mistake rumination contribute to the risk of developing the disorder
Get PDFMusicians’ Focal Dystonia (MFD) is a task-specific neurological movement disorder, affecting 1–2% of highly skilled musicians. The condition can impair motor function by creating involuntary movements, predominantly in the upper extremities or the embouchure. The pathophysiology of the disorder is not fully understood, and complete recovery is extremely rare. While most of the literature views the condition through a neurological lens, a handful of recent studies point out certain psychological traits and the presence of adverse playing-related experiences and preceding trauma as possible contributors to the onset. The nature and the frequency of these factors, however, are under-researched. The present quasi-experimental study aimed to compare musicians with and without MFD in terms of the frequency of various adverse psychosocial and psychological factors to explore their contribution to the onset of the condition. Professional musicians with MFD (n = 107) and without MFD (n = 68) were recruited from online platforms, musicians’ unions, and organisations to fill out a survey. The survey was based on two previously conducted interview studies and included the Student-Instructor Relationship Scale (SIRS), the Mistake Rumination Scale (MRS), the Trauma History Screen, and self-constructed questions about the received music education, early success, and personal experiences. To identify potential risk factors, independent samples t-tests were conducted and found that there are significant differences in musicians with and without MFD in terms of mistake rumination, early success, and the received music education. A logistic regression showed that six factors contributed to the construct to various extents; we observed a significant model [χ2(80) = 22.681, p < 0.001], which predicted 71.2% of the cases correctly. This exploratory study shows that psychological and psychosocial factors might play a role in the development of MFD. Understanding these in more detail could inform preventative strategies and complement the current therapeutic approaches to support this vulnerable population better
Music in Welsh history
No full textThis is an overview chapter covering the entire chronology of the book and touching on the topics to which each individual chapter is devoted. It is important in that it outlines the main stages through which Welsh music passed and emphasises the causal relationship between the social, cultural and political history of Wales and its music, a recurrent theme in the book. It also explains the distinctiveness of Welsh music history and the structures and agencies that have made it so. While Welsh music before the nineteenth century had loose connections with the repertoires and style periods of other European cultures, Wales was devoid of major centres of cultural production of the type that enabled the music industry to thrive elsewhere. There was neither a metropolitan centre nor national institutions or agencies to give succour to a music culture similar to those of England, Scotland and Ireland. Two agencies filled this void from the later eighteenth century: a reconstituted version of the medieval eisteddfod, which changed its emphasis from being an essentially poetic to a primarily musical event, and the rise of religious nonconformity. Nonconformity was important for a number of reasons: it was a nationwide phenomenon but its emphasis was on the local, and it promoted engagement with congregational singing to such an extent that it fostered a remarkable level of democratic musical engagement more generally. These developments occurred simultaneously with a renewed interest in Welsh musical traditions. The twentieth century saw a new phase: the development of professionalism leading to distinctive voices in art and popular music. Amidst this entire story was the status and influence of the Welsh language, a topic that also receives close attention in the chapter
Postscript: contemporary Wales, devolution and digitisation
No full textThis chapter is shorter than the others and takes the form of a postscript devoted to the state and organisation of music in Wales at the time of the book’s publication. It is shaped around the coincidental but simultaneous occurrence of two key historical moments: the devolution of many segments of administrative authority from the UK government to Wales and the establishment of a Welsh Parliament (Y Senedd), and the ubiquitous adoption of digitisation in the service of cultural communication and creativity. This latter development was not, of course, a uniquely Welsh phenomenon, but in Wales, because of the country’s geography and bilingualism, it had an especially important impact. Digitisation facilitated the ambition of Wales’s devolved governments to express the country’s cultural distinctiveness within the UK and globally. Devolution had the ancillary effect of elevating the importance of the creative industries, including those devoted to or including music. Additionally, the legal framework that underlined devolution led to an increased protection of the Welsh language and consequently the music cultures which had flourished within it. The chapter deals with the consequences for Welsh music of two decades of devolution and its impact on traditional and the modern agencies and institutions concerned with Welsh music: music education, performance, the curation of Welsh historical materials and the associated scholarship
Composing with timbre: saturation, (dis)integration and space
Get PDFThis project, consisting of eight original works and an accompanying commentary, explores in depth a timbre-focused approach to composition. Tracing the genesis of these works, I outline the methods that emerged as I sought to sculpt complex sonorities and larger forms—investigating the reciprocal relationship between discourse and timbre at both a micro and macro level. Each of the four chapters presented is thus allied to a broad organisational scheme: integration, disintegration and saturation become the subject matter of Chapters One, Two and Four respectively, with specific reference made to the instrumental writing of Pierluigi Billone and Raphaël Cendo. Chapter Three, on the other hand, investigates the effects of space upon sonorities’ temporal unfolding; the music of Natasha Barrett and Rebecca Saunders is cited here as central to my compositional development. Though the relationship between timbre and form is the principal lens through which the portfolio works are discussed, several interlinked research strands emerge. These include explorations of: lo-fi compositional approaches; sonic ‘landscape’; noise and white noise; parataxis; ‘directional’ growth processes (drawing upon the spectromorphological writing of Denis Smalley); and multiply directed time. With the influence of plastic arts upon my practice increasingly apparent as the research project develops, physicality and the body become key to my discussions. Drawing particular inspiration from Italian artist, Alberto Burri, whose work is often described as eliciting a visceral and corporeal response in the viewer, I too seek to conjure something of the intimate and human out of my own ruptured musical structures. This sense of physicality, communicated in performance and encouraged by the materials upon the page, is ultimately seen to be prefaced by a hands-on and tactile compositional process: a method I have found to be essential when moulding and shaping volatile and fragile matter as I compose with timbre. ******* IMPORTANT NOTE: The CC-BY-NC-ND licence given to this thesis does not apply to the third-party copyright images which are reproduced with permission on pages 10, 75, 85, 107, and 117 of the PDF ******
Encounters with participatory music
Get PDFChamber music occupies a complicated position within 21st-century society. Borne out of a tradition of participatory domestic music making, the term now simultaneously refers to both an activity and a repertoire. However, there is little evidence that either of these maintains a similar cultural locus to chamber music’s origins. The modern activity of chamber music has been primarily professionalised and elite, with its repertoire as part of the established canon of western art music. Within musicological writing, chamber music is regularly noted as being emblematic of an equal society and characterised by its intimacy. Paradoxically, this equality and intimacy is within a performative framework that is exclusionary: although chamber music is still hailed as an intimate art form, there are limits to its inclusivity. Whilst it may have been more accessible at its origins, it does not fulfil the same societal niche now. This chapter attempts to evaluate chamber music as a form of interpersonal musicking within the 21st century, prompting an exploration of how chamber music may be redefined to escape potential anachronism
A history of Welsh music
No full textFrom early medieval bards to the bands of the 'Cool Cymru' era, this book looks at Welsh musical practices and traditions, the forces that have influenced and directed them, and the ways in which the idea of Wales as a 'musical nation' has been formed and embedded in popular consciousness in Wales and beyond. Beginning with early medieval descriptions of musical life in Wales, the book provides both an overarching study of Welsh music history and detailed consideration of the ideas, beliefs, practices and institutions that shaped it. Topics include the eisteddfod, the church and the chapel, the influence of the Welsh language and Welsh cultural traditions, the scholarship of the Celtic Revival and the folk song movement, the impacts of industrialization and digitization, and exposure to broader trends in popular culture, including commercial popular music and sport
Recording review: 'Heritage: the music of Madrid in the time of Goya' Cuarteto Quiroga (Cobra 0067)
No full textInterdisciplinary experiential learning
No full textDescription of book (both volumes): The two-volume Oxford Handbook of Music Performance provides a resource that musicians, scholars and educators will use as the most important and authoritative overview of work within the areas of music psychology and performance science. The 80 experts from 13 countries who prepared the 53 chapters in this handbook are leaders in the fields of music psychology, performance science, musicology, psychology, education and music education. Chapters in the Handbook provide a broad coverage of the area with considerable expansion of the topics that are normally covered in a resource of this type. Designed around eight distinct sections - Development and Learning, Proficiencies, Performance Practices, Psychology, Enhancements, Health & Wellbeing, Science, and Innovations - the range and scope of The Oxford Handbook of Music Performance is much wider than other publications through the inclusion of chapters from related disciplines such as performance science (e.g., optimizing performance, mental techniques, talent development in non-music areas), and education (e.g., human development, motivation, learning and teaching styles) as well as the attention given to emerging critical issues in the field (e.g., wellbeing, technology, gender, diversity, inclusion, identity, resilience and buoyancy, diseases, and physical and mental disabilities). Within each chapter, authors have selected what they consider to be the most important scientific and artistic material relevant to their topic. They begin their chapters by surveying theoretical views on each topic and then, in the final part of the chapter, highlight practical implications of the literature that performers will be able to apply within their daily musical lives
Re-thinking musicians' wellbeing
No full textDescription of book (both volumes): The two-volume Oxford Handbook of Music Performance provides a resource that musicians, scholars and educators will use as the most important and authoritative overview of work within the areas of music psychology and performance science. The 80 experts from 13 countries who prepared the 53 chapters in this handbook are leaders in the fields of music psychology, performance science, musicology, psychology, education and music education. Chapters in the Handbook provide a broad coverage of the area with considerable expansion of the topics that are normally covered in a resource of this type. Designed around eight distinct sections - Development and Learning, Proficiencies, Performance Practices, Psychology, Enhancements, Health & Wellbeing, Science, and Innovations - the range and scope of The Oxford Handbook of Music Performance is much wider than other publications through the inclusion of chapters from related disciplines such as performance science (e.g., optimizing performance, mental techniques, talent development in non-music areas), and education (e.g., human development, motivation, learning and teaching styles) as well as the attention given to emerging critical issues in the field (e.g., wellbeing, technology, gender, diversity, inclusion, identity, resilience and buoyancy, diseases, and physical and mental disabilities). Within each chapter, authors have selected what they consider to be the most important scientific and artistic material relevant to their topic. They begin their chapters by surveying theoretical views on each topic and then, in the final part of the chapter, highlight practical implications of the literature that performers will be able to apply within their daily musical lives
Music in the life of nursing home residents
No full textBackground: Making and listening to music can be beneficial for older adults. However, little is known about how and to what extent those who live in nursing homes have access to music and the functions that music plays in their lives. Methods: This study involved 20 residents who volunteered from six nursing homes in Switzerland. Each resident was interviewed, and the data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: For many residents, their access to music decreased after moving into their nursing home, and many of them wanted more musical experiences in their daily lives, both with music from their pasts and with unfamiliar repertoire. Music was strongly connected to their sense of identity and elicited positive emotions. Musical activities offered by the nursing homes also stimulated social interactions. Conclusions: Music plays a central role in facilitating positive wellbeing and quality of life in nursing homes