1857 research outputs found
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Hailing Hurlstone: review of ‘William Hurlstone: Croydon’s forgotten musical genius’ by Christopher Redwood
No full textMaternal engagement with music up to nine months post-birth: findings from a cross-sectional study in England
No full textThere is significant evidence of the benefits of music for babies and emerging evidence that music may also benefit mothers’ wellbeing. However, there is a lack of current large-scale data documenting maternal engagement with music in England. This cross-sectional survey study
used descriptive and inferential statistics to examine how 473 mothers living in England engaged with music between 1-9 months post-birth, and regression models to examine demographic and musical predictors of this engagement. Findings indicate that the most frequently reported musical activities were daily listening to music (71%) and daily singing to babies (59%). Patterns of musical engagement differ by infant age, with mothers of 4-9 month old babies reporting more frequent singing and music class attendance compared with mothers of 1-3 month old babies. Mothers with previous or recent experience of music were more likely to engage in other musical activities, but musical engagement did not appear to be explained by socio-economic factors including years in education, marital status or household income. Findings could support practitioners in designing music activities for mothers, in particular highlighting the need for supporting mothers with very young infants, with little or no previous musical experience or with more than one child
Recordings as learning and practising resources for performance: exploring attitudes and behaviours of music students and professionals
No full textThis article examines how musicians use recordings as learning resources in preparing for performance. While previous research has partially acknowledged the contribution of external factors to self-regulated learning, the specific impact of recordings on performers’ approaches to practising remains largely uncharted. A survey was designed to assess the use and importance of recordings on musicians’ listening and practising behaviours, their preferences when choosing recordings, and the type of influence exerted by recordings over self-regulatory processes. Respondents (N = 204) completed an online survey, and the data were analysed according to level of expertise: advanced music students (n = 147) and professional musicians (n = 57). The results show clear differences between students and professionals in the frequency of use and level of reliance on recordings, with students consistently exhibiting a greater preference for these resources. Students were more likely to listen to recordings and, consequently, change aspects of their interpretations in the early stages of practising. Additionally, students were influenced by other people’s recommendations, especially their teachers’, and by other performers’ reputations when choosing recordings. The need to develop a distinct style had a positive influence on students’ practising and performing habits. The study shows that listening to recordings forms an integral part of self-regulated learning activities and contributes to musicians’ development by increasing musical knowledge and stylistic awareness
Situational pedagogy in community music: developing a pedagogical approach which accounts for and responds to the changing needs of music learners and music learning situations
No full textThe great diversity of Community Music (CM) practices requires a flexible and responsive approach to conceiving of pedagogy: one size does not fit all. In this paper, we set out an approach to training undergraduate students of CM at Sage Gateshead which prepares them for a professional life where they might find themselves adapting their approaches to teaching-learning situations in response to a range of situational factors including: participant (and practitioner) previous experience and skill level; situational purpose; performative factors; changes in collective - or individual - group identity and aspiration; aspects of leadership and followership; instrumental arrangements; musical genre.
Building on the business leadership model of Situational Leadership developed by Ken Hersey (Hersey, 1997) and more recent dialogical approaches to pedagogy (Alexander, 2008;
Price, n.d.; Wegerif, 2012), we outline a model of Situational Pedagogy for CM which recognises the changing nature of group music learning situations, and the need for an adaptable and flexible approach to pedagogy which accounts for the complexities of individual situations of music-making.
In particular, this approach to teaching and learning supports student CM practitioners to: appreciate and adopt a wider range of teaching styles and approaches; emphasize learners’ needs, capabilities and aspirations in curriculum design and
session planning; resist the common trap of teaching the way they themselves were taught. **** The full text of this paper is available as part of the conference proceedings document at the 'Official URL' given below. ***
Exploring the rationale for group music activities for parents and young children: parents’ and practitioners’ perspectives
No full textChildren’s Centres are widespread in England and comprise multi-professional staff teams seeking to work with families with children aged 0–5 years. Although parent–child group music sessions appear frequently in Children’s Centre activity programmes, the rationale for their inclusion remains unclear. This article presents the results from phase two of an exploratory mixed-methods study which investigated the role of and rationale for parent–child (0–3 years) group music making activities in Children’s Centres. The perceptions of parents and practitioners were considered, and differences were found between them. The themes generated by the initial qualitative interview study (phase one) were investigated further in this quantitative questionnaire study (phase two), which involved 49 practitioners and 91 parents. Seven thematic categories of the perceived benefits of music—Social, Emotional, Learning, Teaching, Links to Home, Parenting, and Organisational—which had been identified in the interview study, were used as the basis of the design of the questionnaire. Statistical analyses revealed some significant differences between the expressed views of parent and practitioner groups, as well as between parents in different broad age groups. Practitioners expressed more positive views about the perceived benefits of music for parents than were expressed by the parents themselves. Parents in the majority age group (27–35 years) appeared to express significantly more positive opinions on a variety of questionnaire items than did parents in both younger and older age groups. Working practices of Children’s Centre practitioners appear to include music group activities for which they have had little training. A new practitioner role is proposed: that of social music pedagogue. The questionnaire results have augmented and enhanced the findings of the interview study and suggest that the rationale for parent–child music group activities in Children’s Centres is centred on the benefits for children’s social, cultural, emotional and cognitive development
Listening and performing: experiences of twentieth-century British wind players
Get PDFAccounts of life in the music profession by orchestral woodwind players have often been neglected in favour of didactic and aural sources. While scholars have interrogated recorded performances, evidence from the players themselves is vital in understanding the profession as a whole and thus the bigger picture. Reecting on material gathered for The Listening Experience Database (LED), particularly by the clarinettist Jack Brymer (1915–2003), we appreciate the importance of a player’s listening in shaping their performing practices. Brymer was primarily a listener, and a clarinettist only second. His listening to the playing of the oboist Léon Goossens (1897–1988) with its prominent use of vibrato became profoundly important to Brymer and to subsequent generations. In examining contemporary attitudes towards vibrato, we realise that Brymer’s use of the effect was quite controversial for its time. Indeed, the importance of the listening experience is reected in many accounts by woodwind players whose experiences are included in LED.
These musicians, among the first for whom the aural and sonic experience of listening to a recording or broadcast began to resemble the sound itself, enjoyed careers before the era of globalisation. While technological advances have made music more easily accessible, they have also already eroded, and sometimes even eradicated, individual or regional or national characteristics and performing practices
Profiling musicians' pain
No full textResearch investigating the degree to which, and where, musicians experience performance-related pain. Read the full report: Cruder C, Falla D, Mangili F, Azzimonti L, Araújo L, Williamon A, & Barbero M (2018), Profiling the location and extent of musicians’ pain using digital pain drawings, Pain Practice, 18, 53-66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/papr.12581. See also http://researchonline.rcm.ac.uk/id/eprint/167/
Musicians’ perceptions and experiences of using simulation training to develop performance skills
No full textSimulation has been applied as a tool for learning and training in sports, psychology and medicine for some time, but its current use and potential for training musicians is less well understood. The aim of this study was to explore musicians’ perceptions and experiences of using simulated performance environments. Nine conservatory students performed in two simulations, each with interactive virtual elements and vivid environmental cues: a recital with a virtual audience and an audition with virtual judges. Qualitative data were collected through a focus group interview and written reflective commentaries. Thematic analysis highlighted the musicians’ experiences in terms of (1) their anticipation of using the simulations, (2) the process of performing in the simulations, (3) the usefulness of simulation as a tool for developing performance skills and (4) ways of improving simulation training. The results show that while simulation was new to the musicians and individual levels of immersion differed, the musicians saw benefits in the approach for developing, experimenting with and enhancing their performance skills. Specifically, the musicians emphasised the importance of framing the simulation experience with plausible procedures leading to and following on from the performance, and they recognised the potential for combining simulation with complementary training techniques
Stage call: cardiovascular reactivity to audition stress in musicians
No full textAuditioning is at the very center of educational and professional life in music and is associated with significant psychophysical demands. Knowledge of how these demands affect cardiovascular responses to psychosocial pressure is essential for developing strategies to both manage stress and understand optimal performance states. To this end, we recorded the electrocardiograms (ECGs) of 16 musicians (11 violinists and 5 flutists) before and during performances in both low- and high-stress conditions: with no audience and in front of an audition panel, respectively. The analysis consisted of the detection of R-peaks in the ECGs to extract heart rate variability (HRV) from the notoriously noisy real-world ECGs. Our data analysis approach spanned both standard (temporal and spectral) and advanced (structural complexity) techniques. The complexity science approaches—namely, multiscale sample entropy and multiscale fuzzy entropy—indicated a statistically significant decrease in structural complexity in HRV from the low- to the high-stress condition and an increase in structural complexity from the pre-performance to performance period, thus confirming the complexity loss theory and a loss in degrees of freedom due to stress. Results from the spectral analyses also suggest that the stress responses in the female participants were more parasympathetically driven than those of the male participants. In conclusion, our findings suggest that interventions to manage stress are best targeted at the sensitive pre-performance period, before an audition begins. *** For a video summary of this article please see http://researchonline.rcm.ac.uk/id/eprint/1809/ **
