Music Performance

In The Mindful Musician: Mental Skills for Peak Performance, author Vanessa Cornett offers guidelines to help musicians cultivate artistic vision, objectivity, freedom, quiet awareness, and self-compassion, both on- and offstage in order to become more resilient performers. Contrary to modernculture's embrace of busyness and divided attention, Cornett's contemplative techniques provide greater space for artistic self-expression and satisfaction. With the aid of a companion website that includes audio files and downloadable templates, The Mindful Musician provides a method to promoteattentional focus, self-assessment, emotional awareness, and creativity. The first of its kind to combine mindfulness practices with research in cognitive and sport psychology, this book helps musicians explore the roots of anxiety and other challenges related to performance, all through the deliberate focus of awareness.

Practicing an instrument builds bodily habits and skills and also develops connections between auditory and motor regions in a player's brain. These multi-sensory links are grounded in particular instrumental interfaces. They reflect the ways that an instrument converts action into sound, and the ways that it coordinates physical and tonal space. Ultimately, these connections can shape listening, improvisation, or composition. This means that pianos, guitars, horns,and bells are not simply tools for making notes. Such technologies, as creative prostheses, also open up possibilities for musical action, perception, and cognition. Throughout the book, author Jonathan De Souza examines diverse musical case studies - from Beethoven to blues harmonica, from Bach to electronic music - introducing novel methods for the analysis of body-instrument interaction. A companion website supports these analytical discussions with audiovisual examples, including motion-capture videos and performances by the author. Music at Hand offers substantive insights for music scholars, while remaining accessible to non-specialist readers. It will interest anyone who is curious about how musical experience is embodied and conditioned by technology.

Strengths of this book include its broad scope, generous discussions of supporting research, student self-assessments and emphasis on practice techniques away from the instrument. Every chapter explores different but interrelated topics such as cognitive strategies, sport psychology, performance anxiety, mental rehearsal and stretching. The primary focus of the book is on mental training, imagery and other cognitive skills, although the most extensive chapter offers an excellent introduction to yoga practice for musicians.
.Contents: The performer's challenges -- Sport psychology -- The connection between mind and body -- Performance anxiety -- Cognitive strategies -- Mental characteristics of peak performers -- Mind-to-muscle relaxation techniques -- Imagery -- Mental rehearsal -- Muscle-to-mind relaxation techniques -- Stretching -- The balanced musician.

This guidebook unpacks the teaching process of the Alexander Technique for new and more experienced practitioners. By demonstrating the pathway from learning the Alexander Technique for oneself to teaching it, Madden identifies the skill sets required for excellence in teaching the Alexander Technique, and shows readers how they can acquire and develop these skills themselves. Observation, communication and tactile skills are all covered, and particular attention is paid to group teaching, which is neglected in current literature.

The Alexander Technique for Musicians is a unique guide for all musicians, providing a practical, informative approach to being a successful and comfortable performer. Perfect as an introduction to the Alexander Technique, or to supplement the reader's lessons, the book looks at daily and last-minute practice, breathing, performance and performance anxiety, teacher-pupil relationships, ensemble skills, and the application of the Alexander Technique to instrumental and vocal work. Complete with diagrams and photographs to aid the learning process, as well as step-by-step procedures and diary entries written by participating students, The Alexander Technique for Musicians gives tried-and-tested advice, drawn from the authors' twenty-plus years of experience working with musicians, providing an essential handbook for musicians seeking the most from themselves and their art.

Yoga in the Music Studio brings the popular and beneficial practice of yoga to music teachers and students of all instruments and ages, from preschoolers to senior adults and all those in-between. Expert on mind-body techniques Lesley S. McAllister provides a unique opportunity for all to improve their musical craft, enabling teachers to help their students concentrate, listen more attentively, relax, and play their best - whether before a performance or just during lessons - all through the practice of yoga. Many music teachers know that yoga postures and breathing practices can help musicians achieve peak performance, prevent injury, and relieve pain, yet surprisingly few are themselves familiar with these techniques or know how to introduce them to their students. McAllister welcomes the music teacher into the philosophy and history of yoga, introducing them to the research behind yoga's physical and emotional benefits. Step-by-step illustrations of practical stretches and useful poses then guide the teacher to the yoga practices that suit their individual needs and those of their students. An accessible and comprehensive yoga curriculum, Yoga in the Music Studio will help to improve students' musicianship, while contributing to their lifelong health and wellness.

"Of the three elements of music---rhythm, melody, and harmony---rhythm has received the least attention from the theorists, yet it is indisputably the basic element without which there is no musical art." Such is the first sentence of this book on use of the body to express musical rhythm. Elsa Findlay is eminently qualified to write on this subject, having been a student of Emile-Jaques Dalcroze, the master himself, and also from her own experience in a variety of teaching situations. These included schools of dance and theater, colleges and universities, and The Cleveland Institute of Music, one of the first to offer a BMus degree with a major in eurhythmics. Each chapter concentrates on a different phase of rhythm: tempo, dynamics, duration, metrical patterns, speech and rhythm patterns, phrase and form, pitch and melody, and creative expression. Activities for each phase are outlined in detail and illustrated by charming drawings and photos. Appendices furnish further suggestions for exercises, games, action songs, and suitable music.

Singing with Your Whole Self: A Singer's Guide to Awareness through Movement teaches performers to use the Feldenkrais Method of neuromuscular education to ameliorate problems of tension, muscle strain, and illness in order to obtain optimal vocal performance. With new lessons and chapters on kinesthetic imagination and neuroplasticity, this second edition features unique, modularized Feldenkrais lessons designed specifically to liberate function in singers and other voice professionals. The first part of the book presents the theory behind the approach in an easy-to-understand and concrete fashion. The remaining chapters explore anatomy by area and explain usage and problems, as well as how both relate to singing. Finally, an appendix allows performers to find lessons that are most effective for a specific problem. As a valuable exercise guide, the second edition of Singing with Your Whole Self is an essential resource for singers at all levels and in all styles.

Yoga, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method, Pilates, Body Mapping... These techniques all promote optimum vocal performance through mind-body awareness, but where should a singer begin? So You Want to Sing with Awareness welcomes singers into all of these methods, allowing them to explore each option's history and application to singing and determine which methods may best meet their needs as performers. With this unique volume in the So You Want to Sing series, editor Matthew Hoch brings together renowned expert practitioners to explore mind-body awareness systems and introduce cutting-edge research in cognitive neuroscience and motor learning. Carefully curated for singers' unique needs, the book also includes essential discussions of anatomy and physiology and vocal health. The So You Want to Sing series is produced in partnership with the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Like all books in the series, So You Want to Sing with Awareness features online supplemental material on the NATS website. Please visit www.nats.org to access style-specific exercises, audio and video files, and additional resources.

A musician's life is filled with many stressful situations: passing auditions, rehearsing and performing with difficult partners, sitting for long hours in uncomfortable chairs, going on stage to face audiences large and small, who may or may not be receptive to the performance they arepresented. And yet many musicians are able to surmount these looming obstacles with grace and balance, to find satisfaction and artistry in their music and build productive and lasting careers. Indirect Procedures will guide you around these obstacles and along that path to becoming a balanced andsuccessful musician.Based on the work of Frederick Matthias Alexander, this book is a thorough and practical approach to the issues of musicians' health and wellbeing. Author Pedro de Alcantara introduces concepts and exercises for musicians to let go of excessive tensions, stay focused, and direct their energies asthey handle the challenges of practicing, rehearsing, and performing. Complemented by an extensive, easy-to-use companion website, and working alongside Integrated Practice, this new edition of Indirect Procedures is an invaluable and essential resource for today's musicians to learn to sing, play,and conduct with less effort and stronger results.

While musicians have endless resources for learning the basics of their instruments and the theory of music, few books have explored the other subtleties and complexities that musicians face in their quest to play with ease and skill. The demands of solitary practice, hectic rehearsal schedules, challenging repertoire, performance pressures, awkward postures, and other physical strains have left a trail of injured, hearing-impaired, and frustrated musicians who have had few resources to guide them. Playing Less Hurt addresses this need with specific tools to avoid and alleviate injury. Impressively researched, the book is invaluable not only to musicians, but also to the coaches and medical professionals who work with them. Everyone from dentists to orthopedists, audiologists to neurologists, massage therapists and trainers will benefit from Janet Horvath's coherent account of the physiology and psyche of a practicing musician. Writing with knowledge, sympathetic insight, humor, and aplomb, Horvath has created an essential resource for all musicians who want to play better and feel better.

In this important book, the authors "investigate the relationship between the well being music brings to society and the well being of those who create." In this detailed study of recording and performing artists in the British music industry, they listen to how musicians understand and experience their working lives. Their book proposes that whilst making music is therapeutic, making a career from music can be traumatic. The authors show how careers based on an all-consuming passion have become more insecure and devalued. Artistic merit and intimate, often painful, self-disclosures are the subject of unremitting scrutiny and data metrics. Personal relationships and social support networks are increasingly bound up with calculative transactions. Drawing on original empirical research and a wide-ranging survey of scholarship from across the social sciences, their findings will be provocative for future research on mental health, well being and working conditions in the music industries and across the creative economy. Going beyond self-help strategies, they challenge the industry to make transformative structural change.
This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial + NoDerivatives 4.0 license.

Managing Stress in Music Education presents research, theory, possible pitfalls, and strategies for music teachers looking to navigate the challenging climate of potential stressors. Covering a wide range of topics such as sleep, physical movement, nutrition, happiness, gratitude, and mindfulness, this book offers music educators the tools to thrive in a work environment that can often lead to stress and burnout. Readers will examine vignettes of challenged and successful music teachers, and consider new techniques and classic reminders for a healthy enjoyment of work and life.

Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) has been proven to affect many individuals, independent of age, gender, experience and hours of practice. This book provides an excellent and updated review of the literature on the topic, including concept, epidemiology, methodical aspects and interventional studies. Suggestions of the correct use of the term MPA and the identification of necessary future studies, as well as comments on and critiques of those already published, will also be provided.

Musicians are continually "in the making", tapping into their own creative resources while deriving inspiration from teachers, friends, family members and listeners. Amateur and professional performers alike tend not to follow fixed routes in developing a creative voice: instead, theirartistic journeys are personal, often without foreseeable goals. The imperative to assess and reassess one's musical knowledge, understanding and aspirations is nevertheless a central feature of life as a performer.Musicians in the Making explores the creative development of musicians in both formal and informal learning contexts. It promotes a novel view of creativity, emphasizing its location within creative processes rather than understanding it as an innate quality. It argues that such processes may belearned and refined, and furthermore that collaboration and interaction within group contexts carry significant potential to inform and catalyze creative experiences and outcomes. The book also traces and models the ways in which creative processes evolve over time.Performers, music teachers and researchers will find the rich body of material assembled here engaging and enlightening. The book's three parts focus in turn on "Creative learning in context", "Creative processes" and "Creative dialogue and reflection". In addition to sixteen extended chapters written by leading experts in the field, the volume includes ten "Insights" by internationally prominent performers, performance teachers and others. Practical aids include abstracts and lists of keywords at the start of each chapter, which provide useful overviews and guidance on content.Topics addressed by individual authors include intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics, performance experience, practice and rehearsal, "self-regulated performing", improvisation, self-reflection, expression, interactions between performers and audiences, assessment, and the role of academic studyin performers' development.