Can researchers help artists?
Music performance research for music students
Richard Parncutt
University of Graz, Austria
Teaching, Learning and Performing Music
Royal Northern College of Music, 1-2 July 2006
Character of this talk
explorative not conclusive
 questioning not answering
 progressive not conservative
 applied not theoretical
 political not academic

Academic courses at music academies?

Music history, music theory/analysis
 Introduction to music psychology
 Introduction to music performance research
 Physics, physiology, psychology of own instrument
 Efficient practice
 Structural and emotional expression
 Improvisation
 Performance anxiety
 Music medicine
 Educational and developmental psychology

Psychology of theory/analysis/composition
What for?
Who benefits?
 What do they get?
 What do they want?

What performance students want

Interesting, useful information
– Enjoyable, meaningful participation

Plausible, authoritative presentation
– Teachers who also perform

Employment prospects
– Transferable skills
What administrators want
Success indicators
 reputation
 funding
e.g.

Successful graduates
 (inter-) national performers

Good entry students
– based on academy’s reputation
What the general public wants
(taxpayers  politicians)

A rich cultural life
– across social groups and stata
– age, sex, income…

A stable, bright future
– excellent, forward-looking institutions
– active, capable, caring young people
Success indicators of music academies

Visible:
– (inter-) nationally known performers

Concealed:
– indirect contributions to cultural life
Aims of music academies

Visible:
– Produce excellent performers

Concealed:
– Contribute to musical and cultural life
…applies also to academic courses
Changing contexts of music academies
Academic context


pressure  degrees, research
parallel development of performance research
Political context


transparent „mission“
cost efficiency
Social/career context


changing demands on musicians/educators
flexibility of job markets
A „neo-liberal“ aim:
Improve „efficiency“ of music academy?
efficiency = output / input

Input = time, effort, costs
– invested by teachers, students, state

Output = graduate achievement
– enjoyed by society (pays the taxes)
– enjoyed by country (international status)
Planning students‘ time
Performance skill depends primarily
on practice time

Common knowledge
 Expertise research
 Academic
work should take
relatively little time
Curricular balance:
Ratio of performance to academic work
…depends on the institution
• history
• orientation
• culture
…depends on the individual student
• career aims
• personality and approach to learning
Remainder of this talk

Course content
– What is interesting and useful for students?

Practical and political issues
– Why not currently taught?
– Anticipated effect
– Strategies
Piano: physics, physiology, psychology

Timbre: mechanics and psychology
– key velocity, noise, pedals, balance, onset timing

Fingering: physiology and psychology
– constraints: physical, anatomic, motor, cognitive
– dependencies: expertise, interpretation

Expression of structure and emotion
– with limited expressive possibilities
Voice: Physics, physiology, psychology
VoceVista: Visual feedback for instruction in singing
Efficient practice
Diversity of approaches



study and analysis of scores
mental versus physical practice
listening to recordings / concerts
Metacognition


organization, goal orientation
intrinsic motivation
Timing and concentration


short morning sessions with breaks
duration depends on task, alertness
Expression I: Structural communication

Structure
– phrasing, meter, melody, harmony

Accentuation
– Performed accents reinforce immanent accents

Analysis for performance
– simple, clear
– supports performance of own repertoire
Expression II: Emotional communication
Emotional cues by size & variation of:
tempo, dynamic, articulation (attack / duration), timbre,
durational contrast, intonation/vibrato

Redundancy and ambiguity of message
 Relation to structural analysis
 Effectiveness of feedback training
(Patrik Juslin)
Performance anxiety
High incidence, low awareness, little treatment

Main causes:
– personality, mastery, situation

Further issues:
– perfectionism and control
– optimal arousal versus panic

Prevention and cure
–
–
–
–
physical (relaxation)
cognitive (realism, desensitization, restructuring)
combined (Yoga, hypnotherapy, Alexander technique)
self-efficacy
Music medicine
High incidence, low awareness, little treatment

Common problems
– muscular
• chronic tension, reduced elasticity
• pelvis, lower spine, back of neck
– instrumental
• technique, repertoire, physique

Student musicians need:
– knowledge
• relevant anatomy, physiology
– strategies
• exercises, sport, nutrition; avoiding overload
– treatments
• active interventions
Student-teacher interaction

Theory
– Metacognition and attribution
– child’s, teacher’s, parent’s explanations of success and failure

Results
– teachers don’t discuss failures or feel responsible
– girls attribute more than boys to uncontrollable factors

Strategies
– attribution training, self-efficacy, stress management,
motivational feedback
(Margit Painsi)
Learning notation: „Sound before sign”

Psychology of language acquisition
– hear, understand, imitate, improvise, write, read

Historical and pedagogical context
– improvisation died out in 19th century
– modern music teachers feel inadequate / don’t improvise

Strategies
– start early (plasticity), one skill at a time, improv. against
accomp., notate improvs., multiple representations…
(Gary McPherson)
Improvisation

Stepwise approach to skill acquisition
– set limits (dynamics, articulations, pitches, durations)
– expression first: syntax through semantics
– work on individidual structural elements

Psychological theory of creativity
– knowledge, risk, evaluation, motivation, flow
– balance group and individual work
Frequent objections
Source of objections


successful teacher-performers
pedagogical tradition
Content of objections


course content
pedagogical tradition
Objections to course content
Foreign ideas and teachers interfere with teaching!
Ideas, not “truth”
 Eminent performers had many teachers
 Students learn to evaluate ideas
 Students have rights and freedoms

Analytic thinking inhibits spontaneity!


Analytic thinking is confined to practising
Analytic thinking is promoted by eminent performer/teachers
We never learned or needed this material!



Music and music performance is constantly changing
No specialist keeps track of all relevant developments
Students may become better than their teachers.
Objections based on pedagogical tradition
Why change a successful pedagogical tradition?

Improve procedural-episodic-semantic balance
 Every student generation has new influences and expectations
A strong teacher-student relationship is important!


Contact time can include applied research and co-teaching
Students respect teachers who are open to outside influences
Practice time is important!


Optimal amount is clearly less than 100% of curriculum
Practice time is physiologically and cognitively constrained
We cannot foresee the benefits!


Evaluate a trial course
Trust other experts
Strategies
to promote teaching of performance research





Engage with administration
Understand democracy
Maintain excellence through innovation
Support students‘ analytic thinking
Promote interdisciplinarity
 Optimize course content
 Be flexible about course content
 Inform and involve teachers
 Empower students
 Vary presentation formats
 Introduce new courses gradually
 Expand and diversify teaching staff
Engage with administration
… to build understanding and support for


academic courses in general
music performance research specifically
Understand democracy:
Entrenched majorities & minority rights

Music academies
– performers vs academics, theorists, composers
• performance as primary aim of music academies
• idea of genius performer

Cf. musicology
– historical vs systematic & ethnological
• 19th-century position of musicology within humanities
• idea of art/music historians as aesthetic arbiters
Excellence, tradition and innovation

Past: preserve tradition and continuity
– Solid basis, no sudden changes
– If it’s not broke, don’t fix it

Future: be pro-active
– anticipate new developments
– take advantage of currently available means
 new balance?
Support students‘ analytic thinking

Musicians and artists
holistic, intuitive, qualitative, „right brain“?

Nonmusicians and researchers
analytic, logical, quantitative, „left brain“?
Everyone needs both!
Promote interdisciplinarity
Difficult boundaries:



humanities
sciences
practice
Necessary:


specialism
openness, respect, curiosity
Unnecessary:

specialist knowledge outside specialism
 mission statement?
Optimize course content

illustrate all theory with examples
 balance lecture and workshop styles
 monitor student priorities and thinking
 adapt research to teaching
Inform and involve performance staff
Information



posters
events
literature
Involvement



research
teaching
advice
 Ownership


identification
promotion
Empower students

Student evaluations
 individual courses
 whole programme

Student recommendations
 mentor’s reports
 elective design
Vary presentation formats
Occasional guest lectures
 Electives for all students
 Compulsory courses

Be flexible about course content

research literature

individual teacher’s activities
– research
– performance
Introduce new courses gradually

Year 1 or 2 (or later):
– general introduction
• music psychology
• music performance research

Year 2 or 3 (or later):
– specialized options
• primarily directed at non-researching performers
• may be prerequisite for doctorate
Expand and diversify teaching staff
Scenario 1


director applies for new position
find suitable person
Scenario 2

change curriculum
 temporary staff teach new units
 evaluate
 apply for permanent staff
Patience, politeness, persistence
the tortoise and the hare…
Acknowledgements

Graduate students in Graz:
– Gasenzer, Goebl, Holming, Lassnig-Waldner, Jost, Painsi

London:
– Aaron Williamon, RCM

Manchester:
– Jane Ginsborg, Gunter Kreutz, Antonia Ivaldi

UK music psychology
– John Sloboda, Jane Davidson, Eric Clarke

Melbourne:
– Diana Weekes, pianist
Enriching the curriculum
Possible academic courses:


Music history, music theory/analysis
General intro: music psychology / music performance
Physics, physiology, psychology of own instrument
Efficient practice
Expression
Improvisation
Performance anxiety
Music medicine
Educational / developmental psychology

Psychology of theory/analysis/composition







Strategies











Engage with administration
Understand democracy
Maintain excellence through innovation
Support students‘ analytic thinking
Promote interdisciplinarity
Optimize course content
Inform and involve teachers
Empower students
Vary presentation formats
Introduce new courses gradually
Expand and diversify teaching staff
Abstract
How might music performance research best be introduced into music performance
teaching? Many music students could benefit from more theory in areas such as
emotional communication, performance anxiety, music medicine, general health
(including fitness and nutrition), educational psychology, psychology of music theory
and composition, and the physics, physiology and psychology of performance on
specific instruments; and such material can be presented in a wide variety of
different educational and musical contexts. If the main goal of an institution is to
generate the best performers - or perhaps the largest number of professional
performers - the content and proportion of academic work in the curriculum should
adjusted to achieve this goal. Since musical skill depends primarily on the amount
and quality of practice, students should spend relatively little time on academic work
and regard it as an interesting and useful diversion that in turn motivates their
practice and gives it meaning, gives them ideas on how best to practice, and
prevents them from adopting counterproductive practice strategies. But given that
only a minority of music students go on to earn their living primarily from
performance, academic aspects of music curricula should also enrich the
educational experience and help students to transfer and multiply their knowledge
and experience, both during and after their studies. This can happen in the context
of a diversity of musical activities, including teaching, planning and support of
musical events, composition, musicology and so on. An additional argument is that
the excellence of an educational institution can be threatened by cultural changes
such as the diversity of new influences and experiences to which every new
generation of music students is exposed. Excellent educational institutions should
therefore welcome and implement new research and educational developments.