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Interwoven Sound Spaces is an interdisciplinary project which brought together telematic music performance, interactive textiles, interaction design, and artistic research. A team of researchers collaborated with two professional contemporary music ensembles based in Berlin, Germany, and Piteå, Sweden, and four composers, with the aim of creating a telematic distributed concert taking place simultaneously in two concert halls and online. Central to the project was the development of interactive textiles capable of sensing the musicians’ movements while playing acoustic instruments, and generating data the composers used in their works. Musicians, instruments, textiles, sounds, halls, and data formed a network of entities and agencies that was reconfigured for each piece, showing how networked music practice enables distinctive musicking techniques. We describe each part of the project and report on a research interview conducted with one of the composers for the purpose of analysing the creative approaches she adopted for composing her piece. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an ethnographic study of the Hong Kong busking scene, this article explores how buskers navigate and negotiate their practices and experiences in the scene. Within the contested socio-political and institutional context in Hong Kong, buskers' collective efforts have brought the promise of street music to life by bringing people together and fostering a sense of belonging, connection, and solidarity with their music. The statement, "This city needs street music," not only captures street musicians' deep conviction in the significance of their practice, but also calls for a wider recognition of the value of street music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Musical training has been associated with various cognitive benefits, one of which is enhanced speech perception. However, most findings have been based on musicians taking part in ongoing music lessons and practice. This study thus sought to determine whether the musician advantage in pitch perception in the language domain extends to individuals who have ceased musical training and practice. To this end, adult active musicians (n = 22), former musicians (n = 27), and non-musicians (n = 47) were presented with sentences spoken in a native language, English, and a foreign language, French. The final words of the sentences were either prosodically congruous (spoken at normal pitch height), weakly incongruous (pitch was increased by 25%), or strongly incongruous (pitch was increased by 110%). Results of the pitch discrimination task revealed that although active musicians outperformed former musicians, former musicians outperformed non-musicians in the weakly incongruous condition. The findings suggest that the musician advantage in pitch perception in speech is retained to some extent even after musical training and practice is discontinued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the importance of effective practice in music education. Topics include the challenges students face in practicing and suggests strategies for modeling and demonstrating new music, the role of individual lessons in addressing fundamental problems, and the responsibility of music teachers in coaching good practicing strategies.

Music practice is a multisensory training that is of great interest to neuroscientists because of its implications for neural plasticity. Music-related modulation of sensory systems has been observed in neuroimaging data, and has been supported by results in behavioral tasks. Some studies have shown that musicians react faster than non-musicians to visual, tactile and auditory stimuli. Behavioral enhancement in more complex tasks has received considerably less attention in musicians. This study aims to investigate unisensory and multisensory discrimination capabilities in musicians. More specifically, the goal of this study is to examine auditory, tactile and auditory-tactile discrimination in musicians. The literature suggesting better auditory and auditory-tactile discrimination in musicians is scarce, and no study to date has examined pure tactile discrimination capabilities in musicians. A two-alternative forced-choice frequency discrimination task was used in this experiment. The task was inspired by musical production, and participants were asked to identify whether a frequency was the same as or different than a standard stimulus of 160 Hz in three conditions: auditory only, auditory-tactile only and tactile only. Three waveforms were used to replicate the variability of pitch that can be found in music. Stimuli were presented through headphones for auditory stimulation and a glove with haptic audio exciters for tactile stimulation. Results suggest that musicians have lower discrimination thresholds than non-musicians for auditory-only and auditory-tactile conditions for all waveforms. The results also revealed that musicians have lower discrimination thresholds than non-musicians in the tactile condition for sine and square waveforms. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that musical training can lead to better unisensory tactile discrimination which is in itself a new and major finding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study concerning the discrepancy between practice rooms and concert environment which influence student's music performance. Topics discussed include the musician's interaction with the performing space, its impact to the preparation and performance delivery, and the challenges faced by the students such as acoustics, social pressure and stage presence.

Helping young musicians learn how to practice effectively is a challenge faced by all music educators. This article presents a system of individual music practice instruction that can be seamlessly integrated within large-ensemble rehearsals. Using a step-by-step approach, large-ensemble conductors can teach students to identify and isolate difficult passages, select appropriate practice strategies, and make improvements to their playing. This model of practice instruction draws on Albert Bandura’s concept of observational learning, as well as music education research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this study was to investigate intermediate musicians’ self-regulated practice behaviors. Thirty sixth- through eighth-grade students were observed practicing band repertoire individually for 20 min. Practice sessions were coded according to practice frame frequency and duration, length of musical passage selected, most prominent musical objective, and practice behaviors. The 600 min of video were parsed into 234 practice frames for analysis. Practice sessions also were rated for overall degree of self-regulation. Reliability of the observational procedures (three observers, 95% to 100% agreement) and self-regulation ratings (two raters, coefficients of .89 to .96) was excellent. Analyses revealed an average of 7.8 practice frames with a mean duration of 2 min 45 s across sessions. Participants most frequently addressed the musical objective pitch accuracy and most commonly selected passages of nine measures in length or greater. The most common practice behaviors were varying tempo, repeating fewer than four measures, repeating more than four measures, and irrelevant playing. Significant relationships were found between self-regulation ratings and frequencies of the behaviors writing on music (r = .55), varying tempo (r = .42), repeating four or more measures (r = .41), and irrelevant playing (r = −.59). Implications for future research and practical applications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation can interfere with the music profession, especially by the constant need for instrumental practice. However, the literature does not show clearly the main motivating factors for this professional activity. Thus, we sought to identify the factors related to motivation for developing the work of 22 musicians from an unprofessional orchestra in southern Brazil. The motivation was assessed by questionnaire FERREIRA et al. (2006) with 28 questions that seek to assess the motivation for the development of professional activities related to the organization of work, achievement and power, with the performance and motivation associated with involvement. For the data analysis was performed descriptive statistics through average and standard deviation and factor analysis. The results showed that the factors with the highest score are associated with motivation for professional achievement and power within the orchestra and the motivation for the development of professional activities related to the organization of work. These information reflect themselves in the results of factor analysis and also indicated that both domains as bigger explanatory power to the motivation for the development of practice with the instrument. In general, one can say that the musicians are motivated to carry out the work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music teachers can learn some tricks of the trade from their colleagues who coach sports teams. Many of the techniques that help students excel and bond in various games are applicable to the general music classroom and rehearsal room. It's all about attitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was designed to determine if adults are able to remember how much time they actually spent practicing during a past time period of their lives where detailed daily records were kept of actual number of minutes practiced. It also addressed how past practice time relates to their highest level of musical performance across the 30 years on a scale of top-level expert to competent. Responses were divided into six classifications: (1) professional, (2) semiprofessional, (3) free-lance musician/college instructor, (4) music teacher, (5) community musician, and (6) jury/senior recital. Results indicated that after a 30-year period, students are not accurate in assessing past amounts of applied music practice when comparing records of actual practice time to later perceptions of this practice time. Also, there is not a strong relationship between practice time and their highest level of performance, although most participants indicate that they believe that there is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the detailed processes whereby concert performances of serious music are collectively achieved in rehearsal. Case of a youth orchestra rehearsing a section of the First Movement of Beethoven's 8th Symphony in which a number of problems arise in a cello and bass passage; Analysis of correction talk.

The article discusses several strategies to improve an individuals' ability to concentrate or stay focus during music performances. It cites that it is a standard practice to hold dress rehearsal for bands, orchestras, and solo performances especially those that have to be done from memory, which offers several benefits including experiencing the acoustics of the room and visualizing the people in the seats. Moreover, it notes that centered breathing is best for performing musicians who experienced excessive stage anxiety. Furthermore, it relates that it is useful to develop a coping plan in case of having mental block during performance.

This article presents results of the study "When Quantity Is Not Enough: Disentangling the Roles of Practice Time, Self-Regulation and Deliberate Practice in Musical Achievement". It discusses the method used in the study, the aspects of formal practice as predictors of musical achievement, the possible negative effect of mindless practice, and the high rate of overuse injuries among advanced and professional musicians.

The article discusses performance as an integral part of musicians and key to the growth and development of both individual and ensemble musicianship. Topics discussed include need to prepare students to maximize the benefits of every performance, rehearsal as a key part of the learning process and need to prepare students to understand concepts in the repertoire being studied.