scholarly journals Notions of Mandate, Knowledge and Research in Norwegian Classical Music Performance Studies

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elin Angelo ◽  
Øivind Varkøy ◽  
Eva Georgii-Hemming
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Collaborative Discourse ◽  
Higher Education Reforms ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
Data Informed

Policy changes and higher education reforms challenge performing musician programmes across Europe. The academisation of arts education means that classical performance programmes are now marked by strong expectations of research paths, publications, and the standardisation of courses, grades and positions. Drawing on interviews with ten teachers and leaders within the field of higher music education, this article discusses notions of mandate, knowledge and research in classical performance music education in Norway. Against the backdrop of academisation, the aim of this article is to illuminate central tensions and negotiations concerning mandate, knowledge and research within higher music education. The problem concerns issues of who should be judged as qualified and who should have the authority to speak on behalf of the performing music expertise community. The study is part of the larger study Discourses of Academisation and the Music Profession in Higher Music Education (DAPHME), conducted by a team of senior researchers in Sweden, Norway and Germany. Through an analytic-theoretical reading of the empirical data, informed by Foucault’s power/knowledge concept, two discourses on mandate are identified (the awakening discourse and the Bildung discourse) as well as three discourses on knowledge (the handicraft discourse, the entrepreneurship discourse and the discourse of critical reflection) and two discourses on research (the collaborative discourse and the ‘perforesearch’ discourse). The latter of the two research discourses pinpoints a subject position as a musician/researcher with knowledge, craft and skills in both music performing and research.

scholarly journals Biological Specifics of Musical Performing Memory Essence for Musical Performance Efficiency

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Dymnikowa ◽  
Elena A. Ogorodnikova ◽  
Valentin I. Petrushin
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
Emotional Memory ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
Music Pedagogy ◽  
Target Level ◽  
Structural Components ◽  
Effective Work

In classical music art discipline, the memory for musical performance (i.e., music performing memory MPM) at typological analysis level is the type of musical executive prospective memory. based on executive functions and biological conditions. Its structural components are semantic declarative, kinesthetic, and emotional memory. Musical performance concern the production of musical artwork by vocal or musical instrument forms. The efficiency of this process is conditioned by ergonomic, effective work on learning, and memorizing the music. It is regulated and organized from the level of ‘reading a vista’ the musical notes text until completed memorizing for target level of music performance. The article, from the health psychology mainstream, presents methodical, practical tips with recommendations resulting from the biological principles, regularities, and specifics of this process revealed in the empirical data of such areas as neuropsychology, psychophysiology, cognitive psychology, biological psychology, and music pedagogy, with additional independent empirical verification in counseling of musicians at professional music education level. 

scholarly journals Pedagogies of Performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-93
Author(s):  
Joshua Navon
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Student Assessment ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
Principal Mode ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
Felix Mendelssohn ◽  
Faithful Interpretation

The development of modern styles of elite music education played a crucial role in entrenching Werktreue as the dominant practice within classical music performance. Focusing on Germany’s first conservatory, the Leipzig conservatory, which was founded in 1843, this article analyzes how Werktreue, understood as a set of tacit competencies and sensibilities that must be learned by musicians, was produced at a single historical site. Archival documents of the institution, as well as the correspondence and writings of teachers and students like Felix Mendelssohn, William Rockstro, and Ethel Smyth, show that the central objective of musical pedagogy was the faithful interpretation of musical works. Isolated as a discrete subject of training, performing musical works also functioned as the principal mode of student assessment through semesterly examinations. To transmit the necessary skills for this paradigm of performance, pupils’ bodily capacities (Technik) and ability to understand and interpret canonic compositions (Vortrag) became essential targets of conservatory pedagogy. Ubiquitous visibility among students, and the intense competition that this visibility engendered, went hand in hand with institutionalizing styles of musical expertise that continue to this day. In exploring these developments, this article asks how the productive power of modern conservatory training contributed not only to Werktreue’s rise over a wide geography, but also to the remarkable stability with which it has pervaded performance practice across multiple generations.

Music education promotes lifelong engagement with the arts

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Elpus
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
Musical Instrument ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Appreciation ◽  
National Endowment ◽  
School Based ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Education Participation

The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of school-based music education on later adult engagement with the arts using nationally representative data from the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. The probability of adult arts engagement as performer/creator and patron/consumer was estimated as functions of prior school-based music and arts education participation with statistical covariate control applied for demographic variables known to vary with music education status. Results suggest that both music performance and music appreciation courses are strongly associated with later arts participation as patron/consumer and performer/creator, even after controlling for socioeconomic status, sex, and race/ethnicity. Former music appreciation students were 93% more likely to attend classical music or opera performances as adults and 255% more likely to play a musical instrument as adults than were non-participants. Former music performance students were 342% more likely to play a musical instrument, 258% more likely to sing, and 186% more likely to take photographs as an artistic endeavor than were non-participants. Results of this study suggest that lifelong engagement with music and the arts is one measurable outcome of school-based music education in the United States.

scholarly journals Music-listening regulates human microRNA transcriptome

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Preethy S. Nair ◽  
Pirre Raijas ◽  
Minna Ahvenainen ◽  
Anju K. Philips ◽  
Liisa Ukkola-Vuoti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Neuronal Plasticity ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
Long Term Potentiation ◽  
Mapk Signaling ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Musical Aptitude ◽  
Seasonal Plasticity ◽  
Microrna Sequencing

AbstractHere, we used microRNA sequencing to study the effect of 20 minutes of classical music-listening on the peripheral blood microRNA transcriptome in subjects characterized for musical aptitude and music education and compared it to a control study without music for the same duration. In participants with high musical aptitude, we identified up-regulation of six microRNAs (hsa-miR-132-3p, hsa-miR-361-5p, hsa-miR-421, hsa-miR-23a-3p, hsa-miR-23b-3p, hsa-miR-25-3p) and down-regulation of two microRNAs (hsa-miR-378a-3p, hsa-miR-16-2-3p) post music-listening. The up-regulated microRNAs were found to be regulators of neuron apoptosis and neurotoxicity, consistent with previously reported neuroprotective role of music. Some up-regulated microRNAs were reported to be responsive to neuronal activity (miR-132, miR-23a, miR-23b) and modulators of neuronal plasticity, CNS myelination and cognitive functions like long-term potentiation and memory. miR-132 and DICER, up-regulated after music-listening, protect dopaminergic neurons and is important for retaining striatal dopamine levels. miR-23 putatively activates pro-survival PI3K/AKT signaling cascade, which is coupled with dopaminergic signaling. Some of the transcriptional regulators (FOS, CREB1, JUN, EGR1 and BDNF) of the up-regulated microRNAs are sensory-motor stimuli induced immediate early genes and top candidates associated with musical traits. Amongst these, BDNF is co-expressed with SNCA, up-regulated in music-listening and music-performance, and both are activated by GATA2, which is associated with musical aptitude. Some of the candidate microRNAs and their putative regulatory interactions were previously identified to be associated with song-learning, singing and seasonal plasticity networks in songbirds and imply evolutionary conservation of the auditory perception process: miR-23a, miR-23b and miR-25 repress PTEN and indirectly activates the MAPK signaling pathway, a regulator of neuronal plasticity which is activated after song-listening. We did not detect any significant changes in microRNA expressions associated with music education or low musical aptitude. Our data thereby show the importance of inherent musical aptitude for music appreciation and for eliciting the human microRNA response to music-listening.

Mahler Is a DJ: Reconducting Classical Music Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 220
Author(s):  
Koopal ◽  
Vlieghe ◽  
de Baets
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Classical Music

Class, Control, and Classical Music

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Bull
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
Music Ensembles ◽  
The Aesthetic

Through an ethnographic study of young people playing and singing in classical music ensembles in the south of England, this book analyses why classical music in England is predominantly practiced by white middle-class people. It describes four ‘articulations’ or associations between the middle classes and classical music. Firstly, its repertoire requires formal modes of social organization that can be contrasted with the anti-pretentious, informal, dialogic modes of participation found in many forms of working-class culture. Secondly, its modes of embodiment reproduce classed values such as female respectability. Thirdly, an imaginative dimension of bourgeois selfhood can be read from classical music’s practices. Finally, its aesthetic of detail, precision, and ‘getting it right’ requires a long-term investment that is more possible, and makes more sense, for middle- and upper-class families. Through these arguments, the book reframes existing debates on gender and classical music participation in light of the classed gender identities that the study revealed. Overall, the book suggests that inequalities in cultural production can be understood through examining the practices that are used to create a particular aesthetic. It argues that the ideology of the ‘autonomy’ of classical music from social concerns needs to be examined in historical context as part of the classed legacy of classical music’s past. It describes how the aesthetic of classical music is a mechanism through which the middle classes carry out boundary-drawing around their protected spaces, and within these spaces, young people’s participation in classical music education cultivates a socially valued form of self-hood.

scholarly journals Linking musical metaphors and emotions evoked by the sound of classical music

2021 ◽  
pp. 030573562199123
Author(s):  
Simon Schaerlaeken ◽  
Donald Glowinski ◽  
Didier Grandjean
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Empirical Method ◽  
Mixed Effects Models ◽  
Musical Meaning ◽  
Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Generalized Linear Mixed Effects ◽  
Perceptual Characteristics ◽  
Valence And Arousal ◽  
Western Classical Music

Musical meaning is often described in terms of emotions and metaphors. While many theories encapsulate one or the other, very little empirical data is available to test a possible link between the two. In this article, we examined the metaphorical and emotional contents of Western classical music using the answers of 162 participants. We calculated generalized linear mixed-effects models, correlations, and multidimensional scaling to connect emotions and metaphors. It resulted in each metaphor being associated with different specific emotions, subjective levels of entrainment, and acoustic and perceptual characteristics. How these constructs relate to one another could be based on the embodied knowledge and the perception of movement in space. For instance, metaphors that rely on movement are related to emotions associated with movement. In addition, measures in this study could also be represented by underlying dimensions such as valence and arousal. Musical writing and music education could benefit greatly from these results. Finally, we suggest that music researchers consider musical metaphors in their work as we provide an empirical method for it.

East meets West: Investigating the state of DJing culture and turntablism pedagogy in China

2021 ◽  
pp. 025576142199081
Author(s):  
Rhythy Quin
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
Independent Learning ◽  
Performance Practices ◽  
Political Values ◽  
Music Classroom ◽  
Music Practice ◽  
Chinese Music ◽  
Self Discovery

In the West, the music practice of turntablism continues to gain traction and awareness both inside and outside of the music classroom, as DJing becomes more prevalent in mainstream music culture. This qualitative study investigates the extent and type of turntablism pedagogy in China, a country with different cultural and political values where traditional Chinese music remains the centre of Chinese music education. Twelve DJs from cities across China took part in a series of in-depth interviews. They were asked to recall their experiences learning how to DJ in China, as well as their opinions of turntablism’s inclusion in music education. Findings showed that participants preferred independent learning methods. In particular, participants significantly depended on Chinese social media applications to learn about turntablism and develop a national DJing culture. An absence of turntablism and popular music pedagogy in Chinese music education was the main reason for participants’ self-discovery and learning of turntablism. Findings also revealed a cultural disconnect between the younger generation engrossed in DJing versus the older generation’s fixation on traditional Chinese music to uphold nationalism and patriotism in society. This study examines an ongoing struggle regarding the extent to which popular music performance practices can be accommodated to work with the political aims of Chinese music education.

scholarly journals Effects of Attentional Focus on Motor Performance and Physiology in a Slow-Motion Violin Bow-Control Task: Evidence for the Constrained Action Hypothesis in Bowed String Technique

2021 ◽  
pp. 002242942110347
Author(s):  
Emma Allingham ◽  
Clemens Wöllner
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Motor Performance ◽  
Body Movement ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
Arm Movement ◽  
Slow Motion ◽  
Attentional Focus ◽  
Electromyographic Activity ◽  
Constrained Action Hypothesis ◽  
Conscious Thinking

The constrained action hypothesis states that focusing attention on action outcomes rather than body movement improves motor performance. Dexterity of motor control is key to successful music performance, making this a highly relevant topic to music education. We investigated effects of focus of attention (FOA) on motor skill performance and EMG muscle activity in a violin bowing task among experienced and novice upper strings players. Following a pedagogically informed exercise, participants attempted to produce single oscillations of the string at a time under three FOA: internal (on arm movement), external (on sound produced), and somatic (on string resistance). Experienced players’ number of bow slips was significantly reduced under somatic focus relative to internal, although number of successful oscillations was not affected. Triceps electromyographic activity was also significantly lower in somatic compared to internal foci for both expertise groups, consistent with physiological understandings of FOA effects. Participants’ reported thoughts during the experiment provided insight into whether aspects of constrained action may be evident in performers’ conscious thinking. These results provide novel support for the constrained action hypothesis in violin bow control, suggesting a somatic FOA as a promising performance-enhancing strategy for bowed string technique.

Assessment of Health Risks in Musicians of the Slovene Philharmonic Orchestra, Ljubljana, Slovenia

2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 140-145
Author(s):  
Rajko Črnivec
Keyword(s):  
Health Status ◽  
Musculoskeletal Disorders ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Music Performance ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Length Of Service ◽  
Physical Impairments ◽  
Musculoskeletal Problems ◽  
Performance Ability

This study consisted of medical examination and comparison of results obtained in 70 musicians from the Slovene Philharmonic Orchestra, Ljubljana. The main goals of the study were to identify performance-related musculoskeletal disorders, to assess the health status and working capacity of the musicians, and to propose measures for improved protection of their health. The results were compared with results obtained in a control group of 28 marketing workers at Philip Morris Enterprise, Ljubljana. Musculoskeletal problems of the studied group of Slovene musicians were compared with problems of 109 musicians of the Berlin Opera Orchestra examined at the Institute of Occupational Health, Berlin, Germany. We identified performance-related diseases (inflammatory and degenerative skeletal disorders and minor occupational hearing impairments) that were most frequent. A significant proportion of performing musicians had overuse syndrome, caused by excessive use of the extremities and characterized by cumulative microtrauma exceeding human physiologic limits, and dermatologic problems, such as finger calluses and “fiddler’s neck.” The most frequent musculoskeletal problems were due to repetitive motion, unphysiologic postures (isometric strain on the affected muscles), and prolonged sitting position during performances. The highest level of musculoskeletal disorders was noted in the double bass and cello sections, followed by violin, viola, woodwind, and brass players. The severity of physical impairments and restricted ability to perform music were correlated with age, duration of classical music performance, and total length of service. In the group of Slovenian musicians, the incidence of health problems in general was twice as high as in the control group, whereas the incidence of musculoskeletal disorders was six times as high as that in the control group. Health status of the musicians in terms of moderate and severe physical impairments was worse than in the control group. Measures for improved health protection and better performance ability were proposed.

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