Acquisition of Skills and Techniques Flashcards
What did Tan et al. (2009) propose in terms of rhythm and expressive timing?
Performers have two levels in which they can make sense of timing
Internal clock and muscle precision
What is the idea of an internal clock?
Innate sense of timing (often imprecise and unreliable)
You have your own sense of the timing of a piece of music
You have to keep your own timing when playing piano pieces etc.
Cognitive concept
What is the idea of muscle precision?
Keeping a beat by clapping along. Tactile/muscle memory keeps the rhythm more reliable than your internal clock
Do performers use both levels (internal clock and muscle precision) when playing an instrument?
Yes
What is voice leading?
Expressive timing
What happens in voice leading?
Several notes go on simultaneously in pieces. Performers have a way of picking out the melody when they play several notes together
Skilled performers emphasise main melodic notes to pick out the melody
Who proposed the concept of voice leading?
Palmer (1989)
What helps stay in tune when singing?
Chest and abdominal muscles push air out. This helps the air stream when it comes to staying in tune etc.
How many people claim to be tone deaf? (Cuddy et al., 2005)
17% of people
How many students are claimed to sing out of tune?
59%
What does tone deafness result in?
Misperception of pitch
Inability to replicate a note that is being played
Where is tone deafness commonly seen?
In groups of children seeing
What did Dalla Bella (2007) find in terms of non-singers and singing?
When singing Happy Birthday, the non-singers were good at staying in tune (90% of the non-singers sang in-tune at professional accuracy), as well as the professional singers
What are two important things in singing?
Confidence and familiarity
What is amusia?
Inability to detect differences between melodies or recognise familiar tunes
Find it difficult to recognise sounds as music - music might just sound like meaningless noise e.g., rattling pots and pans
What % of the population have amusia? (Perez & Hyde, 2003)
4% of the population have amusia
How does being amusical affect one’s life? (McDonald & Stewart, 2008)
Lifelong difficulties with music
Social problems - tend to avoid social situations because of background music (e.g., restaurants)
Sense of missing out on a pleasant experience. Might see how much music means to other people and it bothered them that it didn’t mean much to them. Miss out on the appreciation of music.
Deeply affected by music and lyrical content
What can amusia occur from?
Brain injury or trauma
Some might be born with amusia
What does Ericsson et al. (1993) argue about natural gift vs practice for musical ability?
Looked at professional violinists and pianists
Looked at how much practice they put in over the years (retrospective data)
Found that professionals practiced more (7400+ hours in their life) than amateurs (3400 hours)
Deliberate practice is more important than innate skills for music
PRACTICE is the secret to being good. Need to practice according to a proper schedule.
What did Macnamara & Maitra (2019) find when they replicated Ericsson et al.’s (1993) study?
Failed to support their findings. Failed to replicate the skill and practice correlation.
What did Macnamara & Maitra (2019) argue about natural gift vs practice for musical ability?
Argued that informal, self-direct practice (for enjoyment, messing around) was just as important as scheduled practice.
What did Macnamara & Maira (2019) argue about the qualities of practice?
Teacher-directed practice did not have the same predictive power as Ericsson et al. (1993) found.
Argued that informal, self-direct practice (for enjoyment, messing around) was just as important as scheduled practice.
Argued that your WILLINGNESS to practice informally is a better predictor of your success and skill. These are people who genuinely love playing their instrument.
What does the 10,000 hour rule refer to?
The idea that informal practice seems very useful in terms of future success and ability.
Informal practice is helpful for developing expressivity and co-ordination
The Beatles were so successful because of the intensity of their performances on a regular basis. They played every night for 3 or 4 year, trying out lots of different genres.
What did Sloboda et al. (1996) find about practice and exam performance?
The top performers did 30 minutes of practice in first year, 40 minutes in second year, and 75 minutes by fourth year.
Other children did 15-25 minutes practice and were less successful.
The bottom group (the group who practiced the least) did not make steady progress across years.
All other children (the ones who practised) made steady progress across years
