The Oxford Handbook of Music Performance, Volume 1 Gary McPherson "Volume 1 of the Oxford Handbook of Music Performance is designed around four distinct sections : Development and Learning, Proficiencies, Performance Practices, and Psychology. Chapters cover a range of topics dealing with musical development, talent development, and chapters dealing with learning strategies from a self-directed student learning perspective and high impact teaching mindframes. Essential proficiencies include coverage of effective practice habits, through to the abilities of being able to play by ear, sight-read, improvise, memorize repertoire, and conduct and chapters that detail the highly personalized forms of musical expression that go beyond the printed notation or stylistic convention of the repetoire being performed. Chapters within the Performance Practices section cover some of the most fundamental aspects of performance practices from Baroque through to New Music repertoire and include chapters dealing with how emotions might be generated as a form of historically informed performance practice, and how creativity unfolds in the real-time dynamics of musical performance. The Psychology section concerns characteristics and individual differences in human behavior, cognition, emotion, and wellness. Across chapters in this section, several common threads and themes are evident: Our relationships with music itself and what it means to become and to be a musician, the tensions that can arise between the joy of music and the hard work required to develop musical skills, and the intimate connection between music performance and our social and emotional lives"-- |
