Self-Regulated Learning in Music Practice and Performance

Abstract

This chapter discusses self-regulated learning (SRL) in the context of music. SRL holds significant potential for increasing the efficiency of musical skill acquisition across all aspects of music performance instruction. We begin with a review of selected research that has studied skill acquisition when learning to play a musical instrument. Although the literature related to this topic is growing steadily, much of the scholarship is scattered and atheoretical. Moreover, researchers in music tend to concentrate on behavior and cognition as separate and somewhat unrelated theoretical topics to the exclusion of affect. We discuss these limitations and present a summary of literature that brings research-based evidence pertaining to behavior, cognition, and affect together into a coherent SRL framework. Current and future research priorities are then detailed as a means of outlining ways of maximizing music practice, teacher-student interactions, and efficient approaches to learning complex musical skills. Our final section summarizes the discussion and provides implications for how SRL might be adopted more widely in the music education domain.