Abstract
Music performance is considered one of the most complex human activities. It involves not only hundreds of muscles, coordinated to produce the desired musical result, but also a variety of cognitive mechanisms, including complex emotional and analytic processes (Zatorre et al., 2007). The study of music performance has yielded important insights into brain processes, including neural plasticity (Schlaug et al., 1995; Schlaug, 2001; Munte et al., 2002; Schneider et al., 2005), motor control (Slobounov et al., 2002; Watson, 2006), rhythmic control (Rammsayer and Altenmuller, 2006; Repp and Doggett, 2007; Goebl and Palmer, 2009), and emotional communication (Gabrielsson and Juslin, 1996; Juslin, 1997; Juslin and Laukka, 2003). The information acquired through systematic studies is invaluable in its contribution to our understanding of brain mechanisms underlying music perception and performance. However, such studies are limited in their ability to simulate the atmosphere of a concert performance, or to systematically follow the long period of training required to master a musical piece. Hence, it may be beneficial to obtain additional information by studying the strategies employed by professional concert artists to optimize their practice routines and their performance under stressful conditions. Such strategies enable them to confront many of the physiological constraints dictated by the muscular and central nervous system. In this short note, we highlight some key properties of these strategies and their possible relevance to studying other complex human activities
Highlights
Music performance is considered one of the most complex human activities
A more direct approach for a performer to avoid the Performance Vicious Cycle (PVC) is by developing “mental scripts” which include the exact series of desirable mental events during a musical performance
Music performance can serve as an archetypical paradigm for studying deliberate mental control of complex motor action
Summary
Music performance is considered one of the most complex human activities. It involves hundreds of muscles, coordinated to produce the desired musical result, and a variety of cognitive mechanisms, including complex emotional and analytic processes (Zatorre et al, 2007). In a seminal article published in 1951, observed that the time differences between the components of fast sequential action do not allow separate conscious planning of each component He concluded that the ability to perform fast sequential motor actions can be explained only by the existence of a single motor plan encompassing the whole sequence This hierarchical movement planning theory is supported by evidence showing that the process of learning complex serial movements typically involves formation of “chunks” of movements (Miller, 1956). While fast passages may involve time scales of tens of milliseconds (Rumelhart and Norman, 1982), musical phrases, sections, and whole movements typically involve time scales of seconds, minutes, and longer In performing such musical excerpts, the performer may consciously follow various structural levels of the piece using known nomenclature such as “exposition,” “first theme,” or “second theme,” etc. The reason for this may be that most of the reported interventions attempt to affect the general state of mind of the performing musician, but do not try to directly affect mental processes during the performance of specific pieces of music
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