Professional Musicians Research Articles

Effects of Passion, Experience, and Cultural Politics on Classical Musicians' Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The widespread cancelation of cultural events during the early 2020 stages of the COVID-19 pandemic led professional performing musicians across the world to experience an increasing economic fragility that threatened their health and wellbeing. Within this “new normal,” developing countries have been at a higher risk due to their vulnerable health systems and cultural policies. Even in such difficult times, the music profession requires musicians to keep up their practicing routines, even if they have no professional commitments. This is because high level technical and expressive skills are crucial to sustaining a music career at a high performance level. However, it could be expected that not all musicians might have had the same engagement with music practice during lockdowns. In this study, we studied the experiences of 309 professional classical musicians based in European and Latin American countries with different levels of performing experience to examine their passionate (or lack thereof) engagement with music practice. Through the mixed methods combination of multigroup invariance and narrative analyses, we identified distinct profiles of musicians who displayed more harmonious or more obsessive passion orientations before and at the peak of the pandemic. We observed that musicians with higher levels of harmonious passion in particular were more capable of sustaining their practice at the peak of the pandemic and that these musicians were mostly located in Latin America—a paradox, considering that cultural politics supporting the careers of professional performing musicians and entrepreneurial education in Latin America are lacking to a great extent, especially in comparison with the European context. We explain this in terms of the “forced” self-management embraced by musicians in Latin American countries who want to engage with music practice both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic even if the music profession does not generate enough revenue for them.

Women Who Play Accordion or Female Accordionists?

During the first half of the twentieth century, the accordion was a hugely popular musical instrument that held a strong position within Swedish dance and popular music. Through concerts, record releases and radio performances the accordionists became popular artists, and as skilled musicians, composers and educators they influenced what has come to be defined as accordion music. To most people, the expected image of these accordionists is the one of a male musician. But as a matter of fact, there have been many female accordionists active in Sweden as professional musicians who have been disregarded in music history. In this article, I want to shed light on these women by questioning if and how the stipulations for female accordionists differed from those of their male colleagues. By following about twenty female accordionists, active between the years 1930–1980, I will note that although female accordionists embraced the same repertoire and stylistic ideals as men in accordion music, there have been differences in the qualifications required to be a professional musician. On the one hand, women were expected to combine their musicianship with expected female musical roles such as singers and dancers. On the other hand, they were excluded from areas that were considered reserved for men, such as making records, educational work and composing. I will therefore argue that the phrase “female accordionist” does not just describe a woman playing the accordion. More than that, it sums up societal and patriarchal structures as well as musical ideals that separated female accordion players from the expected male norm of an accordionist. The article is based on interviews, sound recordings, photographs and other archival material from the collections of Svenskt visarkiv (The Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research). Printed publications as the magazine Accordion Journalen (1949–1963) and the encyclopedia Svenska dragspelare (1946) have also been used.

Sonic Ecologies

Sonic Ecologies

Occupational hearing loss in music performers of Cuenca’s Symphonic Orchestra, 2019

BACKGROUND: Noise-induced hearing loss (NHL) is the second leading cause of hearing loss, after presbycusis. It is considered an occupational disease and a public health problem. The aim of this study was to establish the prevalence of occupational noise-induced hearing loss and its association with other sociodemographic and occupational variables in performers of Cuenca’s Symphonic Orchestra in 2019. METHODS: This is an observational, analytical, cross-sectional study, whose universe was conformed by the professional musicians of Cuenca’s Symphonic Orchestra in 2019. We aimed to establish the risk of noise-induced hearing loss in association with variables such as age, sex, hours of daily practice, material of the instrument played, and years of exercise as a musician, throught Odds Ratio statistical test. The 45 musicians were surveyed and audiometric tests were performed. RESULTS: The universe consisted of 45 musicians: 38 males and 7 females. The average age was 40 years. 46.7% played a musical instrument profesionaly for more than ten years and 53.3% for up to ten years. 60% practiced more than 10 hours a day. 53.3% played string instruments, 20% woodwind instruments, 17.8% brass instruments and 8.9% percussion instruments. The prevalence of hearing loss was 17.8%: 13.3% bilateral and 4.4% unilateral. The prevalence of mild hearing loss was 8.9%; moderate in 6.7% and acoustic trauma occurred in 2.2%. Age (>30 years) and working time (>10 years) represented risks for hearing loss development. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of noise-induced hearing loss was 17.8%, mostly mild and bilateral. All those who were affected were male. The prevalence was higher among musicians who played wind-metal instruments; however, no statistically significant association was found. Being older than 30, and having played professionally for more than years are risk factors for noise-induce hearing loss.

Songwriting, professional studio recording, and a CD release party: Interviews with two adults with mental health conditions

Through attaining a small university grant, I was able to fund a studio recording project of original compositions written in music therapy sessions at a local mental health organization and then provide members with a CD release party to showcase their work. I was interested in exploring the members’ experiences of songwriting, recording in a professional studio, and having a CD release party. I therefore conducted individual semi-structured interviews with two adult members who participated in the project and used an inductive approach to thematic analysis to analyze data. The participating music therapist verified the seven themes resultant of data analyses: Commitment to songwriting despite challenges; Valued collaborating with a professional musician and qualified music therapist; Anticipated future songwriting; Desire to deliver an inspirational message through songwriting; Songwriting benefits included pride, mood, self-expression, and accomplishment; Enjoyed the novel studio recording experience; and Positive experience at the CD release party. Emerging themes indicated that songwriting and recording were challenging yet rewarding experiences that the members took seriously. Implications for clinical practice, limitations, and suggestions for future research are provided.

Prevalence of hearing protection use and subjective auditory symptoms among Spanish classical orchestral musicians

IntroductionSensorineural hearing loss caused by exposure to noise is one of the most frequent causes of deafness. Professional musicians have significant occupational exposure to high levels of noise. Use of hearing protection among musicians could substantially prevent hearing damage, though the rate of use is quite low. Methods and materialA questionnaire on the use of protective hearing devices, hearing care, and subjective judgments of hearing difficulties was completed by a group of classical musicians from Spain. We analysed the frequency of device use by instrument based on contingency tables analysed by χ2 tests. ResultsOne hundred and ninety-four Spanish classical orchestral musicians voluntarily completed the questionnaire. The percentage of musicians who reported using hearing protection in our survey was very low and varied with the type of instrument played. However, we found a high prevalence of subjective auditory disorders within this group. ConclusionFew Spanish musicians use hearing protection. Training on hearing-loss prevention in this field and better protective devices could increase device use and improve the auditory health of this group.

Piano Music Transcriber

Sheet music is a transcribed or printed type of melodic documentation that portrays the rhythms, harmonies, pitches of music with the assistance of melodic images. Printed music is the most essential instrument for artists to learn and play music. An educated musician can, from this sheet, play an entire grand composition. However, making sheet music from scratch is a very long and intricate process. A lot of musical experience is required for making sheet music from music one hears and even experts tend to make mistakes. This makes it almost impossible for beginners who are unable to distinguish between different chords to play the music that they hear. We aim to create a system that would provide the user with the needed sheet music by taking the input from the user in the form of an audio mp3 file. The proposed system automatically generates sheet music directly from recorded songs. This system proposed is mainly composed of estimation of chords then converting it into MIDI file which is a computer understandable language, and eventually into sheet music. All stereo audio recordings are converted into mono which further resampled to 16 kHz. Music generation is also applied which gives a priming sequence to the model in the types of a MIDI file and then predicts the further notes to help musicians form further melody while the composition of music is taking place. Beginners and lesser experienced musicians also struggle with procuring sheet music for melodies and are limited to only what is available from other professional transcribers. For professional musicians, it helps to lay the foundations and automates a major part of the creation process. Professionals can further improve the automatically generated sheet music without the burden of starting from scratch

Getting Into the Zone: A Pilot Study of Autonomic-Cardiac Modulation and Flow State During Piano Performance.

BackgroundMusic performance anxiety is a common experience among elite and professional musicians and impedes performers from achieving flow state, or a state of focused, sustained engagement that promotes optimal performance.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to use heart rate variability (HRV) to determine the psychophysiological underpinnings of optimal music performance.MethodsWe assessed HRV to study how autonomic-cardiac modulation was associated with flow during piano performance. Twenty-two pianists (15–22 years) with at least a Grade 8 Royal Conservatory of Music certification prepared two standardized pieces and a self-selected piece. Performer heart rate data were measured with a Polar 800 watch in 5-min periods immediately before performances, during performances and post-performance. HRV was employed to assess autonomic modulation of cardiac intervals. HRV indices of sympathetic and parasympathetic modulation of the heart were analyzed in 2.5-min segments to monitor short-term autonomic adjustments using the Kubios HRV Software. Flow state was measured using the 36-item Flow State Scale (FSS). Relationships were analyzed using zero-order correlations and multiple linear regressions.ResultsOur sample consisted of 22 RCM Grade 8 certified pianists. Participants achieved the highest level of flow during performance of the Bach piece. Decreased HRV was observed during performance, as indicated by a significant drop in total power. Flow state was positively associated with High Frequency (HF) power during the pre-performance phase, and inversely associated with Low Frequency (LF) power during performance.ConclusionInverse association of flow with LF-HRV during performance affirms the importance of vagal-HR modulation for achievement of flow state. Increased HF-HRV and reduced LF-HRV immediately prior to performance suggests that flow state may be shaped as much by physiological preparation during pre-performance as it is by physiologic responses during performance. Further research is required to validate the correlation between autonomic modulation of the heart and flow state. Evidence of this correlation between autonomic modulation of the heart and achievement of flow state may pave the way for further research on enhancing musical performance and targeting MPA through HRV-based interventions.

Does genre make a difference? Classical orchestra/popular band musicians’ motivation, self-efficacy, and practice experiences’ effects on deliberate practice

This study investigates the motivational conditions, self-efficacy beliefs, and practice of classical (symphonic, wind) orchestra/popular (rock, pop) band musicians. It thus complements previous research which has shed light on individual aspects of music learning. In both individual and collective work, high quality practice performed in a sufficient amount of time was shown to be very effortful. A mixed-method approach combined a questionnaire and an additional prototypical case interview for each genre with professional musicians. The results show that classical musicians were younger than popular musicians when they started to learn their first and main music instrument and entered their first orchestra or band. While it was confirmed that individual experience was crucial for the time invested in and the quality of deliberate practice, collective practice experiences were also indicated to be a determinant. Furthermore, individual and collective practice were shown to be interrelated. Professional level was suggested to be a more discriminating factor with regard to the variables studied than genre, as professional musicians from both genres deploy deliberate practice strategies in an individual and in a collective context. Improvisation and jamming, however, only appeared in the popular collective and classical individual practice context.

How can we prepare music students for early career challenges?

AbstractEarning a living via multiple income streams through a portfolio career is the reality for most music graduates. In the last 10–15 years, music conservatoires around the world have begun to recognise and respond to this reality in the way they train and prepare students for life after study (Bennet, 2008; Draper & Cunio, 2014; Rowley et al., 2015; Schippers et al., 2016). Conservatoire curricula is prescribed and controlled to ensure that students gain the skills required to build a career as a professional musician. Reforming conservatoire curricula to incorporate portfolio career training is an ongoing concern that is made more complex by the different conceptual understandings of what training for a portfolio career means (Latukefu & Ginsborg, 2018). This article contributes to the literature on how students conceptualise and make decisions surrounding their transition into work after graduation. It uses narrative analysis research to investigate the value of introducing career design into the curriculum of a Bachelor of Music. It incorporates narratives by students who took part in a series of interventions designed to increase self-efficacy and explores the role of career indecision in the designing of a creative career. Career indecision in this context relates to the inability of music students to conceive of what they wish for their creative career to look like after graduation, even when a decision is necessary. The narratives reveal how different factors such as family support, cultural and religious backgrounds and prior music education impact on their confidence and perceptions surrounding their ability to design and maintain a creative career. These narratives also uncovered the interplay of career exploration, career indecision and anxiety in the career decision-making process of undergraduate music students.

Music professionalism promoting gerotranscendence: An instrumental case study of healthcare musicians in an eldercare hospital

The effect of ever-increasing life expectancy on global demographics has had a significant impact on many professional landscapes, not only in social services and healthcare but more broadly. This instrumental case study explores professional healthcare musicians’ work through their collaborative, socially engaged music-making practice in eldercare hospital wards. Two healthcare musicians were interviewed, and their work and professional practices were observed in the infection and orthopedic wards of an arts-promoting eldercare hospital. The empirical material was analyzed using thematic analysis, and finalized by instrumentalizing the case through the theoretical lens of gerotranscendence and music professionalism. The findings of the study open up a diversified understanding of aging as a transformative process of change and development, and reveal how professional music practices can support a holistic care and healthcare approach. Furthermore, it is discovered that healthcare musicians’ work as a socially engaged approach to professionalism reframes musicianship as part of an expanding professionalism, and calls for further development of higher music education as well as in-service training in the field of music.

Астраханский Архиерейский хор в концертах духовной музыки

In the post-Soviet period, there was a noticeable increase in interest in the church singing art. Professional musicians were given the opportunity to perform and study music that had not been so widely distributed until that time. For many, another direction for self-realization has opened up. Spiritual music has increasingly begun to go beyond the scope of worship and is performed everywhere by both secular and church choirs on the stage. Thus, this kind of the richest Russian cultural heritage became more accessible not only for the parishioners of churches, but also for the listeners of concert halls.Traditions of concerts of Orthodox music, with the joint performance of church and secular choirs have been laid in Astrakhan since the early 1990s. The organization of such events is one of the directions of concert and educational activities of the Astrakhan Metropolis. The Astrakhan Bishops' Choir has always been an indispensable participant in these concerts. He is in many ways a model for other singing groups of the city, such a format of activity has a great influence on the professional state of choir choirs, repertoire preferences, manner of performance and much more.In this article we will consider the concert style of singing of large cathedrals on the example of the bishops' choir of the Intercession and Assumption cathedrals, their concert and festival activities.

Together apart: a comparison of a thematic and diffractive analysis of a participatory music project

ABSTRACT Despite a growing interest in posthuman research methodologies within educational research, there has been limited research to date which applies this theory to music education. We consider that there is much that posthumanism and music education may offer each other, particularly within the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic which challenges us to innovate rapidly within our educational and research practices. We explore the potential of this methodology through conducting a ‘diffractive analysis,’ an approach to enquiry associated with posthuman theory. Drawing on data collected during a participatory music project involving children with SEND [Special Educational Needs and Disabilities], professional musicians, trainee generalist primary teachers and ourselves as facilitators and researchers, we draw out the potential of a diffractive analysis by putting it into dialogue with a thematic analysis of the same data. In documenting this we describe our own process of co-becoming as researchers, entangled with our research and our data. We describe the research processes that we followed, and through a comparison of materials produced during our initial analysis, we consider the similarities, differences and conversations that emerge.

Characterizing the Relationship Between the COVID-19 Pandemic and U.S. Classical Musicians' Wellbeing.

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the economic and social wellbeing of communities worldwide. Certain groups have been disproportionately impacted by the strain of the pandemic, such as classical musicians. The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly harmed the classical music industry, silencing the world's concert halls and theaters. In an industry characterized by instability, a shock as great as COVID-19 may bring negative effects that far outlast the pandemic itself. This study investigates the wellbeing of classical musicians during the COVID-19 pandemic. 68 professional classical musicians completed a questionnaire composed of validated measures of future time horizons, emotional experience, social relationships, and life satisfaction. Findings show that feelings of loneliness had a significant negative association with other measures of wellbeing and were significantly mediated by increased social integration and perceived social support from colleagues, friends, and family. These findings help to characterize the present psychological, emotional, and social wellness of classical musicians in the United States, the first step toward mitigating the hazardous impacts of COVID-19 on this vulnerable group's mental health and wellness.

Associations between music training and cognitive abilities: The special case of professional musicians.

Associations between music training and cognitive abilities: The special case of professional musicians.

Jean Rémusat's Musical and Educational Activity in the Context of Forming European Orchestral Traditions in Shanghai

The author considered the main stages of creative formation and musical-educational as well as concert-performance activities of Jean Rémusat (J. Rémusat) in Europe and China. J. Rémusat's achievements as a flutist are examined in the context of his orchestral practice in Parisian and London theaters. Concert programs of J. Rémusat's performances as a soloist and member of ensemble groups on the basis of music-critical publications of Shanghai periodicals of 1860-1870 were analyzed. The main directions of his creative collaboration with other European musicians (G.B Fentum, J. C. H. Iburg) is highlighted in the cultural leisure of Shanghai in the western sector of the city. The author identified the role of the French musician in the founding of the Shanghai Philharmonic Society and the Wind Music Association to intensify the concert and performance activities of local amateur groups and professional musicians and hold their regular performances in front of citizens. It is emphasized that the organization of J. Rémusat's concerts is based on European experience, offering various forms of performances by artists with a repertoire available to the local public. The work of J. Rémusat, conductor and musician-educator, is described in view of his founding of private orchestral groups and his close cooperation with military musicians on the way to creating an amateur group "Shanghai Volunteer Brass Band". The process of professionalization of the amateur orchestra and the development of instrumental composition with the involvement of qualified musicians on the way to its transformation into a symphonic ensemble is highlighted. The orchestra repertoire based on works by classical and romantic composers is described. The representative functions of the orchestra in the celebration and participation in various citywide cultural events in Shanghai is clarified. The principle of formation of the instrumental composition of the municipal orchestra by professional musicians is revealed. It has been found that in the selection of orchestras, J. Rémusat preferred Filipino instrumentalists, who after a three-hundred-year period of Spanish colonial dependence were more familiar with Western orchestral culture than local Chinese musicians. The decisive role of Jean Rémusat as an active propagandist of European orchestral traditions in the creation of the official municipal "Shanghai Public Brass Band" (Shanghai Public Band) has been proved.

An exploration of the practice habits and experiences of professional musicians

ABSTRACT Practice occupies an essential and significant place in every musician’s life, yet the practice habits of highly experienced, professional musicians, remain under-researched. As such, this study sought to contribute to the emerging body of knowledge into professional musicians’ practice. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with six such musicians, and through the qualitative content analysis of the resulting transcripts, and an evaluation of the findings in relation to current literature, insights into professional musicians’ practice time, practice strategies, and motivation were uncovered. The analysis of participant transcripts revealed that, due to greater work and family responsibilities, as well as greater efficiency, the participants spend significantly less time practicing now as professional musicians than they did as university students. The practice strategies reported by participants to be the most helpful in their practice were listening to recordings, slow practice, and employing a mindset of focus and self-awareness. The analysis also revealed that each participant reported intrinsic motivation towards practicing, and used the strategies of taking breaks, and simply picking up their instruments, to increase their motivation. The findings from this study are useful to those who might seek to one day be a professional musician, as well as to professional musicians who might find it interesting to know how their own practice habits align with those of other professional musicians.

Cityscapes.

Philip Alexander, MD, is a native Texan, retired physician, and accomplished musician and artist. After 41 years as an internal medicine physician, Dr. Phil retired from his practice in College Station in 2016. A lifelong musician and former music professor, he often performs as an oboe soloist for the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra. He began exploring visual art in 1980, evolving from pencil sketches—including an official White House portrait of President Ronald Reagan—to the computer-generated drawings featured in this journal. His images, which first appeared in this journal in the spring of 2012, are his own original creations.If you would like to see your art published in the Methodist DeBakey Cardiovascular Journal, submit your creation online at journal.houstonmethodist.org as a “Humanities” entry.

Impulse dispersion of aerosols during playing wind instruments.

Musical activities, especially singing and playing wind instruments, have been singled out as potentially high-risk activities for the transmission of SARS CoV-2, due to a higher rate of aerosol production and emission. Playing wind instruments can produce condensation, droplets of saliva, and aerosol particles, which hover and spread in the environmental air’s convectional flows and which can be potentially infectious. The aim of this study is to investigate the primary impulse dispersion of aerosols that takes place during the playing of different wind instruments as compared to breathing and to speaking. Nine professional musicians (3 trumpeters, 3 flautists and 3 clarinetists) from the Bavarian Symphony Orchestra performed the main theme from the 4th movement of Ludwig van Beethoven‘s 9th symphony in different pitches and loudness. The inhaled air volume was marked with small aerosol particles produced using a commercial e-cigarette. The expelled aerosol cloud was recorded by cameras from different perspectives. Afterwards, the dimensions and dynamics of the aerosol cloud were measured by segmenting the video footage at every time point. Overall, the flutes produced the largest dispersion at the end of the task, reaching maximum forward distances of 1.88 m. An expulsion of aerosol was observed in different directions: upwards and downwards at the mouthpiece, at the end of the instrument, and along the flute at the key plane. In comparison, the maximum impulse dispersions generated by the trumpets and clarinets were lower in frontal and lateral direction (1.2 m and 1.0 m towards the front, respectively). Also, the expulsion to the sides was lower.

Musical development then and now: in conversation with June Boyce-Tillman

AbstractJune Boyce-Tillman and Keith Swanwick’s article on musical development is the second most widely cited paper in the history of the British Journal of Music Education. It appears in many discussions of musical development. A selection of the diverse domains where the paper is cited includes: instrumental teaching, Special Education Needs, primary school teaching, the development of learning for professional musicians, secondary school teaching, musicians’ skill development, adult music teaching and jazz improvisation. However, the background to this work, which was conceived for June Boyce-Tillman’s PhD thesis, is not always so well known. This article presents a research interview with June Boyce-Tillman conducted in August 2017. It explores her musical background and music education experiences, and seeks to enable further discussion of the characteristics which were described in the spiral model. The interview focuses on the concepts of Materials, vernacular, and musical Values, in particular, and the implications of these modes of understanding for classroom practices, including curriculum design.