Young Musicians Research Articles

Correspondance generale

Mariede Flavigny, Comtesse d'Agoult: Édition établie et annotée par Charles Dupêchez. Tome ii. 1837–1839. Paris, Champion, 2004. 611 pp. Hb €105.00. The greater part of this scholarly second volume produced by Charles Dupêchez covers the mostly happy period Marie d'Agoult spent in Nohant with George Sand, then in Italy with Liszt, whose reputation as a performer was now immense. It was a time during which she bore him two children and published her first articles, written in collaboration with the young musician. Their impressive circle of friends included George Sand, Berlioz, Chopin, Lamennais, Hortense Allart, Sainte-Beuve, Henri Lehmann and Ingres. Marie invested much hope in her friendship with George Sand, whose early works she admired, but her affection cooled because later events made her consider the writer to be lacking in dignity in her private life. Marie also believed her friend was wasting her talent by becoming superficial in her writing, and one notes that she had a low opinion of Musset, as man and writer. As part of her long exile from France, she spent happy months with Liszt amidst the natural beauty of Lake Como, an inspiration to the composer. It was here that she gave birth to their daughter Cosima, who would one day marry Wagner. Liszt's love of Marie was an important part of his life, and they shared the fervent belief that Art, including music, could be an agent of social progress. Marie, a rich aristocrat, had sympathy for the poor, and believed that a time would come when the absolute monarchies of Europe would be replaced by democracy. She proclaims that the states of Northern Italy are in intellectual and artistic decadence because of the tyranny of Austria. Her descriptions of Italian cities are at times acerbic. Ancient Rome impressed her, but not the modern city: ‘Le peuple est sale et méchant; l'aristocratie avare et bête; le pape gourmand. Le clergé ignoble’ (p. 298). One letter from Rome narrates a remarkable evening when an enthusiastic Liszt on the piano, and Ingres with his proverbial violin, played a Beethoven sonata for her. One would like to have been there. The charm and intelligence of Marie d'Agoult were considerable, and she was admired by a number of talented men, including the painter Henri Lehmann, who was living in Rome. He immortalized her in a fine portrait, now in the Musée Carnavalet. Sainte-Beuve was another of her suitors, but her exclusive affection was for Liszt, whom she saw as an artist with a power that could change the world. This volume of letters, which also gives extracts from diaries, throws much light on the intellectual and artistic life of the time. The Italian episode ends on a poignant note, as Marie senses that her time of happiness with Liszt may be coming to an end.

Addressing the concerns of conservatoire students about school music teaching

While most of the students who graduate each year from the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London build performance-based portfolio careers that include some teaching, very few of them enter secondary school class music teaching. This article describes how young musicians' concerns about the career of secondary class music teacher develop as they move from sixth former to first year RCM undergraduate to third year undergraduate, and proposes some ways in which these concerns may be addressed. RCM students often agree strongly with statements consistent with a positive attitude to teaching, such as feeling a sense of achievement when pupils learn, and considering that teaching is about helping pupils realise their musical potential. However, they also tend to think that secondary class music teaching is not ‘doing music’. Successful secondary music teachers may take a different view, and the effect on RCM students of working with such teachers is reported descriptively.

The Subtle Art: Educating the Musician of the Twenty-First Century

The broad goals of this paper are to discuss the relation of the art of music to our society and our culture, to examine the artist as an individual in today's world, and most importantly, to present some of the personal and artistic conflicts that young musicians may experience during their formative years. In addition, I will suggest a few general solutions that address the problems inherent in educating the performing musician of the late twentieth century. [In celebration of MPPA's 20 years of publication, we are looking back at some of the notable articles that appeared in the early issues. This paper was published originally in December 1986 MPPA.]

Investigating Performance-related Problems of Young Musicians

Many investigators have expressed concern about the paucity of research literature on the subject of younger musicians, particularly adolescents, and little is known about their performance-related injuries. This study was undertaken to explore this neglected area. Ninety-seven students in four youth orchestras in a midsized midwestern city were surveyed to examine the relationships between such factors as practice time and pain, to explore what students do when they experience pain while playing, and to determine whether students have been exposed to any injury prevention education. Few reported accepting the belief of playing through pain, while performance anxiety was reported at a higher-than-expected rate. The older students had more awareness of possible causes of playing-related pain and strategies for its elimination than did the younger students. The older students also discussed their pain with teachers more frequently than did the younger students. It appeared that those students who sought help from teachers for their performance-related problems received information that was beneficial in reducing or solving the problem. Two statistically significant relationships were found; one between amount of practice time and grade of pain reported in the youngest orchestra, and the other comparing females by age and grade of pain reported.

Development and validation of a music performance anxiety inventory for gifted adolescent musicians

Music performance anxiety (MPA) is a distressing experience for musicians of all ages, yet the empirical investigation of MPA in adolescents has received little attention to date. No measures specifically targeting MPA in adolescents have been empirically validated. This article presents findings of an initial study into the psychometric properties and validation of the Music Performance Anxiety Inventory for Adolescents (MPAI-A), a new self-report measure of MPA for this group. Data from 381 elite young musicians aged 12–19 years was used to investigate the factor structure, internal reliability, construct and divergent validity of the MPAI-A. Cronbach's α for the full measure was .91. Factor analysis identified three factors, which together accounted for 53% of the variance. Construct validity was demonstrated by significant positive relationships with social phobia (measured using the Social Phobia Anxiety Inventory [Beidel, D. C., Turner, S. M., & Morris, T. L. (1995). A new inventory to assess childhood social anxiety and phobia: The Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children. Psychological Assessment, 7(1), 73–79; Beidel, D. C., Turner, S. M., & Morris, T. L. (1998). Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C). North Tonawanda, NY: Multi-Health Systems Inc.]) and trait anxiety (measured using the State Trait Anxiety Inventory [Spielberger, C. D. (1983). State-Trait Anxiety Inventory STAI (Form Y). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc.]). The MPAI-A demonstrated convergent validity by a moderate to strong positive correlation with an adult measure of MPA. Discriminant validity was established by a weaker positive relationship with depression, and no relationship with externalizing behavior problems. It is hoped that the MPAI-A, as the first empirically validated measure of adolescent musicians’ performance anxiety, will enhance and promote phenomenological and treatment research in this area.

Correlates of performance anxiety in practical music exams

A sample of 120 young musicians (36 males and 84 females) aged between 15 and 18 years ( M = 16.5, SD = 0.97) were administered the EPQ-R short scale and a revised PAI-R, a self-report measure of performance anxiety in practical music exams. Principal components analysis indicated that the PAI-R scores were best represented by a single component with an internal consistency reliability of .88. Females had significantly higher scores on the PAI-R than males. A significant negative correlation between PAI-R scores and psychoticism, and a significant positive correlation between PAI-R scores and neuroticism scores was obtained. The correlation between PAI-R scores and extraversion was negative but not significant. There was no significant correlation between PAI-R scores and years of playing. The implications of these findings for music teachers are considered.

Review of the Findings of Some Homicide Mental Health Inquiries Since 1994

he purpose of an inquiry is to improve practice and secure the future safety of patients and the public through the translation of findings into improved practice. In December 1992, Christopher Clunis killed Jonathan Zito, a young musician, at London’s Finsbury Park tube station. The subsequent trial was front-page news, and when Christopher Clunis was sentenced and committed to Rampton Hospital, Jonathan Zito’s widow, Jayne, called for a public inquiry. Subsequently the two regional health authorities concerned commissioned an independent inquiry in which I was involved. The inquiry, although not held in public, generated a vast amount of publicity and resulted in the Department of Health issuing guidance, HSG(94/27), which is still extant. The whole process led to a change in attitudes to mental health services for everyone and also heralded a more open approach to working with families. Since then I have been involved in almost 30 such inquiries and have had the privilege to chair some of them. This article is a result of this work; I have set in context the process adopted and attempted to draw out the findings and implications for the delivery of mental health services.

Deafness in a Young Musician: A Case of Missed Diagnosis

Hearing loss in a young adult can be devastating and prompt diagnosis and treatment of the cause are vital. This case report is of a young musician presenting to the ENT surgeons with deafness and a lower motor neurone facial nerve palsy which was given a presumptive diagnosis of infective pathology but subsequent investigations indicated this was an uncommon presentation of Wegener's Granulomatosis. Treatment involved systemic Cyclophosphamide followed by steroids and Azathioprine. Two years after commencing therapy the disease remains under control but the patient is left with bilateral hearing aids and a grade 3 facial nerve palsy. Diagnosis and treatment of this multi-system disease are discussed.

Conversation with Charles R. Schuster.

Conversation with Charles R. Schuster.

Velopharyngeal Insufficiency in Woodwind and Brass Players

Velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) has received little attention in the medical literature. The aim of the present study was to determine the extent to which VPI constitutes a problem for woodwind and brass musicians. A total of 148 musicians (professionals from a symphony orchestra and students, the latter mainly from a national youth orchestra) were asked if they were aware of the phenomenon of VPI and whether they experienced it. Intraoral pressure measurements were performed to determine pressure peaks, mean pressure, and maximum attainable pressures. Of the 148 musicians, 81 were aware of the VPI disorder, and 24 of them showed symptoms of it themselves. Six of the affected musicians reported that VPI occurred in association with colds or stress or the playing of extremely high notes. One musician noted that it occurred only on return from vacation leave. Of the symptom-free musicians, 15% reported that they noticed symptoms of VPI during their musical training but that these gradually dissipated of their own accord. VPI in woodwind and brass instrumentalists is obviously more common than previously recognized. Despite reports in the medical literature that predominantly young musicians are affected, in our study only 47% of the individuals with symptoms were school pupils or music students (who overall constituted 41% of the study subjects). Oboists and clarinettists were the most frequently affected, perhaps because they develop relatively high mean pressures. Although VPI frequently occurs when woodwind and brass musicians are undergoing training and then regresses, it may persist, particularly in instrumentalists in whom high mean pressures form. To prevent persistent VPI, it seems advisable for music teachers to perform pressure measurements during instructional periods.

If you can: inclusion in music making

This paper steps outside of conventional frameworks of schooling and examines inclusion from the perspective of eight young people and adults who play Scottish fiddle music in a group. The participants were asked to talk about their experiences of playing and their involvement with the group in practice and performance sessions. The group had been portrayed by its members as both inclusive, in the sense of involving players with a range of abilities (including children with dyslexia and dyspraxia), and successful as players, judged by the number of invitations to play and the children's regular success in the local Young Musician of the Year contest. It is argued that young people's experiences of inclusion and participation in fiddle music offer some valuable insights for school inclusion. These do not amount to a model to be applied to the school context; rather, they will hopefully alert teachers to new possibilities for encouraging and supporting the complex process of inclusion.

Cultural exchanges: contrasts and perceptions of young musicians

This article focuses on young musicians' perceptions of their musical and cultural experiences while on a tour of South Africa during the summer of 2000. The young musicians were asked to keep journals throughout the tour in order to be able to recall their reactions and feelings about their various experiences. The comments, particularly the written ones from the young musicians, vividly display the impact of such experiences on their musical and emotional life. While conclusions are incomplete, some implications for the nature of cultural exchange and understanding and music education in general are put forward.

On Conductors, Composers, and Music Directors: Serge Koussevitzky in Retrospect

This issue of MQ is dominated by a remarkable and closely annotated account of the relationship between Igor Stravinsky and Serge Koussevitzky. The rather repellent and two-faced nature of Stravinsky’s behavior revealed in this oddly empty and perfunctory epistolary collection comes as no surprise. This was truly a non-friendship. It reads rather like a one-sided display of kindness. No more startling is the extent of Koussevitzky’s generosity and his tireless advocacy, not only of Stravinsky but of composers in general (not to speak of young musicians). This is all familiar territory. But as the phrase “nice guys finish last” suggests, Stravinsky’s contempt for Koussevitzky as a musician, along with the sarcastic views of Nicolas Slonimsky and others like him, are what have ultimately influenced the historical view of Koussevitzky as a musician and conductor. The most unequivocal praise for his musical skills remains reserved for his prowess as a bass player. Rare recordings and eyewitness accounts attest to the unusual sound and virtuosity the young Koussevitzky possessed. When he played, the bass sounded more like a cello. Even his admittedly weak concerto for the instrument remains suspect as a sign of Koussevitzky’s musicianship; there are those who think that apart from the main theme, the work was written or at a minimum orchestrated by Reinhold Gliere. The notion that Koussevitzky was a “bad conductor” has been reinforced by the regular retelling of the fiasco of his 1921 performance of the Symphonies for Wind Instruments. It is further fuelled by the story of Koussevitzky’s rebarring of passages with complex meters in the Rite of Spring. Slonimsky contemptuously described how Koussevitzky needed rehearsal pianists to play the score for him in order to learn it. The overall impression of incompetence seems confirmed by the account in the Stravinsky correspondence of Koussevitzky’s handling of the Ode. Koussevitzky seems not to have picked up errors in transposition that presumably should have been audible. A negative view of Koussevitzky’s

Approaches to Music Notation: The printed score as a mediator of meaning in Western tonal tradition

In this exploratory, qualitative study, selected young musicians' ways of taking musical meaning from notation were investigated. A socio-cultural theoretical perspective was applied, which means that relations between traditions and individuals were especially accounted for. From the results of the study, conclusions on functions of the printed score as a mediator of musical meaning were drawn, and a theory of instrumental training was developed. Two main approaches to music notation were found: a REPRODUCTIVE and an EXPLORATIVE APPROACH. In the REPRODUCTIVE APPROACH, the function of the printed score is that of an explicitly normative document, which prescribes how to play, and through which the performance is to be assessed. In the EXPLORATIVE APPROACH, the function is that of an invitation to seek out implicit meaning according to the musicians' individual judgement, within a frame of agreed understanding in Western tonal music that they share with the composer. The conclusion was drawn, that strategies for coping with music notation, used in early levels of instrumental education, might strongly influence musicians in the long term, however skilled and experienced they may be. Teaching methods based on a REPRODUCTIVE APPROACH to the printed score may even prevent professional musicians from applying musical understanding developed later. Based on these results, a theory of instrumental teaching was developed, meaning that teacher's attitudes towards students, as well as towards music notation, might either support or obstruct students' development.

Masterpieces of Italian Violin Making (1620-1850). Important Stringed Instruments from the Collection at the Royal Academy of Music

This book presents a unique view of the work of the great Italian violin-makers from the 17th to the 19th centuries, based on the collection of The Royal Academy of Music in London. The Academy, founded in 1822, is Britain's senior conservatory and one of the oldest institutions in the world for advanced musical training. Included here are masterpieces by Amati, Cappa, Celoniato, Ceruti, Dalla Costa, Deconet, Gagliano, Grancino, Guadagnini, Guarneri, Landolfi, Pressenda, Rota, Rugeri, Seraphin, Sorsana, Stradivari, Tecchler, and Testore. This revised edition has an updated descriptive text, features 15 extra entries, devotes at least two full-color spreads to each instrument, and is supplemented with a new dendrochronological study. Specially-commissioned photographs display each violin, viola, or cello with large, high-quality illustrations, revealing details of these instruments as never before. The Academy's collection of stringed instruments consists of around 100 violins and a similar combined number of violas and celli, the majority of which were received as gifts over the last century, beginning with the Rutson Bequest in 1906. These working instruments are maintained in fine playing condition and generally are in the hands of young musicians during their time as students or at the outset of their careers. The fine selection presented here underlines the collection's core of masterpiece Italian violins, and for the most part this book includes only those instruments in the purest state of conservation.

The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Jazz

The question of the origins of jazz has, one might well imagine, received many answers in the seventy-five years since the music burst like a rocket over the American musical landscape. The least palatable perhaps is that offered by reactionary champions of the musical originality of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB), for example, Horst Lange. Much of his evidence is easy to dismiss, but one point at least makes us pause and think. He writes: It was always a riddle for the serious friend of jazz, why the fabulous and legendary Orleans jazz hadn't already been discovered around 1900 or 1910 in the city itself, since not only was it full of home-grown talent and musical professionals, but also received a constant stream of visitors and tourists. Shouldn't there have been someone, among all these people surely interested in music, who was struck by this novel music, which was later designated jazz? (Lange 1991, 28; my translation). In fact, there's no question that the particular instrumentation, manner of playing, and repertory of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, decisively assisted by the superb recording technique of the Victor Talking Machine Company, were copied by hundreds of young musicians, many of whom never had visited and never would visit Orleans. Someone who came close to fitting Lange's music-loving visitor to Orleans was J. Russell Robinson (1892-1963), a pianist and songwriter who had worked in that city around 1910 and was eventually to become a member of the ODJB. Many years later he recalled his reaction to these recordings: first, it was a new, interesting, and exciting sound, a bit blood-curdling; second, the musicians were recognizable as nonreaders; third, jazz was nothing but ragtime, played by ear (Robinson 1955, 13). Thus the sound, while strikingly novel and surely deserving of the acclaim of Lange, was recognized by an experienced professional as being but one species of the genus, ragtime played by ear by fakers, to use the usual term of the day. (1) Even at the time, however, Orleans colleagues and competitors of the ODJB fully acknowledged the debt all of them owed to African Americans. For example, Walter Kingsley reported the views of clarinetist Alcide Yellow Nunez: In 1916 Brown's Band from Dixieland came to Chicago direct from Orleans, and with it came Tutor Spriccio. They knew all the negro melodies with the variations taught by Spriccio.... This bunch from Orleans played by ear entirely (Kingsley 1918, 867). Then after a discussion of the Livery Stable Blues and the break routines for which Nunez claimed credit: All this, however, was derived from the Orleans blacks and John (867). These statements are offered not only to refute Lange's revisionism, but as one more illustration--Is one needed?--of the pervasive bias that constantly obscures investigation of the contributions of African Americans. Spriccio has a name, but not the old negroes or the New Orleans blacks. As is often the case, things look different from the other side of the color line. It is interesting to go back to what seems to have been the first published attempt by an African-American native of Orleans to plumb the mystery of the origin of The year was 1933, the author E. Belfield Spriggins, social editor of the Lousiana Weekly. He wrote, under the title Excavating Local Jazz: For quite some years now there has been an unusual amount of discussion concerning the popular form of music commonly called jazz. ... Many years ago jazz tunes in their original forms were heard in the Crescent City. Probably one of the earliest heard was one played by King Bolden's Band.... The rendition of this number became an over night sensation and the reputation of Bolden's band became a household word with the patrons of the Odd Fellows Hall, Lincoln and Johnson Parks, and several other popular dance halls around the city (Spriggins 1933, 6). …

Multimodal Enhancement of Culturally Diverse, Young Adult Musicians: A Pilot Study Involving the Tomatis Method

Musicians, seeking stress relief and vocal/instrumental enhancement, often turn to the Tomatis Method of sensori-neural integration training, based on the interdependence and interaction between hearing and listening, psychological attitude and speech and language. The paucity of impact studies on musicians, despite its acclaimed efficacy, has prompted the current multidisciplinary pilot study, involving a two group, pre-post experimental design. Listening aptitude, psychological well-being and vocal (voice) quality were assessed in availability samples of culturally diverse young, adult musicians (n=28), recruited from two tertiary institutions and assigned to a control group (n=10) and an experimental group, consisting of sub-experimental group one (n=10) and sub-experimental group two (n=8). Reasonable preprogramme group equivalence was established between the two sub-experimental groups and the control group. A Tomatis programme of 87.5 half hour listening sessions and concomitant counseling was completed by the total experimental group (n=18). Results indicated practically significant enhancement of: (i) listening aptitude on the Listening Test and (ii) psychological well-being, in terms of reduced negative and increased positive mood state (vigor) on the POMS in both sub-experimental groups, together with enhanced behavioural and emotional coping in sub-experimental group 1 on the CTI. (iii) Vocal enhancement, perceived both by singer-participants in both sub-experimental groups and a professional voice teacher, culminated in (iv) distinctly enhanced musical proficiency in 28% of all programme participants. Despite indications of multimodal enhancement, further research, necessitated by current methodological limitations, remains a prerequisite for achievement of definitive results.

Sing a Song of Drug Use‐Abuse: Four Decades of Drug Lyrics in Popular Music–From the Sixties through the Nineties

Songs dealing with illegal drugs have long dotted popular music. It was not until the aftermath of the sixties youth counterculture, however, that drug lyrics became a recurring musical motif. In the decades since, the lyrical treatment of drugs has undergone change. Heroin and cocaine have largely, though not exclusively, been treated antagonistically, with the animosity toward cocaine becoming more pronounced after crack cocaine was introduced in the mid‐1980s. Marijuana, on the other hand, has generally been perceived as innocuous, if not positively assessed, and this treatment has crossed the decades into the nineties. In more recent years, however, the positive assessment of marijuana has undergone change, with younger musicians more likely to decry the harm that drugs do than older musicians do. This prosocial aspect of contemporary popular music has been largely ignored.

The Development of Expertise in Young Musicians: Strategy Use, Knowledge Acquisition and Individual Diversity

The Development of Expertise in Young Musicians: Strategy Use, Knowledge Acquisition and Individual Diversity

The Development of Expertise in Young Musicians: Strategy Use, Knowledge Acquisition and Individual Diversity

This research considered the relationships between strategy use and the development of expertise in instrumental music taking into account individual differences. Fifty-five string players, with standards ranging from beginner to music college entrants, aged 6-18 were recorded for a period of 10 minutes practising a short piece of appropriate standard, which they then performed. They were also interviewed regarding their approaches to practice. The taped performance was assessed by two independent judges, marks being awarded for different aspects of performance. The findings indicated that effective strategy use in practice depended on the acquisition of appropriate aural schemata to facilitate the monitoring of progress and correction of mistakes. Strategy development was closely related to the developing level of expertise. Case studies examining the prepared performance of students at different graded examination levels, but obtaining different marks in these examinations, revealed a wide range of possible contributory factors. Multi-dimensional rather than single dimensional explanations of levels of attainment and quality of performance would seem to be required.