Analyzing Musicians ' Thoughts And Perceptions During Performance

The audition requires young musicians to prepare a solo piece, scales, orchestral excerpts, and to sight read a piece of music at the time of the audition. After auditioning, it will be determined by the conductor of the specific group whether or not one’s skill level meets the level of the group. The Memphis Youth Symphony offers a myriad of opportunities throughout the season for young musicians to connect and highlight their talent as a whole. There are four annual concerts along with several other events that allow students to acclimate into the community, while also enjoying a valuable learning experience. The Memphis Youth Symphony is a large discourse community with over 200 students from schools all across the tri-state area—I set out to conduct pertinent research to efficiently support my analysis of The Memphis Youth Symphony discourse community.

MacNamara, Holmes and Collins (2006) state that there are numerous similarities between performances in music and sport. Expert musicians and sports performers are more able to adapt to setbacks than lesser skilled performers, as well as experts having higher levels of dedication and motivation and can communicate more emotion through the pieces being played. Similarly to Chaffin et al. (2003) this communication of emotion may be related to the artistic image with both requiring focus and decision-making.

During a musical performance many elements to be looked are not easily recognized by the average critic. A musical performance has multiple interactions taking place between the music, text, performers, audience, and space that all can contribute to a great performance. Overwhelming majority of the audience does not realize so much can be looked at during a single performance. At a performance by the University of Maryland Marching Band I was able to analyze the Musical Sound, Contexts of the Performance, and Interpretation of the Performance.

Transcripts and field notes from observations were used equally in the analysis and both types of information are referred to as “data”. Although field observations compared to interviews could be interpreted as of lesser importance in the analyses, such data is of great value as it in many ways serve as the basis for the questions asked in the interview. For example, based on the field observations, the researcher could ask about a given observed behavior or relate a participant's answer to an observed behavior.

What is Musical Talent? How is Musical Talent defined or tested? Musical Talent is a person having an excellent eye or ear for music and playing or creating music. There are several ways that musical talent can be tested the most known one being Seashore’s Measure test. Which will be explained later on in the paper, however the question is whether Genes cause musical talent or if the person’s environment causes them to be musically talented. This paper is going to be focusing on what causes musical talent, the genetic aspects of musical talent as well as the environmental aspects of what causes musical talent, and some ways that measure musical talent and the reliability and validity of the

My life would be incomplete without performing music. I’ve spent time, in concert bands, in bell choirs, in school and church choirs, and singing, playing in music festivals, and in pit bands trying not to laugh my head off at the actors’ improvisations. But the art that truly speaks to my soul does not lie in creating music, it lies in dancing to it.

Imagine a third grader, small and blonde, standing on a stage that practically swallows her. She gazes in awe at the bright lights that seem to tower miles above her head; likewise, she follows with a stare, fixating on the hundreds of darkened faces that remain directly in front of her. Unlike her classmates who fidget with nerves beside her, she feels a rush of adrenaline. What may have seemed to some an ordinary choir concert in a dull auditorium, was, to me, a life changing moment. Ever since this day, for 9 years now, I have had an unwavering passion for music and performing. As I aged, I found myself excitedly learning how to play 7 new instruments, but even considering the vast number of bands, orchestras, choirs, and instrumental lessons that I joined, I noticed myself

I saw a ridiculous amount of talent exhibited by young musicians that afternoon, but I noticed one thing all the pianists had in common: their faces remained blank throughout their performances. “How are they sitting so still while they play? My piano teacher has to stop me from swaying like a boat when I play the Arabesque,” I thought to myself. By the end of the recital, I realized that my earlier failure was not fruitless. That day of defeat was the day that my passion for music became clearer than ever. Though I was not the best pianist in state by any means, I loved my music. I played because I chose to, not because my parents forced me to practice for hours and hours to perfection. I understood for the first time that if I have passion for what I do, I cannot

In a post-performance discussion, the three groups were given the opportunity compare and contrast their own performance in an engaging discussion detailing the reasons for their choice in the production, ideas and intended messages given through the performance that had been created and presented. After a second viewing of the performances through a video recording, group one was first to be asked about the creative process that was undertaken including the difference between the week 7 proposal and actual week 12 performance. A common link between each performance was viewed in the expression of everyday performance through the identification of social and cultural issues such as gender, femininity, masculinity and ethnicity. The assessment

As a child I frequently made up little songs, and there seemed to be a constant stream of music in my head. I could see myself in the children she was observing and like them I didn’t have a framework for my experience – it was just my life. Whether it was singing while playing, tapping out some rhythm, singing at the top of my lungs to a favorite song, or goosebumps from hearing “Hall of the Mountain King”, it all felt familiar and warming. It has also made me aware of the musicking I continue to make every day in small ways here and

Every musician is inspired or displays attributes of predecessors. These attributes influence every aspect of their

Some people think that music can positively influence the listener while others disagree and argue that it has a negative impact. Mark Edmundson, the author of “Can Music Save Your Life?,” asserts through his own experience and the research of others that music solely “preserves” the listener’s life as a “balm—cortisone spread” (paragraph 25). His use of a well-known medical supplement makes it more relatable and believable to the reader. The authors of “Feeling the Beat” support Edmundson by stating that they observed an increased sense of confidence in oneself and one’s beliefs in the people they interviewed(Iwamoto, Creswell, & Caldwell 346). Their main support is the quote from one of their interviewee’s who said, “We can identify what they are talking about” (Iwamoto, Creswell, & Caldwell 343). This not only explains why students listen to certain types of music, but also why it can have such an impact on them. Derek Iwamoto, John Creswell, and Leon Caldwell declare their statement that positive influence of music by stating that the majority of the students they observed used their music as a way to

Wellness is fundamental to community music participation, especially the demands of expert to virtuoso competencies. This study provided evidence that PMs need and want challenging repertoire to sustain existing music competencies as well as developing higher competencies to challenge higher order brain functions to accomplish the more complicated repertoires. Overall, the phenomenological narratives illustrate the role of music on wellness is chief among all

In the short article “Scholarship, Performance, and Virtuosity” written by Curtis Price, universities are renowned for having talented musicians focus on the mainstream idea to “allow scholarship to inform performance” (77). Price argues however, that this idea should be implemented as “performance to inform scholarship” because technique and style are unique talents for musicians.

Music elicits an emotional and cognitive response in all who listen to it. It is powerful at the individual level because “it can induce multiple responses – physiological, movement, mood, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral” (Francis, 2008,