Humans are remarkably adept at identifying individuals on the basis of their facial features, or other traits such as gait or vocal timbre. Besides voice, another auditory medium capable of carrying identity information is music. Indeed, certain famous musicians, such as John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins, need only to play a few notes to be unequivocally recognized. Along with emotion and structural cues, artistic individuality seems to be a key element communicated in music performance. Yet, the means by which individuality is expressed in performance, as well as the cognitive processes employed by listeners to perceive identity cues, remain poorly elucidated. Other pertinent issues, including the connection between a performer’s technical competence and ability to convey a specific musical identity, as well as potential links between individuality and career-defining outcomes such as critical recognition and aesthetic appraisal, warrant further exploration. Quantitative approaches to the study of music performance have benefited greatly from MIDI technology and the application of computational methods, leading to the flourishing of empirical music performance research over the last few decades. More recently, neuroimaging techniques have provided valuable insights into the neural mechanisms involved in the cognitive processes of performing music. Nevertheless, this field continues to benefit greatly from qualitative approaches, given that the communication of affect and identity cues in music performance leads to a rich subjectivity of impressions that must be accounted for in order to lead to a greater understanding of this multifaceted phenomenon. The aim of this Research Topic is to provide a forum for interdisciplinary research broadly related to the expression and perception of individuality in music performance. Research methodology includes behavioral, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging techniques. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are presented The scope of this Research Topic includes laboratory studies as well as studies in real-life performance settings and longitudinal studies on performers.

Providing teaching advice as well as current knowledge and thinking about learning, Susan Hallam, an experienced music teacher and professional musician gives guidance on how to apply theory into practice. This text provides information that enables a teacher to: understand pupils, assess their strengths and weaknesses and adapt teaching styles to individual needs; motivate all pupils to perform at their best, including those with special educational needs; and support pupils in practising, performing, listening, appraising, improvising and composing.

This book examines the nature of musical performance. In it, Dorottya Fabian explores the contributions and limitations of some of these approaches to performance, be they theoretical, cultural, historical, perceptual, or analytical. Through a detailed investigation of recent recordings of J. S. Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, she demonstrates that music performance functions as a complex dynamical system. Only by crossing disciplinary boundaries, therefore, can we put the aural experience into words. A Musicology of Performance provides a model for such a method by adopting Deleuzian concepts and various empirical and interdisciplinary procedures. Fabian provides a case study in the repertoire, while presenting new insights into the state of baroque performance practice at the turn of the twenty-first century. Through its wealth of audio examples, tables, and graphs, the book offers both a sensory and a scholarly account of musical performance. These interactive elements map the connections between historically informed and mainstream performance styles, considering them in relation to broader cultural trends, violin schools, and individual artistic trajectories. A Musicology of Performance is a must read for academics and post-graduate students and an essential reference point for the study of music performance, the early music movement, and Bach’s opus.

Explaining that musicality is an essential touchstone of the human experience, a concise introduction to the study of the nature of music, its community and its cultural values explains the diverse work of today's ethnomusicologists and how researchers apply anthropological and other social disciplines to studies of human and cultural behaviors. Original.

Providing a complete review of existing work in music emotion developed in psychology and engineering, Music Emotion Recognition explains how to account for the subjective nature of emotion perception in the development of automatic music emotion recognition (MER) systems. Among the first publications dedicated to automatic MER, it begins with

Music therapists from around the world working in conventional and unconventional settings have offered their contributions to this exciting new book, presenting spirited discussion and practical examples of the ways music therapy can reflect and encourage social change. From working with traumatized refugees in Berlin, care-workers and HIV/AIDS orphans in South Africa, to adults with neurological disabilities in south-east England and children in paediatric hospitals in Norway, the contributors present their global perspectives on finding new ways forward in music therapy. Reflecting on traditional approaches in addition to these newer practices, the writers offer fresh perceptions on their identity and role as music therapists, their assumptions and attitudes about how music, people and context interact, the sites and boundaries to their work, and the new possibilities for music therapy in the 21st century. As the first book on the emerging area of Community Music Therapy, this book should be an essential and exciting read for music therapists, specialists and community musicians.

Vols. for 1957-61 include an additional (mid-January) no. called Directory issue, 1st-5th ed. The 6th ed. was published as the Dec. 1961 issue.