VIEW BOOK DETAILS We are pleased to introduce the collection Frontiers in Psychology – Highlights in Performance Science: Music Performance Anxiety. Music performance anxiety (MPA) has been defined as “the experience of marked and persistent anxious apprehension related to musical performance”. For musicians performing in public is a demanding activity and the MPA can cause potential debilitating effects on their career and health, regardless of age, gender, experience, practicing time, and music genre. A greater understanding of the predicting factors of MPA has implications not only for theories of MPA but also for its prevention and management and more broadly for teaching and learning. This collection will welcome and showcase a selection of articles about Music Performance Anxiety (MPA), authored by leaders in the field. The work presented here highlights the broad diversity of research performed across the Performance Science field and aims to put a spotlight on the main areas of interest. This collection aims to further support Frontiers’ strong community by shining a spotlight on our authors' highly impactful research.

Where does learning begin and how is it sustained and stored in the brain? For musicians, these questions are at the very core of their creative lives. Cognitive and neuroscience have flung wide the doors of our understanding, but bridging the gap between research data and music-making requires a unique immersion in both worlds. Lynn Helding presents a symphony of discoveries that illuminate how musicians can optimize their mental wellbeing and cognitive abilities. She addresses common brain myths, motor learning research and the concept of deliberate practice, the values of instructional feedback, technology’s role in attention disorders, the challenges of parenting young musicians, performance anxiety and its solutions, and the emerging importance of music as a social justice issue. More than an exploration of the brain, The Musician’s Mind is an inspiring call for artists to promote the cultivation of emotion and empathy as cornerstones of a civilized society. No matter your instrument or level of musical ability, this book will reveal to you a new dynamic appreciation for the mind’s creative power.

Offers performers, teachers, and researchers, new perspectives and practical guidance for enhancing performance and managing the stress that typically accompanies performance situations. It draws together the findings of pioneering initiatives from across the arts and sciences.

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.

Why are some performers exhilarated and energized about performing in public, while others feel a crushing sense of fear and dread, and experience public performance as an overwhelming challenge that must be endured? These are the questions addressed in this book, the first rigorous exposition of this complex phenomenon.

For a long time I have wanted to put together a book about sodal and evaluation anxiety. Sodal-evaluation anxiety seemed to be a stressful part of so many people's everyday experience. It also seemed to be apart of so many of the clinical problems that I worked with. Common terms that fit under this rubric include fears of rejection, humiliation, critidsm, embarrassment, ridicule, failure, and abandonment. Examples of sodal and evaluation anxiety include shyness; sodal inhibition; sodal timidity; public speaking anxiety; feelings of self-consdousness and awkwardness in sodal situations; test anxiety; perfor mance anxiety in sports, theater, dance, or music; shame; guilt; separation anx iety; sodal withdrawal; procrastination; and fear of job interviews or job evalua tions, of asking someone out, of not making a good impression, or of appearing stupid, foolish, or physically unattractive. In its extreme form, sodal anxiety is a behavior disorder in its own right sodal phobia. This involves not only feelings of anxiety but also avoidance and withdrawal from sodal situations in which scrutiny and negative evaluation are antidpated. Sodal-evaluation anxiety also plays a role in other clinical disorders. For example, people with agoraphobia are afraid of having a panic attack in public in part because they fear making a spectacle of themselves. Moreover, even their dominant terrors of going crazy or having a heart attack seem to reflect a central concern with sodal abandonment and isolation.

In Psychology of Music: From Sound to Significance (2nd edition), the authors consider music on a broad scale, from its beginning as an acoustical signal to its different manifestations across cultures. In their second edition, the authors apply the same richness of depth and scope that was a hallmark of the first edition of this text. In addition, having laid out the topography of the field in the original book, the second edition puts greater emphasis on linking academic learning to real-world contexts, and on including compelling topics that appeal to students’ natural curiosity. Chapters have been updated with approximately 500 new citations to reflect advances in the field. The organization of the book remains the same as the first edition, while chapters have been updated and often expanded with new topics. 'Part I: Foundations' explores the acoustics of sound, the auditory system, and responses to music in the brain. 'Part II: The Perception and Cognition of Music' focuses on how we process pitch, melody, meter, rhythm, and musical structure. 'Part III: Development, Learning, and Performance' describes how musical capacities and skills unfold, beginning before birth and extending to the advanced and expert musician. And finally, 'Part IV: The Meaning and Significance of Music' explores social, emotional, philosophical and cultural dimensions of music and meaning. This book will be invaluable to undergraduates and postgraduate students in psychology and music, and will appeal to anyone who is interested in the vital and expanding field of psychology of music.