In The Musician's Way, veteran performer and educator Gerald Klickstein combines the latest research with his 30 years of professional experience to provide aspiring musicians with a roadmap to artistic excellence. Part I, Artful Practice, describes strategies to interpret and memorize compositions, fuel motivation, collaborate, and more. Part II, Fearless Performance, lifts the lid on the hidden causes of nervousness and shows how musicians can become confident performers. Part III, Lifelong Creativity, surveys tactics to prevent music-related injuries and equips musicians to tap their own innate creativity. Written in a conversational style, The Musician's Way presents an inclusive system for all instrumentalists and vocalists to advance their musical abilities and succeed as performing artists.

Musicians suffer greatly from industry-related injury and illness, and many of these problems are established during student days or even before. This affects all forms of music-making from classical through jazz and rock to traditional folk. Hearing damage is of serious concern in most forms of music-making, but the most stressful situations and the most physical damage is recorded in the practice of classical music. The long hours of practice at the beginning of a musician's career are the main source of problems that sometimes only reveal themselves in later life. This book is aimed equally at student musicians, practising musicians, and instrumental and vocal teachers, and it aims to help them to begin to understand how and why their bodies function as they do when they perform and also how they may avoid professionally related illness or injury and achieve the highest standards of performance. The principal author, Dr Jaume Rosset i Llobet, is a medical expert and an internationally acclaimed researcher on the subject. He is the Director of a Centre for the Physiology of The Arts in Terrassa, Catalonia, one of the few clinics in the world to which musicians, dancers and performing artists can go for assessment and treatment. The book provides examples and references to the health of musicians covering a wide range of musical genres based on current research, practice and treatment. As well as physiological exposition, copiously illustrated with medical and humorous diagrams, the book covers ergonomics, risk factors, posture, breathing, matters of diet and accommodation of professional needs in daily life.

The human imagination manifests in countless different forms. We imagine the possible and the impossible. How do we do this so effortlessly? Why did the capacity for imagination evolve and manifest with undeniably manifold complexity uniquely in human beings? This handbook reflects on such questions by collecting perspectives on imagination from leading experts. It showcases a rich and detailed analysis on how the imagination is understood across several disciplines of study, including anthropology, archaeology, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and the arts. An integrated theoretical-empirical-applied picture of the field is presented, which stands to inform researchers, students, and practitioners about the issues of relevance across the board when considering the imagination. With each chapter, the nature of human imagination is examined - what it entails, how it evolved, and why it singularly defines us as a species.

Organized into four main parts, this book first explores the mind-body connection and then separately discusses the mind, body, and soul of musicians, scholars, performers, and teachers of all voices and instruments. With terms, questions for reflection, and assignments at the...

The two volumes of The Oxford Handbook of Music Education offer a comprehensive overview of the many facets of musical experience, behavior and development in relation to the diverse variety of educational contexts in which they occur. In these volumes, an international list of contributors update and redefine the discipline through fresh and innovative principles and approaches to music learning and teaching.

Achieving Peak Performance in Music: Psychological Strategies for Optimal Flow is a unique and comprehensive exploration of flow in music performance. It describes the optimal performance experiences of great musicians and outlines ten psychological steps that can be implemented to facilitate and enhance optimal experience. Achieving Peak Performance in Music reveals strategies used by experts to prepare themselves emotionally, cognitively, and physically for performance. Combining this information with research carried out amongst professional performers and knowledge gained from decades of study and research by psychologists on how to achieve a positive experience, the book guides readers on a pathway towards optimal performance. Using everyday language, it presents invaluable practical guidance and a toolbox of strategies to help with all aspects of performance, including memorisation, visualisation, focus, performance anxiety, thought management, motivation, and pre-performance routines. Based on psychological research, the book shares practical knowledge invaluable to music students, parents, and amateur and professional musicians. The strategies on performance provided are applicable to every type of performance, from a student exam to a gig or a concert, making Achieving Peak Performance in Music a significant resource for anyone looking to achieve peak performance.