Thinking and Playing Music: Intentional Strategies for Optimal Practice and Performance
- Author: Iott, Sheryl
There are times that we know there is research that would help us perform and teach better, but it's just too difficult to wade through the information. Sheryl Iott has done all that work for...
Thinking and Playing Music: Intentional Strategies for Optimal Practice and Performance
- Author: Iott, Sheryl
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There are times that we know there is research that would help us perform and teach better, but it's just too difficult to wade through the information. Sheryl Iott has done all that work for...
About
Thinking and Playing Music: Intentional Strategies for Optimal Practice and Performance distills cutting-edge teaching and learning methods for musicians of all levels, investigating topics in cognitive science that apply directly to musical development. Containing over one-hundred musical examples, many from the standard piano repertoire, Sheryl Iott uses accessible language to impart practical suggestions that anyone can incorporate into their practice.
Maximizing efficiency and effectiveness while cultivating an observant, experimental approach can help musicians make the most of their time and potential while avoiding tension, injury, and burnout. Aligning efforts with inherent mental processes can make learning faster, deeper, and more secure while freeing up attentional space, allowing for creative, personal expression in performance. The book addresses:
Beginning musicianship, covering relevant cognition topics such as language acquisition, aural processing and development of audiation while cultivating a playful, relaxed approach to the instrumentThe intermediate musician, presenting more advanced cognitive topics such as visual processing, chunking, and early problem solvingThe advanced musician, addressing increased demands on working and long-term memory, how to maximize transfer, a creative approach to problem solving, and strategies to tackle the most difficult repertoireAlso included are sample lesson plans, workshop templates, and sample practice assignments.
Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Figures
- Introduction
- PART 1 1 The Beginning Musician: Practice Is Play
- Music and the Brain
- Aural Cognition, Language Acquisition, and Musical Processing
- Music Perception and Preparatory Audiation
- Optimal Teaching Strategies for the Young Beginner
- Whole-Part-Whole
- Aptitude
- PART 2 2 The Intermediate Musician: Fluent Music Reading and Early Problem Solving
- From “Beginner” to “Intermediate”
- Visual Processing
- Beginning Music Reading: Bringing Meaning to the Score
- [Long-Term] Working Memory, Chunking, and Template Theories
- Execution, and Benefits, of Mental Practice
- “Theory”—When, How, and Why
- More Relevant than Learning Styles: Personality, Character, and Motivation
- 3 Practice Strategies for Musicians of Burgeoning Independence
- If You’re Not Thinking, You’re Not Practicing
- Don’t Do It Again Until You Know Why
- Audiation Pause = Learning Pause
- Hands Together!
- Patterns and Mental “Chunking”
- 4 Specific Practice Strategies for the Intermediate Musician
- Preparatory Practice Strategies
- Chunking Strategies
- Tempo and Rhythm
- Facility
- Think It Then Play It
- Structural Lines
- Contrapuntal Music
- Benefits and Challenges of These Types of Practice Strategies for the Intermediate Musician
- PART 3 5 The Advanced Musician: The Cognition of Expertise
- Toward “Expertise”
- Mindful Practice and Avoidance of Excessive Automatization
- Knowledge Representation, Working Memory, and Skilled Visual Processing
- Long-Term Memory: Retention and Retrieval
- Multiple Intelligences and Rule Learning
- (Creative) Problem Solving
- Impact of Mood on Problem Solving and Success
- Motor Control and Development, and the Risks of Excessive Automaticity
- Multimodal Imagery and Musical Memorization
- Deliberate, Distributed, Interleaved Practice
- Self-Monitoring and Self-Evaluation
- 6 Conceptual Solutions to Technical Problems (They Are All Technical Problems)
- Practice Tools and Strategies for More Challenging Problems
- Layers
- What to Think About When
- Think It Then Play It
- Scaffolding and Hypermeter
- Mental Practice, Mapping, and Memorization
- 7 Practice Strategies for Solving Physical Problems
- Physical Practice: Chunking, Gestures, The Chart, and Fingerings
- Chunking » Gesture
- Gesture » Detail
- To the Thumbs
- The Chart
- Hands Alone
- Fingerings and How They Help Form Meaningful Units
- Above Strategies in Sequence and Combination
- PART 4 8 How Intentional Practice Benefits Performance
- APPENDICES
- Appendix A: Sample Lesson Plan and Practice Sheet: Beginning Musician
- Appendix B: Sample Practice Assignments: Intermediate Musician
- Appendix C: The Integrated Lesson
- Appendix D: Practice Strategies by Category and Figure Numbers
- Appendix E: Areas of the Brain Involved in Language and Music Production and Comprehension
- Appendix F: Workshop Templates
- Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
Awards and reviews
There are times that we know there is research that would help us perform and teach better, but it's just too difficult to wade through the information. Sheryl Iott has done all that work for us in her new book, Thinking and Playing Music. Not only has she done all the difficult work for us, but she has also written it in a style that is easy to read and has connected the dots, so our practicing and teaching can be more insightful and effective…. Iott is an experienced performer and teacher and interlaces personal anecdotes throughout the book. This helps keep the tone readable and the material relevant. While this book is a pleasure to read because someone has "done the research for you," it is also enjoyable to read because you know the author is walking the journey with you
Piano Magazine
This book is applicable to musicians of all instruments, but pianists will find it especially useful […] Iott’s book, grounded in both scientific study and practical experience, is one any musician will find compelling and valuable
