Music in Our Lives: Rethinking Musical Ability, Development and Identity

To summarize, this chapter has discussed several key themes.

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In our daily lives, opportunities to learn music, to develop musically and to appreciate music can present themselves in many varied ways. Second, we have explained that music is basic to human design.

Even so, musical experiences of any kind are shaped not only by sonic interactions within particular sociocultural contexts, but p. Third, we have seen that not all music education is positive or enabling, and that some people report negative experiences that live with them throughout their lives. Most important, as our explanation of the Sing Up project in England shows, children who are exposed to a quality music education benefit in many numerous ways.

Finally, and given the context that millions of individuals around the world sing or perform on an instrument in various contexts every day of the year, we explained how individuals come to feel competent or incompetent musically, connected or disconnected with others when engaged with music, and empowered or otherwise to take responsibility for their own decisions concerning music and the place it will have in their daily lives. For the discipline of music education, such a view implies being able to move from the endless pursuit of new technical, instrumental, and literacy skills to a conception focused on expressive, communicative, and affective musical interactions that allows learners to take control of their own musical lives and to experience music's expressive and self-regulative power see vol.

This wider conception is based on the view that ongoing musical development occurs most meaningfully and effectively when it is valued as deeply significant by the musical participants themselves. What does such a broad definition imply for how we might define music education? Think of your own life-story in music.

Can you remember any specific experiences that very positively or very negatively impacted your motivation to continue learning music? Ask some close friends or family members to reflect on the same question and discuss with your colleagues. Did your own musical abilities develop consistently across your time learning music? Were there any stages when your progress seemed to stall or your motivation falter?

How and in what ways did this impact your musical development? To what degree do you think that musical abilities are innate or acquired? Examine chapters in this handbook to determine if there is a prevailing view among authors. The child as musician: A handbook of musical development. Music in our lives: Rethinking musical ability, development and identity.

Eliminating the dichotomy between theory and practice in talent identification and development: Considering the role of psychology. Journal of Sports Science , 22 5 , — Can you teach those with congenital amusia to sing? A study of the effects of targeted interventions on the pitch perception and production of those with congenital amusia, as defined by the MBEA. Music and language side by side in the brain: A PET study of the generation of melodies and sentences. European Journal of Neuroscience , 23 10 , — The role of the cerebellum. Cerebellum , 6 4 , — Storying the musical lifeworld: Illumination through narrative case study.

Commonality and diversity amongst classical and nonclassical musicians. Music Education Research , 10 2 , — Musical difficulties are rare: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences , , — Music in Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland and Labrador Studies , 22 1 ,. Deliberate practice and the acquisition of expert performance: Current theory and research on instrumental music practice pp. The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.

Psychological Review , , — Formal and informal learning situations or practices vs formal and informal ways of learning. British Journal of Music Education , 23 2 , — On tune deafness dysmelodia: Frequency, development, genetics and musical background. Annals of Human Genetics , 43 , — A biographical study of the life-span development of professional musicians.

Psychology of Music , 18 2 , — The role of parents in children's musical development. Psychology of Music , 37 1 , 91— The evolutionary basis of musicality. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences , , 3— Musical training and induced cortical plasticity. In tune, out of key, and unaware.

Brain , 5 , — Modularity of music processing. Nature Neuroscience , 6 7 , — Anatomy of a process. Diverse approaches to successful singing in primary settings. Traversing levels of organisation: A theory of neuronal plasticity and stability. Toward a theory of neuroplasticity pp. The young performing musician.

Origins and development of musical competence pp. What are the implications of neuroscience for musical education? Educational Research , 50 2 , — Addressing the multifaceted nature of music education: An activity theory research perspective.

Research Studies in Music Education , 28 , 23— Main findings from the first three years — Children's singing development, self-concept and sense of social inclusion. Institute of Education, University of London. Real-time visual feedback in the development of vocal pitch accuracy in singing. Speaking about my own musical life, development and identity Music in our lives: A developmental explanation Musical transactions, the power of expression and the self-regulation of musical development.

McPherson studied music education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, before completing a master of music education at Indiana University, a doctorate of philosophy at the University of Sydney and a licentiate and fellowship in trumpet performance through Trinity College, London. Before arriving in Melbourne to take up his current position as Ormond Professor and Director of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, he worked at the University of New South Wales where the study was first funded , and then the Hong Kong Institute of Education and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he held the Marilyn Pflederer Zimmerman endowed chair in music education.

He has served as National President of the Australian Society for Music Education and President of the International Society for Music Education and has published extensively in various books and refereed journals. Davidson studied musicology, classical singing, contemporary dance, education, and psychology in UK and Canada, completing several postgraduate courses including two masters degrees and a PhD. Her research includes projects on reflective performance practice, vocal production, musical expression and emotion, expressive body movement in performance, musical skills acquisition and therapeutic uses of music.

She has published widely, is the former editor of Psychology of Music , was vice-president of European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music , and is the current president of the Musicological Society of Australia. Robert Faulkner is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London and holds a licentiate in singing teaching from the same institution.

Graham F. Welch and Gary E. McPherson

He went on to postgraduate music education studies at Reading University and later completed an MA in music psychology and a PhD from the University of Sheffield. He lived in Iceland for over twenty years, where he worked at all levels of education from early childhood to tertiary, played a leading role in national curriculum development and was inaugural deputy chair of the Iceland Music Examinations Board.

Rethinking Musical Ability, Development and Identity is an engaging book written by Gary McPherson and Jane Davidson, well-respected experts in music education, along with Robert Faulkner, a former doctoral student of Davidson's who has since attained a solid reputation of his own In the end, this is its great contribution-- not only to music education and psychology, but arguably to the whole of humanity as well.

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. It is drawn from a research project that spanned fourteen years, and closely followed the lives of over children learning music — from their seventh to their twenty second birthdays.

This longitudinal approach allows for the probing of a number of important issues. For example, how do you define musical skill and ability?

Is it true, as many assume, that continuous engagement in performance is the sole way in which those skills can be developed? What are the consequences of trends and behaviours observed amongst the general public, and their listening consumption? After presenting an overview and detailed case study explorations of musical lives, the book provides frameworks and theory for further investigation and discussion. It tries to present a holistic interpretation of these studies, and looks at their implications for musical development and education.

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