This study investigated the effects of a practice checklist on performance achievement, practice time, focal practice areas--the key musical elements students focused on during practice--and practice strategies among non-music major South Korean college students learning the "Danso," a traditional Korean wind instrument. Ninety-six…

Flow is a state of optimal or peak experience, commonly associated with expert and creative performance. Musicians often experience flow during playing, yet the neural mechanisms underlying this elusive state have remained underexplored due to challenges posed by substantial artefacts in the neural data. Here, we bypassed these issues by focusing…

Music performance requires high levels of motor control. Professional musicians use body movements not only to accomplish and help technical efficiency, but to shape expressive interpretation. Here, we recorded motion and audio data of twenty participants performing four musical fragments varying in the degree of technical difficulty to analyze…

During music reading, performers create expectations of the upcoming music. When these expectations are violated due to changes in the notation, performers have to adjust their reading and adapt their motor responses to match this new information. In this study, we examine how selected background, outcome, and process measures reflect the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of pitch and rhythm priming tasks on sight-reading accuracy and fluency. High school wind instrumentalists (N = 182) were assigned to one of four experimental groups: pre-/posttest rhythm, pre-/posttest pitch, posttest-only rhythm, or posttest-only pitch. Participants sight-read selected…

Given the prevalent use of sight-reading in the classroom, at music festivals, and in audition procedures, it is important to know the most effective practices in preparing students to sight-read musical excerpts. Previous studies suggest that rhythm accuracy is a significant indicator of sight-reading ability. However, others have observed a…

This paper is one of the first presentations of research into brain gym's effectiveness in learning musical instruments. Brain gym (or Edu-K) is the popular, over-arching name for a system of exercises, approaches, and techniques intended to improve mental and physical performance. We explain the basic concepts and activities of brain gym and…

This study addressed the cognitive processes of musicians using imagery to improve expressive performance. Specifically, it was an examination of the extent to which musicians translate imagery into explicit plans for the sound properties of music. Eighty-four undergraduate and graduate music majors completed a research packet during individual…