Assignment ''The Musical Mind''

by Audinga Musteikyte

Summary of the chapter 3 : ''Motivation''

In this chapter, various ways of children's development and

motivation to learn musical instruments were discussed.
Different levels of persistence, while achieving musical goals, their
approach to the success and failure experiences.
Motivation can be viewed as an integral element that helps
students to achieve their personal goals.
Some children seek challenges in learning, face difficulties. Others,
however, having the same ability and potential tend to give up and
get discouraged by the obstacles.
Different achievement contexts result in how children perceive
their causes of success or failure and how the desire to pursue
certain goals is developed.
Motivation is not viewed as a distinct set of psychological
processes, but more as a part of learning, that provides students
with certain behaviors that can help to get the best chance to reach
their full potential.
Importance of the expectancy theory, that has 4
components :
* Attainment value (when students see how important is do to the
task well)
* Intrinsic motivation (based on the pure pleasure of music-
making)
* Extrinsic utility value (perception of action according to its
usefulness to the future)
* Perceived cost of engaging in the activity (amount of practice
hours)
Motivation is very highly related to the self – esteem and
confidence, since a very young age.
Any previous experiences can build up very quickly and it can
lead to certain expectations during the musical performance.
The sense of competence is how children value their activity,
developing self – efficacy beliefs, how one can produce the desired
outcome of playing a musical instrument in this case.
Very important, how the musician values his/her ability and
capacity to achieve results. Those perceptions are very powerful
and can influence a student's motivation and determination to
continue developing their skills.
During the examinations, it is proved, that students with
higher self-efficacy tend to perform at a higher level than their
classmates who display the same skills, but lower self-expectations.
Flow theory is discussed as well – the optimal experience that
requires a balance between roughly equal levels of perceived
challenge and skill in a situation that involves intense
concentration.
Importance of matching the challenge and personal skills.
(Right amount of difficulty required, since if the activity is too easy,
boredom and apathy will develop).
Remaining in a flow state means taking new challenges and
constantly developing skills. The goal is to experience the activity
as intrinsically rewarding.
Music educators should have in mind how to keep less
competitive students motivated.
Attribution theory suggests that the causes of success or
failure may impact some of the future achievements and emotional
responses to it. Since expectations have an important role in
student's motivation, it is essential to understand how students
attribute their successes or failures during the performance.
Among the students, the ability is viewed as something
internal and beyond student's control, while the effort – internal,
unstable, but controllable.
Some students display mastery-oriented patterns, remaining
high in persistence, and enjoying the effort, while others show
helpless behavior and avoid any challenges, keeping low
expectations. It has a huge impact on performance results.
However, helpless or mastery-oriented – students can share the
same musical ability. They have a very different approach to
failures and problem-solving strategies.
The term of talent is highly debated since some of the most
skilled individuals exhibit helpless behavior that does not let them
reach their full potential. Two self-theory beliefs :
* Entity beliefs (ability seen as a fixed trait)
* Incremental beliefs (ability can be increased through the effort).
Teacher's input in education should be helping students to
develop adaptive attributional responses. Motivating the students
for short and long term musical involvement.
Regarding musical examinations and competitions, it can
structurize the learning environment, however, sometimes it can
have negative outcomes due to the feeling of being judged – it
needs to be seen as suggestive and helpful and not definitive.

Conclusions of the chapter 3 :

Summarizing the whole chapter, I understand that the

question of student's motivation is quite broad, yet not too
abstract.
However, certain levels of motivation have many different
causes.
Especially in the professional music field - many challenges
to be faced since the very young age of a student.
Negative experiences can form crucial patterns for future
development and goal-seeking.
Interesting to see, that children can distinguish their likings
and patterns of motivation from quite an early age and how the
desire to pursue certain goals is initiated.
Also, different attitudes experiencing success and failure that
determine musical (not only) personalities.
It is eye-opening to see, that studies proved, how students
with lower self-esteem and good abilities can spend almost double
the number of hours practicing to achieve the same results as their
more confident peers.
As well to know the importance of the balance in matching
the tasks and challenges with the student's skills and abilities – how
big is the difference in the outcome!
Students with lower self-expectations need more help in
maintaining a decent degree of motivation. Also to have a realistic
approach to the talent, luck, and effort – realization, that even if
you need to practice more to achieve the same results as someone
very successful, does not mean lower capability in music-making.

Personal comment on chapter 3 :

I think the question of motivation is in the interest of every

student. At some point, everyone has certain difficulties in
maintaining their motivation at a decent level.
Especially in the times, we experience now, I am facing quite
a severe lack of motivation (partly why I chose to discuss this
chapter).
Reading this chapter made me realize, that I belong to the
group of students with a lower self-image - I believe with decent
abilities but with a lack of confidence, unfortunately.
From my experience, I can see, how unsuccessful moments
from the past can affect future motivation negatively and vice
versa.
I think it is normal to remain in the search of balance and
how to motivate ourselves and other people around us. Setting
clear goals and believing in self capacity are the most helpful things
I found so far.

Summary of the chapter 6 : ''Music Medicine''

Most of the medical problems occurring in musicians have

shared consequences of the specific instrument, performance
technique, repertoire, also physical and psychological nature of the
individual.
More repetitive actions over a long period of time create
greater problems. For example, musculoskeletal pain like tendinitis
can be solved by reduced activity or anti-inflammatory medications.
The close collaboration between medicine and music
education is required.
It is quite clear, that such an occupation as music-making
carries a degree of personal medical risk. However, before the
1980s not much attention was focused on music medicine. The
reluctance to seek medical advice was fueled by fear since any
injury could be perceived as an end of a musician's career. Little by
little musicians started to discuss their problems more openly,
admitting that medical problems are affecting their performance
abilities and seeking professional help.
These changes led to the establishment of the new medical
specialty of performing arts medicine. However, there are no
authorized training program or certification to become a performing
arts medicine specialist. It remains a discipline in the making.
According to the surveys made among musicians, at least
76% have medical problems affecting their playing, with a high
incidence in female players.
Clinically musician medical problems are divided into three
categories :
1. Musculoskeletal pain syndromes (tendinitis) – pain in arm, neck,
back, occurs with overplaying, often asymptomatic while not
playing, requires medical treatment, pacing rest.
2. Nerve entrapments – occurs when a nerve is trapped in a
particular location, causes severe pain, often medical treatments,
degree of rest, intermittent splinting, or even surgery.
3. Focal dystonias – the most serious, can cause permanent
impairments, occupational cramps, inability to control certain
muscles, occurs while playing, related to an abnormality of the
motor cortex, with no specific healing therapy.
Medical problems have a direct link to psychosomatic aspects – how
we feel affects our health and recovery.
To avoid misdiagnosis and mistreatment, it is very
important for the practitioners of performing arts medicine to
approach medical problems in the context of performance.
Examining the patient while playing is crucial. It can stretch beyond
medical expertise to musical expertise – this collaboration is
essential in the musical medicine healing process. The diagnosis
must be viewed from both perspectives.
To prevent these medical problems it is important to measure
risk factors that it caries. There are two types of risks :
instrument origin (posture, repetitive movements, force, muscle
tension holding the instrument); Musician's genetic origin ( body
proportions, joint mobility, emotional tension).
It is a common difficulty to stay motivated while maintaining
prevention strategies. The best way to avoid problems would be to
form preventive habits since the early stages of music education.
The future of performing arts medicine depends on the
interaction between medical science and pedagogy. Teachers should
be more aware and responsible for detecting significant symptoms
in their students while performing.

Conclusions of chapter 6 :

Medical problems in musicians do not have any limitation of

gender or age, therefore it is crucial to develop body and mind
awareness as early as possible.
It is essential not to separate the physical and physiological
aspects of medical problems since they are very closely related.
Most of the musician's medical problems do not appear from a
single action, it can be a group of several factors such as long
practice hours, emotional health, mental aspects.
It is useful to know, that total rest and absence of
movement often is not the best way to solve the problem, it is
better to keep playing a little, even having some medical problems.
Interesting to learn, that subtle complaints of musicians represent
some kind of pathology and that more musicians are suffering from
these medical problems than expected.
It seems that nowadays musicians are becoming a little
more aware of their health and seeking medical help is much less
shameful than before.
Worth to mention that performing arts medicine can be lead
by some appropriate constructive criticism and questioning, for its
development for the future.

A personal comment on chapter 6 :

From my perspective, I have to admit, that most of the time

I am not aware enough of many aspects mentioned above. To claim
that music schools nowadays still do not provide us with medical
problems prevention strategies would be not entirely true. Taking
an example of CvA, we had an opportunity to attend introductory
courses of Feldenkrais, Alexander technique with an option to follow
those lessons. It is more a problem of staying motivated in doing
something that does not have an instant effect - it needs to be
dedicated, continuous work.
Of course, during the main subject lessons, physical aspects
of playing are often neglected due to the lack of time and a wish to
achieve better musical results.
To conclude this thought, I believe that everyone being a
musician is carrying a risk of medical problems. And we have to
carry the responsibility to prevent or avoid these problems
individually.

Sumarry of an article about Mental Practice :

https://jstor.apps.ahk.nl/stable/10.1525/mp.2012.30.3.275?
Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=mental&searchText=practice&searchUri=
%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dmental
%2Bpractice&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5152%2Ftest&refreqid=search
%3A790a7e85be2f477c7831952a14e73339&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Mental practice (later – MP) generally is described as a

technique by which someone with the intent to practice creates a
mental representation of a preconceived idea or an action to
enhance the performance.
This way of practicing can be used in several fields, but of
course, this chapter concentrates on the music.
The effect of MP is weaker than physical practice (PP), but
still has a significant impact on the performance. It is repeated
many times, that properly combined MP and PP can result in similar
or even equal outcome obtained with PP only.
Since music-making is a task with many cognitive elements, it is a
very good field to study MP.
So the main goal for a musician is to diminish the number
of hours spent on practicing while achieving good performance
results.The most common MP techniques include :
* Formal analysis of the score
* Listening to the recordings of the piece
* Creating auditory imagery of the pitches
* Movement imagery (visually and kinaesthetically)
* The visual imagery of the score
It is proven, that MP has a positive impact on playing
(expressive features) compared to no practicing at all. It leads to
plastic changes in the motor system as well.
In this chapter particularly, an experiment with pianists was
discussed. And highly controlled MP strategies were used to achieve
clearer results.
During processes of mental practice, a musician's brain
experience tight and automatic coupling between auditory, visual,
and motor networks, so using only one MP technique is not very
realistic.
The article also discussed an interesting relation between the
MP and the memorization process. Musicians would recall a bigger
amount of music after MP.
The musicians are attracted to the idea of improved
performance and more efficient practice time, developing stronger
mental representation, deeper comprehension of the pieces they
play. Optimized practice time can lead to diminishing medical
disorders that can occur during playing.
However, MP seems to be more helpful in the learning
process rather than improved performance (compared to PP only).
From the cognitive point of view, MP is seen as more of an
automatic and not voluntary strategy, that is being used in a
musical task. Of course, it all implies to individual differences and
practice strategies.
MP gives the performer an advantage of better-organized
practice and memory as well.
Interesting to mention, that those musicians with better
aural skills and better general reliance on pitch imagery, can benefit
more from the MP. So the successful memorization of the piece,
using MP requires a structured mental representation.
During mental rehearsal, pitch imagery creates neural
activity within regions of the secondary auditory cortex, which can
occur in an absence of sound. It is considered a key strategy of MP
(pitch imagery), followed by a thorough structural analysis of the
piece. After all, the strategy of MP using remains a personal choice.

Conclusions on Mental Practice :

The most important conclusion, like in many parts of life, is

the balance. The combination of mental and physical practice
seems like a key to more successful musicianship.
It was interesting to see, that the advantages of MP are
proved, that it seems to work when it is used with a will and
determination.
Also to see the concrete examples of how to practice
mentally. And to see distinguished forms of MP: 1) mostly mental
and internal focus with mental representations, using the auditory
model, with an abstract formal analysis of the piece, not much
attention to the precise movements; 2) more physical form of MP,
including body movements, balancing internal operations between
formal analysis and movement imagery.
MP seems like a trustworthy technique to improve music
memorization, by deepening the knowledge withing body and mind
mechanisms.
It could be put in parallel with an awareness in music-
making, which leads to more careful activities, trusting one's mind,
going towards common well-being.

Personal comment on Mental Practice :

A lot of times the term of Mental Practice is used as a joke

among musicians, indicating the laziness and excuse of the absent
physical practice. I doubt it is being used as much as it could be
since usually, students do not appreciate slow impact strategies
enough.
It seems convenient to practice mentally during the daily
commute or in a time when no practice room is available for
physical practice. However, I never used the MP as a regular and
thorough technique. It seems that the need for it comes before
certain important events (auditions, exams). Then all kinds of
mental preparations are welcome. In my experience, the complete
internal and visionary mental practice was more effective than the
movement imitation.
Reading more about this practice strategy makes me more
interested to work with it practically. To develop the use of practice
time as efficiently as possible and become more and more internally
aware of the music that is being performed.