The Biology Of Musical Performance And Performance Related Injury

The Biology of Musical Performance and Performance-Related Injury presents accurate information on the biological principles and physical processes that underlie the craft of musical performance. It explains concepts and techniques without assuming prior scientific knowledge, providing relevance to both musicians and health professionals who treat performance-related medical conditions. It offers performers and teachers the tools they need to create a rational approach to the development and communication of technique, and provides an insight into the origins of performance-related injury, helping to reduce the risk of such problems by encouraging a technique that is sustainable in the long term.

To reach the highest standards of instrumental performance, several years of sustained and focused learning are required. This requires perseverance, commitment and opportunities to learn and practise, often in a collective musical environment. This book brings together a wide range of enlightening current psychological and educational research to offer deeper insights into the mosaic of factors and related experiences that combine to nurture (and sometimes hinder) advanced musical performance. Each of the book's four sections focus on one aspect of music performance and learning: musics in higher education and beyond; musical journeys and educational reflections; performance learning; and developing expertise and professionalism. Although each chapter within its home section offers a particular focus, there is an underlying conception across all the book’s contents of the achievability of advanced musical performance and of the important nurturing role that higher education can play, particularly if policy and practice are evidence-based and draw on the latest international research findings. The narrative offers an insight into the world of advanced musicians, detailing their learning journeys and the processes involved in their quest for the development of expertise and professionalism. It is the first book of its kind to consider performance learning in higher education across a variety of musical genres, including classical, jazz, popular and folk musics. The editors have invited an international community of leading scholars and performance practitioners to contribute to this publication, which draws on meticulous research and critical practice. This collection is an essential resource for all musicians, educators, researchers and policy makers who share our interest in promoting the development of advanced performance skills and professionalism.

​For many general practitioners, physiotherapists, osteopaths and chiropracters, patients with a background in performing arts account for only a small proportion of their practice. This simple primer assists the reader in the management of these highly complex (and sometimes highly strung) elite athletes. This book is pitched at the Masters level. A first degree in a medical speciality is assumed so space has not been allocated to the standard management of common conditions such as epicondylitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, ankle sprains of fractures. With some thirty years practical experience around the theme of "Controversies in Performing Arts Medicine", the editor has provided occupational rheumatological care for performing artists, especially instrumentalists and dancers with complex ailments. The introductory section provides a basic insight into the musculoskeletal problems specific to each of the many varied instruments and styles of dance. Consideration is also given to musculoskeletal aspects that affect the voice.

This book compiles the papers presented at the Annual Conference of the Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors held in April 2010. It embraces a wide range of issues related to ergonomics, reflecting the name change of the Ergonomics Society to the Institute of Ergonomics & Human Factors.

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.

Singing has been a characteristic behaviour of humanity across several millennia. Chorus America (2009) estimated that 42.6 million adults and children regularly sing in one of 270,000 choruses in the US, representing more than 1:5 households. Similarly, recent European-based data suggest that more than 37 million adults take part in group singing. The Oxford Handbook of Singing is a landmark text on this topic. It is a comprehensive resource for anyone who wishes to know more about the pluralistic nature of singing. In part, the narrative adopts a lifespan approach, pre-cradle to senescence, to illustrate that singing is a commonplace behaviour which is an essential characteristic of our humanity. In the overall design of the Handbook, the chapter contents have been clustered into eight main sections, embracing fifty-three chapters by seventy-two authors, drawn from across the world, with each chapter illustrating and illuminating a particular aspect of singing. Offering a multi-disciplinary perspective embracing the arts and humanities, physical, social and clinical sciences, the book will be valuable for a broad audience within those fields.

This volume provides an eloquent review of the anatomy and physiology of phonation, the work-up of patients with voice disorders, basic evaluation of wind instrument performance and dysfunction, and a full description of the most common skeletal and non-skeletal dentofacial anomalies, including their means of diagnosis and treatment. This is followed by a comprehensive review of literature on the vocal and acoustic features of affected patients, as well as the special considerations in wind instrumentalists. The effect of orthodontic therapy/ orthognathic surgery on voice, associated upper airway changes, and wind instruments performance is emphasized. The information provided in this book will heighten the patients’, therapists’, teachers’ and physicians’ awareness of the vocal characteristics and wind instrumentalists concerns often associated with these conditions. Dentofacial Anomalies: Implications for Voice and Wind Instrument Performance is addressed to otolaryngologists, laryngologists, speech-language pathologists, voice teachers, professional voice users, wind instrumentalists, instrument teachers, arts medicine physicians, physical therapists, orthodontists and other dentists, as well as members of the general public who are concerned about their voices and or wind instrument playing.

VIEW BOOK DETAILS We are pleased to introduce the collection Frontiers in Psychology – Highlights in Performance Science: Music Performance Anxiety. Music performance anxiety (MPA) has been defined as “the experience of marked and persistent anxious apprehension related to musical performance”. For musicians performing in public is a demanding activity and the MPA can cause potential debilitating effects on their career and health, regardless of age, gender, experience, practicing time, and music genre. A greater understanding of the predicting factors of MPA has implications not only for theories of MPA but also for its prevention and management and more broadly for teaching and learning. This collection will welcome and showcase a selection of articles about Music Performance Anxiety (MPA), authored by leaders in the field. The work presented here highlights the broad diversity of research performed across the Performance Science field and aims to put a spotlight on the main areas of interest. This collection aims to further support Frontiers’ strong community by shining a spotlight on our authors' highly impactful research.