Investigating musical performance: commonality and diversity among classical and non-classical musicians

Abstract

The Investigating Musical Performance: Comparative Studies in Advanced Musical Learning research project was devised to investigate how classical, popular, jazz and Scottish traditional musicians deepen and develop their learning about performance in undergraduate, postgraduate and wider music community contexts. The aim of this paper is to explore the findings relating to attitudes towards the importance of musical skills, the relevance of musical activities and the nature of musical expertise. Questionnaire data obtained from the first phase of data collection (n=244) produced evidence of differences and similarities between classical and non-classical musicians. While classical musicians emphasized the drive to excel musically and technically and prioritized notation-based skills and analytical skills, non-classical musicians attached greater importance to memorising and improvising. Regardless of genre, the musicians all considered practical activities such as practising, rehearsing, taking lessons and giving performances to be relevant. However, whilst classical musicians attached greater relevance to giving lessons and solo performances, their non-classical colleagues considered making music for fun and listening to music within their own genre to be more relevant. Some underlying processes that may have accounted for the differences in attitudes are explored, including musical influences, age of initial engagement with music and educational background. Points of similarity and differences are discussed, and possibilities for the two musical trajectories to inform and learn from each other are highlighted.

Musicians' Attitudes to Musical Influence

“…In a questionnaire-based study investigating classical and non-classical (pop, jazz and folk) early career performing musicians, Creech et al (2008) obtained ratings from participants on factors they considered important to their de elopment Classical musicians rated instrumental teachers, parents, musical events and professional colleagues as the most important musical influences, while non-classical musicians reported that their most important influences were well-known performers and significant musical events.' p 22 ; the st dy did not loo at the q estion of m sical infl ence in general ho e er Academics must come to terms with previous research just as musicians negotiate their position with music history, and one attention-demanding text from literary criticism is Harold Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence Bloom 7 Bloom's essential arg ment re ol es aro nd a poet's tro led relationship ith strong predecessors, and the various ways a great poet can finally win out in the battle (chiefly by a s fficiently charismatic misreading' of their predecessor's or The eight of history only increases o er time to stifle latecomers ' Transplanting the tensions to m sic m sicologists ha e found the theory partially prod cti e in s ch cases as Brahms's or in the s pposed shado of Beetho en or Chopin (Korsyn, 1991), compositional relations between twentieth century composers (Straus, 1991;Schwarz et al, 2008), or outside of the classical tradition in studies of Keith Emerson (Kawamoto, 2005) or Syrian and Moroccan Andalusian musics (Shannon, 2007).…”

Popular music pedagogy: Band rehearsals at British universities

“…Given the apparent lack of literature on band rehearsing of popular music within higher education curricula (Creech et al, 2008;Daniel, 2006;Lebler, 2007), despite there being a number of studies involving group work practice, there is a demonstrated need to further investigate this particular rehearsal environment and its associated pedagogy.…”

Student musicians' self- and task-theories of musical performance: the influence of primary genre affiliation

“…These are the main genres performed in public by undergraduate music students in Scotland and are the categories used by other researchers in this area (e.g. Creech, et al, 2008).…”