What type of practice makes a musician perfect? What sort of child is most likely to succeed on a musical instrument? What practice strategies yield the fastest improvement in skills such as sight-reading, memorization, and intonation? Scientific and psychological research can offer answers to these and other questions that musicians face every day. In The Science and Psychology of Music Performance, Richard Parncutt and Gary McPherson assemble relevant current research findings and make them accessible to musicians and music educators. This book describes new approaches to teaching...

My first encounter with the theory of harmony was during my last year at school (1975). This fascinating system of rules crystallized the intuitive knowledge of harmony I had acquired from years of piano playing, and facilitated memorization, transcription, arrangement and composition. For the next five years, I studied music (piano) and science (Physics) at the Univer sity of Melbourne. This "strange combination" started me wondering about the origins of those music theory "rules." To what extent were they determined or influenced by physics? mathematics? physiology? conditioning? In 1981,...

Interculturality has always been a part of the human condition, but in an era of accelerating globalization, intercultural issues have become crucial. Intercultural issues are approached in different ways by practitioners (e.g. governmental and non-governmental organisations) and researchers in diverse disciplines (mainly in universities). The aim of this book is to create a platform for dialogue between practitioners and researchers in concrete case studies to highlight the many different aspects that come into play under the umbrella of 'interculturality'. It provides models of good...