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\"Volume 1 of the Oxford Handbook of Music Performance is designed around four distinct sections : Development and Learning, Proficiencies, Performance Practices, and Psychology. Chapters cover a range of topics dealing with musical development, talent development, and chapters dealing with learning strategies from a self-directed student learning perspective and high impact teaching mindframes. Essential proficiencies include coverage of effective practice habits, through to the abilities of being able to play by ear, sight-read, improvise, memorize repertoire, and conduct and chapters that detail the highly personalized forms of musical expression that go beyond the printed notation or stylistic convention of the repetoire being performed. Chapters within the Performance Practices section cover some of the most fundamental aspects of performance practices from Baroque through to New Music repertoire and include chapters dealing with how emotions might be generated as a form of historically informed performance practice, and how creativity unfolds in the real-time dynamics of musical performance. The Psychology section concerns characteristics and individual differences in human behavior, cognition, emotion, and wellness. Across chapters in this section, several common threads and themes are evident: Our relationships with music itself and what it means to become and to be a musician, the tensions that can arise between the joy of music and the hard work required to develop musical skills, and the intimate connection between music performance and our social and emotional lives\"-- Provided by publisher.

Research on the interaction between movement and music often involves analysis of multi-track audio, video streams and sensor data. To facilitate such research a framework is presented here that allows synchronization of multimodal data. A low cost approach is proposed to synchronize streams by embedding ambient audio into each data-stream. This effectively reduces the synchronization problem to audio-to-audio alignment. As a part of the framework a robust, computationally efficient audio-to-audio alignment algorithm is presented for reliable synchronization of embedded audio streams of varying quality. The algorithm uses audio fingerprinting techniques to measure offsets. It also identifies drift and dropped samples, which makes it possible to find a synchronization solution under such circumstances as well. The framework is evaluated with synthetic signals and a case study, showing millisecond accurate synchronization.

\"Volume 1 of the Oxford Handbook of Music Performance is designed around four distinct sections : Development and Learning, Proficiencies, Performance Practices, and Psychology. Chapters cover a range of topics dealing with musical development, talent development, and chapters dealing with learning strategies from a self-directed student learning perspective and high impact teaching mindframes. Essential proficiencies include coverage of effective practice habits, through to the abilities of being able to play by ear, sight-read, improvise, memorize repertoire, and conduct and chapters that detail the highly personalized forms of musical expression that go beyond the printed notation or stylistic convention of the repetoire being performed. Chapters within the Performance Practices section cover some of the most fundamental aspects of performance practices from Baroque through to New Music repertoire and include chapters dealing with how emotions might be generated as a form of historically informed performance practice, and how creativity unfolds in the real-time dynamics of musical performance. The Psychology section concerns characteristics and individual differences in human behavior, cognition, emotion, and wellness. Across chapters in this section, several common threads and themes are evident: Our relationships with music itself and what it means to become and to be a musician, the tensions that can arise between the joy of music and the hard work required to develop musical skills, and the intimate connection between music performance and our social and emotional lives\"-- Provided by publisher.

This ten-chapter book explores how music and society are, and have been, intertwined and mutually influential. It examines the agents behind these connections: who determines musical cultures in society? Which social groups are represented in particular musical contexts? Which social groups are silenced or less well represented in music's histories, and why?.

Music performance requires a high degree of physical skill, yet until recently, musical training has paid little attention to the considerable demands made on the mind and body. The Biology of Musical Performance and Performance-Related Injury presents singers and instrumentalists with accurate information on the physical processes that underlie their craft. The book provides a concise overview of the biological principles associated with performance technique while assuming no prior scientific knowledge, making it accessible to both musicians and to health professionals who treat performance-related medical conditions. Author Alan H. D. Watson explains the concepts and techniques of music performance, discussing themes such as posture and the back; movements of the arm and hand and associated problems; breathing in singers and wind players; the embouchure and respiratory tract in wind playing; the larynx and vocal tract in singers; the brain and its role in skill acquisition and aural processing; and stress and its management. Watson offers performers and teachers the tools they need to create a rational approach to the development and communication of technique. He also provides 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. Each chapter includes several illustrations and an extensive bibliography for further reading. To support the text, a CD-Rom is included, featuring original diagrams that clearly illustrate the relevant aspects of body structure and function, explaining and illuminating key concepts through an extensive set of animations, sound files, and videos.

Listening to self-selected motivational music (SSMM) during warm-ups and caffeine (CAF) intake prior to exercise can independently enhance athletic performance among female athletes. Likewise, the potential synergistic effects of these interventions have not yet been thoroughly examined. Objective: The purpose of the study was to assess the independent and combined effects of SSMM during warm-up and pre-exercise CAF intake on maximal short-duration performance in female athletes. Methods: Seventeen female handball players (aged 16.7 ± 0.4 years) participated in a randomized, double-blind, crossover study. Each athlete completed four conditions: (i) placebo (PLA) with no interventions, (ii) music and placebo (MUS), (iii) caffeine intake only (CAF), and (iv) a combination of music and caffeine (MUS + CAF). Performance assessments included the countermovement jump (CMJ), modified agility t-test (MAT), repeated-sprint ability (RSA) test (mean and peak sprint performance), and rating of perceived exertion (RPE). Results: The MUS (p > 0.05; p < 0.01; p < 0.01; p < 0.001, respectively), CAF (all p < 0.001), and MUS + CAF (all p < 0.01) conditions significantly outperformed the PLA condition in CMJ, MAT, RSA mean, and RSA peak measures. No significant differences were observed between the CAF and MUS + CAF conditions; however, the best performances were recorded during MUS + CAF. RPE scores remained consistent across conditions. Conclusions: Warm-up routines incorporating either SSMM or a moderate dose of CAF (6 mg·kg−1) enhance anaerobic performance in female athletes. While both interventions are effective independently, CAF intake elicits a stronger effect. Although no significant difference was demonstrated for this combination, the concurrent use of SSMM and CAF appears to produce a potential effect, emerging as the most effective strategy for optimizing anaerobic performance.

Given that golf tournaments last approximately five hours without an intermission, mental fatigue has become a critical factor affecting performance. Although research has shown that music intervention can effectively alleviate mental fatigue, this method has yet to be applied in golf. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the effects of music intervention on golf-specific skill performance under mental fatigue. This study adopts a randomized, controlled, partially-blind design, including three groups. The MF-Mu group undergoes a mental fatigue induction task followed by a music intervention. The MF-nMu group completes the same mental fatigue task but does not receive the music intervention. The CON group serves as the control and receives neither the mental fatigue task nor the music intervention. Controlled variables include immersion tendency, sport anxiety, attention, motivation, and perceived exertion. Primary outcome measures include mental fatigue, driving shot, iron shot, chipping shot, and putting performance. Performance measures include accuracy and shot quality. In this study protocol, the use of smartphones for music intervention enhances its portability, allowing the intervention to be initiated or terminated at any time, increasing its flexibility and acceptability. Moreover, briefly listening to music during non-striking moments complies with golf regulations, making this study highly practical. It provides an effective strategy for golfers to manage mental fatigue in competitive environments. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT06952283.

Beneficial effects of music on several performance-related aspects of sport have been reported, but the processes involved are not well understood. The purpose of the present study was to investigate effects of relaxing and arousing classical music on physiological indicators and subjective perceptions of arousal during imagery of a sport task. First, appropriate music excerpts were selected. Then, 12 skilled shooters performed shooting imagery while listening to the three preselected music excerpts in randomized order. Participants' galvanic skin response, peripheral temperature, and electromyography were monitored during music played concurrently with imagery. Subjective music ratings and physiological measures showed, as hypothesized, that unfamiliar relaxing music was the most relaxing and unfamiliar arousing music was the most arousing. Researchers should examine the impact of unfamiliar relaxing and arousing music played during imagery on subsequent performance in diverse sports. Practitioners can apply unfamiliar relaxing and arousing music with imagery to manipulate arousal level.

Deliberate practice— that is, engagement in activities specifically designed to improve performance in a domain— is strongly predictive of performance in domains such as music and sports. It has even been suggested that deliberate practice is sufficient to account for expert performance. Less clear is whether basic abilities, such as working memory capacity (WMC), add to the prediction of expert performance, above and beyond deliberate practice. In evaluating participants having a wide range of pianoplaying skill (novice to expert), we found that deliberate practice accounted for nearly half of the total variance in piano sightreading performance. However, there was an incremental positive effect of WMC, and there was no evidence that deliberate practice reduced this effect. Evidence indicates that WMC is highly general, stable, and heritable, and thus our results call into question the view that expert performance is solely a reflection of deliberate practice.

Introduction Mental fatigue (MF) is a psychobiological state that impairs cognitive as well as physical performance in different settings. Recently, numerous studies have sought ways to counteract these negative effects of MF. An overview of the explored countermeasures for MF is, however, lacking. Objectives The objective of this review is to provide an overview of the different MF countermeasures currently explored in literature. Countermeasures were classified by the timing of application (before, during or after the moment of MF) and type of intervention (behavioural, physiological and psychological). Methods The databases of PubMed (MEDLINE), Web of Science and PsycINFO were searched until March 7, 2022. Studies were eligible when MF was induced using a task with a duration of at least 30 min, when they assessed MF markers in at least two out of the three areas wherein MF markers have been defined (i.e., behavioural, subjective and/or [neuro]physiological) and used a placebo or control group for the countermeasure. Results A total of 33 studies investigated one or more countermeasures against MF. Of these, eight studies assessed a behavioural countermeasure, 22 a physiological one, one a psychological countermeasure and two a combination of a behavioural and psychological countermeasure. The general finding was that a vast majority of the countermeasures induced a positive effect on behavioural (e.g., task or sport performance) and/or subjective MF markers (e.g., visual analogue scale for MF or alertness). No definitive conclusion could be drawn regarding the effect of the employed countermeasures on (neuro)physiological markers of MF as only 19 of the included studies investigated these measures, and within these a large heterogeneity in the evaluated (neuro)physiological markers was present. Discussion Within the physiological countermeasures it seems that the use of odours during a MF task or caffeine before the MF task are the most promising interventions in combating MF. Promising behavioural (e.g., listening to music) and psychological (e.g., extrinsic motivation) countermeasures of MF have also been reported. The most assumed mechanism through which these countermeasures operate is the dopaminergic system. However, this mechanism remains speculative as (neuro)physiological markers of MF have been scarcely evaluated to date. Conclusion The present systematic review reveals that a wide range of countermeasures have been found to successfully counteract MF on a subjective, (neuro)physiological and/or behavioural level. Of these, caffeine, odours, music and extrinsic motivation are the most evidenced for countering MF. To provide in-detail practical guidelines for the real-life application of MF countermeasures, more research must be performed into the underlying mechanisms and into the optimal dosage and time of application/intake.