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Musician’s Brain Webinar
Something different for this blog – a post to be listened to, not read. On March 11, I presented a webinar for the College Music Society titled A Musician’s Guide to the Brain: What We Need to Know and Why. This was the second in a series of webinars hosted by the CMS Committee on Musicians’ Health. If you…
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New year – new musical beginnings
What better way to begin the new year than by talking about new lives and musical beginnings! Babies and music are a source of endless fascination – and the subject of a lot of research. We know that babies like to be sung to (think lullabies), they like bouncing or waving their arms when they hear music, they…
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Stress, sleep, and performance
Any musician who performs has been in the position of having to play a concert with too little sleep. We may be traveling and don’t sleep well in hotels. Or perhaps a performing opportunity has popped up unexpectedly and the only way to have the music learned and memorized is to work well into the night. Students are…
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Neuroplasticity and making music
Most of us enter the world with the ability to hear sounds, and we don’t remember the process of learning to differentiate one sound from another or learning that certain sounds or sequences of sounds communicate thoughts, ideas, emotions. We learn to hear and respond to language without being aware that we are doing so. But if we…
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Practice, learning and memory, part IV
And continuing our practice strategies to ensure effective learning and memory: Sitting on an outdoor bench in a scenic spot may not be your idea of practicing, but it depends on what you’re thinking about while you sit there. 7) Reflection. Psychologists speak about reflection as a learning strategy – thinking about what you have learned and…