Innate talents: reality or myth?

Talents that selectively facilitate the acquisition of high levels of skill are said to be present in some children but not others. The evidence for this includes biological correlates of specific abilities, certain rare abilities in autistic savants, and the seemingly spontaneous emergence of exceptional abilities in young children, but there is also contrary evidence indicating an absence of early precursors of high skill levels. An analysis of positive and negative evidence and arguments suggests that differences in early experiences, preferences, opportunities, habits, training, and practice are the real determinants of excellence

The role of perceived self-efficacy in the development of musical ability: what can the study of successful musicians tell us about teaching music to able children?

The role of perceived self-efficacy is important to human social development and to learning in general, but how it relates to music talent development is not well understood. This article explores the concept of perceived self-efficacy as it relates to the development of musical talent by considering what is meant by the concepts of high ability in music and self-efficacy, and by discussing the results of interviews with successful professional musicians. The interview data suggest the need for four aspects of self-efficacy to be present in order to fully develop talent: individual judgement of capability; a belief that outcomes are tied to individual actions; self-regulation of activities related to learning; and persistence in the face of difficulties. The implications of this for music teaching are also discussed

Characteristics of music teachers and the progress of young instrumentalists

This study investigated the role of some key characteristics of teachers in the development of musical ability. Interviewing 257 children who differed in the extent of their instrumental mastery, it was discovered that the most successful learners regarded their teachers differently to those children who ceased music tuition. The more successful learners rated their first teacher higher than other learners on personal dimensions such as friendliness, and rated their current teacher higher than other learners on task-oriented professional dimensions such as pushiness. Additionally, the highly successful learners studied, on average, with more teachers than the other learners. These learners also generally received more individual instruction than the children who eventually ceased lessons. These findings confirm the importance of matching teacher characteristics to the changing requirements of learners in enabling the development of high levels of musical expertise

Tune in to your emotions: a robust personalized affective music player

The emotional power of music is exploited in a personalized affective music player (AMP) that selects music for mood enhancement. A biosignal approach is used to measure listeners’ personal emotional reactions to their own music as input for affective user models. Regression and kernel density estimation are applied to model the physiological changes the music elicits. Using these models, personalized music selections based on an affective goal state can be made. The AMP was validated in real-world trials over the course of several weeks. Results show that our models can cope with noisy situations and handle large inter-individual differences in the music domain. The AMP augments music listening where its techniques enable automated affect guidance. Our approach provides valuable insights for affective computing and user modeling, for which the AMP is a suitable carrier application

An empirical study of normative dissociation in musical and non-musical everyday life experiences

Dissociative experiences involving music have received little research attention outside the field of ethnomusicology. This paper examines the psychological characteristics of normative dissociation (detachment) across musical and non-musical experiences in ‘real world’, everyday settings. It draws upon a subset of data arising from an empirical project designed to compare transformative shifts of consciousness, with and without music in daily life, and the ways in which use of music may facilitate the processes of dissociation and absorption. Twenty participants kept unstructured diaries for two weeks, recording free descriptions of involving experiences of any kind as soon as possible after their occurrence. All descriptions were subsequently subjected to Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Results suggest that dissociative experiences are a familiar occurrence in everyday life. Diary entries highlight an established practice of actively sought detachment from self, surroundings or activity, suggesting that, together with absorption, the processes of derealization (altered perception of surroundings) and depersonalization (detachment from self) constitute common means of selfregulation in daily life. Music emerges as a particularly versatile facilitator of dissociative experience because of its semantic ambiguity, portability, and the variety of ways in which it may mediate perception, so facilitating an altered relationship to self and environmen

Brain tuned to music

Music is the art of thinking in sounds.1 With its power to evoke and communicate emotions it has long intrigued philosophers, but only recently has it claimed the attention of neuroscientists. Even today, there are some who see it as a mere epiphenomenon.2 Many others, however, are exploring the neurological foundations of music perception. In this review article we focus on mechanisms by which music is processed by the brain