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Book Review: The Science and Psychology of Music Performance: Creative Strategies for Teaching and Learning

As a music psychologist, I often find myself trying to explain the difference between the aims and objectives of my field and that of music therapy. Broadly speaking, music psychology explores how music 'works' in a very broad sense for the composer, performer, and listener, while music therapy applies this information in a wide range of clinical contexts. Thus, the growing literature in music psychology should be of considerable relevance and interest to music therapists. After early work such as Sloboda's The Musical Mind (1985) and Hargreaves' The Developmental Psychology of Music (1986), there has been a flurry of recent publications like the present one, all edited volumes in sub-fields of music psychology. These include Sloboda & Deliege's Musical Beginnings (1996) and Perception and Cognition of Music (1997), Hargreaves & North's The Social Psychology of Music (1997), Deutsch's The Psychology of Music (1999, 2d ed.), luslin & Sloboda's Music and Emotion (2001), and MacDonald, Hargreaves & Miell's Musical Identities (2002). Parncutt and McPherson's book provides a timely resource in a new sub-field, focusing exclusively on issues relating to musical performance. The book is aimed at four main audiences: music educators, practising musicians, students of music education and music psychology, and researchers in music performance. The editors selected two co-authors for each chapter, one a performer or music educator and the other from a more scientific background, in order to engage in a fruitful exchange of ideas from different disciplines. This process resulted in an international collection of 39 different contributing authors. The book is divided into three main parts. The first, 'The developing musician', begins with chapters on musical potential, environmental influences on musical development, and motivation. These initial chapters tackle one of the thorniest issues in music psychology musical talent. All three chapters conclude with practical advice for the parent or teacher, and as such tend to prioritise the environmental side of the argument (since genetics are largely fixed!). However, although some of the authors have argued more forcefully on this issue elsewhere, none provides very convincing conclusions here. This leaves the reader with the rather