Significance Of Developmental Psychology On The Performer

Running head: SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE

PERFORMER 1

Significance of Developmental Psychology on the Performer

Student's Name

Institutional Affiliation

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 2

"Discuss the potential significance of one aspect of the psychology of music literature for

your practice, such as a performer, as a manager/administrator or as a teacher (or a

combination of these). (Applied practice focus)"

Introduction

Bonneville, Stillwell & Rus (2017) argue that a person's musical performance develops

and deepens over time when exposed to a suitable nurturing environment. Outcomes of learning

through development are as a result of formal or different forms of musical exposure. Musical

experiences and developments are not based only on sonic relations in a given sociocultural

context but also due to a person's maturation, personal live-events as well as subjectivity.

Additionally, psychological development of musical performance is enabling and positive.

However, other people register negative experiences that they grow and live with throughout

their lives (Bonneville et al., 2017). Therefore, because many of these people perform on

instruments in various circumstances every day, they end up feeling incompetent or competent

musically.

Bonneville, Stillwell & Rus (2017) also assert that development entails progressive

changes in abilities and knowledge of a performer that happen in one's entire lifespan. Research

on performance abilities suggests that development skills that are important for musicality start

in utero and go up to adulthood. Many of the skills such as a person's ability to move into music

carry a tune, and maturation is normal cognitive development. Musical performance and musical

knowledge need thorough practice and learning for future development to take place.

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 3

Hargreaves (2015) argues that musical performance comprises of various areas of the

brain that are networked. Therefore, enculturated accumulation of the ability to identify patterns

combines with time to enable one to fulfill musical birthright. Therefore, this means that one can

interact and musically communicate with others. Consequently, development is shaped by the

world close to individuals. This is so because music is experienced in various cultural,

environmental and social settings. Developmental psychology in of music performance presents

itself in various aspects of people's day to day life even when experience has not been designed

because the developments are fundamental to thinking in the music profession (Hargreaves,

2015). Therefore, the essay will discuss the significance of developmental psychology on the

performer.

Developmental psychology and the Performer

Hargreaves (1986) alleges that artists who take part in the execution of arts before an

audience are called performers, to some extent they determine aspects of the music that they

play. Issues pertaining phrasing, tempo, dynamics, pitches, and instrumentation are a result of the

performer's discretion. Because the desire that people obtain from sounds is usually related to

the one that is obtained from making sounds, it is usually hard to perceive the source of music as

separate from the act of musical performance. Performance skills usually develop with

experience and age in an environment that is appropriate for nurturing Education (Hargreaves,

2015). On the other hand, education enhances the development of an individual's performing

skills and abilities. However, the abilities of an individual child to perform and sing are mostly

based on the age and experience of the children and ones that have experience and those that

have experience turn out to be the best performers.

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 4

Hargreaves & Lamont (2017) assert that parents play an essential role in the development

of their children's performance and musical development. The aspirations and goals that are held

by the parents affect the practices and styles that they get to embrace during contacts with their

kids. Essentially, there is a feedback loop where the learners and social contextual features

interrelate with the parenting styles, practices and goals to aid in shaping the musical

competency, achievement of the children in accomplishment, exert effort, lasting aspiration to

participate, avoiding obstacles and concurring musically. According to Hargreaves & Lamont

(2017), congenital amusics usually have difficulties with performance because they are believed

to have difficulties in performance. Additionally, the performance ability of amusics is not

usually homogeneous and therefore developmental psychology intervention greatly benefits

performance of the amusics.

According to Hargreaves & Lamont (2017) development enables performers to feel

musically connected with their audience when they are engaged in music. The performers also

take the responsibility for their individual decisions and get empowered regarding the impact of

the music and its role in the audience's day to day lives. Furthermore, a performer's musical

capabilities develop as well as deepen with time if they get exposure to a suitable environment

for his or her nurturing (McPherson, 2015). Capabilities of performers develop due to

fundamental features that are found in the neuropsychobiological design of a human being.

These fundamental features have associated the neuroplasticity of the brain what suggests that all

neural connections are created about experience. Musical performance embraces numerous brain

functions like action, perception, emotion, cognition, memory, and learning.

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 5

According to McPherson (2015), the performer situation has developed from a formal

ritualized event to a spontaneous and informal gathering. Therefore, the interaction of different

media has facilitated the creation of circumstances and art forms. Since then many artists have

tried to create performance circumstances that involve the entire audience. Conversely, the rapid

use of has strengthened the difficulty of assessing the effect and meaning of automatically

assembled and produced performances that never happened. The electronica media endure

improving so that anybody might select concerts, opera, and chamber as well as other new

performances globally. Currently, many people can study skills of performing through two-way

transmission. Currently, the number of events of public performing has decreased because there

has been the increase of private musical performance. Additionally, there is the wide distribution

of the great performer's footages that has made the standards of a live performance to be very

expensive (Miranda et al., 2015).

Miranda, BlaisVaugon, Osman & Arias (2015) state that playing musical instruments

activates alterations in the cortex as well as the brainstem. It has been noted that musicians

possess early brainstem reactions to the beginning of syllables than non-musicians. Those

performers that play instruments from the tender age of five possess quicker responses and have

got an increased action of the neurons in the brain to speech sounds and music. They as well

have high working auditory systems. Their quality of encoding is equivalent to their musical

training (Miranda et al., 2015).

Pitt & Hargreaves (2017) ascertain that performance is usually influenced by context. It is

accurate when it is accompanied by singing than when it is not accompanied. Additionally, when

singing performance becomes accurate when it is synchronized than the time when it is just

echoed. Nevertheless, tone-deaf adults do not usually have fundamental perceptual difficulties.

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 6

They can sing accurately like controls on short stimuli mostly when they are accompanied.

Etiology intervention indicates that tone deafness can be susceptible to remediation through

suitable knowledge and experience (Pitt et al., 2017).

Zapata & Hargreaves (2017) argue that the developmental aspect has made music an

interpretive art in the recent phenomenon. Development of the roles of the performer as an

interpreter in most cases coincides with the growth of musical notation. Previously the

composers for many years supervised performances of their works, and in most cases, some

aspects of presentation were not notated. Notation has increasing grown complex due to the

distribution of printed music that has now become widespread in the universe. Ultimately, the

level of judgment that is emphasized by the performer is defined by the time when the music was

composed. Even if national strategies of some era are not complete and bear few indications of

the manner in which the music needs to sound beyond the rhythm and pitch, musical studentship

has amassed to the performer's much information pertaining ornamentation, improvisation,

instrumentation and traditional practices of performing that largely control stylistic and sound

character of music. Performers operate in a variety of limitations that are put forth by their

understanding of pages that are printed as well as education that is obtained pertaining a tradition

that entangles the music that they are performing. Some aspects of the musical taste that are past

at times stop being expressive and with time they disappear from being used. Usually, with time,

performers reassess the available literature and obtain transformed interest in practices which the

previous generation might have set aside. Otherwise, performers say with and to the testes of

their time. However, the task of the performers does not differ from one of their previous dares.

Theirs is usually to refine and renew the materials as well as inherited traditions.

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 7

Bonneville, Stillwell & Rus (2017) also argues that there is a worldwide agreement that

learning to perform as well as experiencing important musical events by a child is very

important. Studies have shown that musical performers tend to be best in numeracy and visual-

spatial skills. Knowledge in music requires attention that is focused, fluid intelligence, relational

and abstract thinking. Therefore it is likely that positive associations are incurred because people

that have better cognitive skills decide to learn music. Nevertheless, learning music builds and

train cognitive resources of a performer. For example, piano lessons lead to an improvement in

spatial-temporal and spatial skills in children. On the other hand, children when at the age of six

when exposed to music as well as visual art training, they greatly improve their performance on

standard tests of arithmetic and reading as compared to those kids that receive standard

curriculum. Consequently, if children at the age of six get exposed to music lessons such as

keyboard and voice, they display improvements in the non-verbal and verbal subtests than the

ones who do not receive lessons. Therefore, music training and development, therefore, music

training and development cause cognition. On the other hand, in case strong attention cues are

given, young children of about three years old can attend to aural information in an urge to

prepare them for future musical and performing desires. According to Bonneville, Stillwell &

Rus (2017), the effects of these are not specific to a particular cognitive skill, but they are over

an array of cognitive aptitudes. Therefore performance training may lead to perfections in the

cognitive processes that strengthen skills of an individual in many areas.

Bonneville, Stillwell & Rus (2017) also ascertains that successful performers are those

that have been exposed to positive learning experiences and different opportunities in their early

stages of learning. Therefore the performers acquire expressive engagement with music and

intellectual curiosity that make them escalate to developed stages of engagement with music.

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 8

Experiences of this type are learnt to give the performers the basis that enables them to advance

through demanding levels which differentiate deliberate practice. The experiences are structured

for increasing performance using concentration, progress analysis, and repetition. The

fundamental developmental process has been realized to be true in the olden western instruments

(Pitt et al., 2017). This is evident from the fact that young children who learned to perform at the

age of eight went on to achieve the best and rich performance rewards because they were

exposed to loosely structured musical actions like free activity and improvisation. The loosely

structured actions, in the long run, enhanced the early development of the children. On the other

hand, having fun and enjoyment are the main predictors of continuing engagements in musical

performance especially in situations where the learners develop an intrapersonal connection to

music that allows them to unlock the expressive, effective and communicative powers of music.

McFerran, Garrido & Saarikallio (2016) argue that performance development, as well as

growth, largely depends on numerous conveyed interactions among the learners. Some of the

interactions facilitate musical engagement while others bring about negative effects forever.

Music educators may not have the ability to put much effect on the abnormal variety of interests

and hobbies that children encounter in their day to day living in and out of school, but they can

influence the learners' musical engagements. On the other hand, children who learn to play an

instrument portray various types of transactions that lead to long-term negative or positive

motivational effects on learning and participation (Pitt et al., 2017).

According to McFerran, Garrido & Saarikallio (2016), the 17th century saw the

development and use of many instruments that included the organ, harp, lute and the theorbo. By

the beginning of the 18th century, performance had been standardized in the in the keyboard

instrument one would realize the pass line. On the other hand, in the 18th century, a person

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 9

would reinforce a pass line using monophonic bass instruments like viola da gamba or lute (Pitt

et al., 2017). Continuo players did not only complete the harmony but they as well controlled

tempo and rhythm to fit particular circumstances of performance. Moreover, the development of

monody was an elementary precondition for expensive institutions of performance. In this period

musical performance and royal patronage started to gain support.

McFerran, Garrido & Saarikallio (2016) argue that in the monarchy of instrumental

music, the new methods of performance proved slow in emerging. However, there were

numerous developments. The most common of the renaissance instrument was the versatile lute

that served all levels from loyal ceremonies to simple dancing. Later on, the lute started to usher

in the keyboard. However, the French music clavecinistes remained the clear outgrowth of the

vanishing and precious performance style. Later on, ornamentation of the keyboard started to be

codified in tables that were published with collections of up to date music.

According to McFerran, Garrido & Saarikallio (2016), there exists a consistent relation

between general attainment and active engagement of children. This implies that music

involvement in the young age improves measured creativity particularly when performance itself

is creative for example improvisation. Development enhances general attainment due to the

effect that the music has on social and personal development. Playing an instrument might end

up in an increase in self-esteem of the performer, a sense of achievement, persistence in

overcoming frustrations in the process of learning, increased confidence, self-respect and

elaborate self-expression. Therefore, this results in personal and social development. In return,

this might upsurge motivation for learning of the performer that encouraging enhanced

attainment. Additionally, taking part in musical groups by the learners during the process of

development promotes good relations with people who are like minded. Social skills, a sense of

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 10

belonging, self-discipline, teamwork, mutual support and accomplishment offer an outlet for

individual relaxation (McFerran et al., 2016).

Macnamara, Hambrick & Oswald (2014) assert that extensive engagement with music

persuades cortical restructuring thus producing changes in how the mind processes data. In case

this happens in the early ages of development, the changes might turn hard-wired and give

permanent alterations in the manner in which data is processed in the brain. Substantial and

permanent restructuring of the functioning of the brain takes time. Many years of consistent

training and engagement with various musical activities in western musicians are related to a rise

in the neuronal image that is specific for the development of tones of the scale of the music. The

biggest cortical representation is found in performers that play instruments for long periods of

time (Macnamara et al., 2014).

Hargreaves & Lamont (2017) argue that processing of pitch among string players is

categorized by more frontally spread event-related brain abilities attention. Drummers gain

complex memory of the chronological organization of sequences of the music. On the other

hand, conductors portray high surveillance of their auditory space. String players develop great

somatosensory representations of finger actions with the amount rising with the age when one

starts to play. On the other hand, the brain develops in particular ways in reaction to specific

learning activities. Also, the extent of musical engagement largely depends on the time one has

spent engaged with learning. Additionally, the degree of musical engagement as well as its

nature is usually important in the level to which transfer happens to non-musical actions (Honing

et al., 2015).

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 11

According to Jahoda & Lewis (2015), the manner in which learners are taught is as well

reflected in particular brain events. In case students are taught on how to deliberate

symmetrically structured musical expressions as unbalanced or balanced using old instructions

about the variations such as visual aids and playing melodic examples, activity is observed in

different brains. Practices and tools that are utilized to enhance the attainment of various skills

influence the development of the brain as well as the suggested approaches to carrying out

musical challenges.

Dowling (2014) states that as people engage in various activities for long times, there

occur permanent alterations in the brain. The changes reflect all that has been learnt and the

manner in which it has been learnt. The changes will also affect the degree developed skills can

be transferred to other activities. On the other hand, musical performance has been said to be

offering to children practical experiences in developing listening skills in schools for ones that

have learning hitches. Performance training shapes first encoding of sound by the brain thus

resulting in enhanced performance (Dowling, 2014). It also improves the ability to differentiate

between changing sounds as well as auditory.

Conclusion

An individual's musical abilities develop and also deepen with time when people are

exposed to an effective nurturing environment. Therefore, these experiences are outcomes of

formal learning as well as different types of informal acquaintance to music. In early days of life,

chances to develop, appreciate and develop musically present themselves in various ways. On

the other hand, music is fundamental to the human design. Moreover, musical development and

experiences are formulated by sonic interactions in specific sociocultural situations, subjectivity

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 12

maturation, and live events. Nevertheless, not all music education to a performer is enabling or

positive because other people register negative encounters that they possess in their entire lives.

Conversely, conceptions in the society that people are nonmusical or musical are usually the

center of hitches that might result into misconceptions that people are born with gifts that portray

them to special and able in the field of performance. Additionally, this is to differ with many

studies that show that people who are congenital amusics have got abilities and potentials in

music while ones that call themselves as tone-deaf have the ability to elevate their skills in music

with adequate training and support. Moreover, children who get to be exposed to superior music

education are advantaged in numerous ways. Lastly given that many people in the universe

perform or sing on instruments in various situations daily, they get to feel connected,

disconnected or musically competent with the rest when they are musically engaged or

empowered. At times the children take responsibilities as their own choices pertaining the place

the music will occupy in their day to day lives. Conversely, a developmental model of music to

the performers need to focus and account for numerous results and explain what music is to the

lives of the people and the relations that they share with it instead of what music is to the lives of

people in light of skills that they might have obtained for it. For the field of performance

education, it implies one's ability to move from literacy skills to a conception that is aimed at

communicative, effective expressive musical interactions that guarantee children as well as

learners to manage their personal musical life for them to experience the self-regulative and

expressive power. Lastly, the wider conception is founded on the view that musical development

takes place effectively and meaningfully when it is seen to be important by the participants.

Major performing institutions have moved into the 21st century with structural changes and

belated movement on unionization of performers. However, this development has greatly

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 13

improved the performer's lot. Unarguably, one of the prolific influences that have been advanced

by performers in the music performance is electronics. Recording and broadcasting have

widened the potential spectators for concerts. The development and introduction of new

technology in performing have decreased the necessity for large arenas for performance.

Electronic instruments have emerged, amplified types of old instruments as well as ones that

have primary electronic tone production such as the theremin and electronic pianos.

Additionally, there has emerged new performance as well as other new compositional

possibilities such as film, computers, and Stereophonics. Moreover, before the invention of

phonograph research was done into the authentic performance of olden music. It offered

awareness of the potentials that highlighted the system of subjectivism and romantic gigantism.

Since the beginning of the century, concerts that were offered attracted attention thus fortified

the activities of other performers.

SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 14

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McPherson, G. E. (Ed.). (2015). The child as musician: A handbook of musical development.

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SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 15

Miranda, D., Blais-Rochette, C., Vaugon, K., Osman, M., & Arias-Valenzuela, M. (2015).

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Honing, H., ten Cate, C., Peretz, I., & Trehub, S. E. (2015). Without it no music: cognition,

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Jahoda, G., & Lewis, I. (Eds.). (2015). Acquiring Culture (Psychology Revivals): Cross Cultural

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SIGNIFICANCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ON THE PERFORMER 16

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