ESRC Society Today

How are musical performers created? Are there better ways of creating them? And can we apply our findings to other learners in different fields? Expertise theory has not helped musicians; its assertion that expertise is built through the quantity of deliberate practice seems trite given the partial truth of the adage that ‘practice makes perfect.’

Learning to perform collects rich, detailed information from the training of western classical adult musicians in Higher Education, and collaborates with institutions that train popular, jazz and traditional Scottish adult musicians. The project tests the effects on learning of interventions that arise from recent research, those that are devised specially, or those drawn from one musical genre, and applied in another. Finally Learning to Perform builds basic theory that is applicable to learning in a range of fields, including music.

A 3-year longitudinal investigation of learning at the Royal College of Music follows 50 western classical performance students from before entry to the end of the 3rd year of their 4-year BMus course, and another 50 from the end of their 2nd year to the end of their 1st year as graduates. Ten students in each of these two cohorts are monitored in detail that includes termly semi-structured interviews and observation of teaching. Learning is analysed and judged qualitatively and quantitatively.

Award/Grant Outputs and Documents
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