Rethinking Piano Performance: A Mind/Body Approach

The ideas controlling piano pedagogy and performance have been, and remain, closely allied to the structure of Western thought which nurtures a mind/body dualism. In Rethinking Piano Performance: A mind/body approach, author Cristine MacKie shows that this traditional view has inhibited piano performance practices, and she supplants instead the notion that piano performance is matter of attending to the role of the mind and the body as a unit. The book focuses on hitherto unexplored issues such as 'shaping' and memorising musical works for performance, which, she argues, indisputably engage the function or movement of the body as well as the mind. Beginning with a survey of historical and empirical treatises from 1650-1965, MacKie reveals that neither issue has been rigorously researched, let alone considered to be a unified matter. Thus, to overcome this dualism, and present an innovative way forward, MacKie examines the interface between scientific research and skilled artistry in piano performance, drawing upon research in structural and functional anatomy, anthropology, and the human movement sciences on the one hand, and some of the most important trends in the study of musical performance, such as the relationship between performance and analysis on the other.

Rethinking Piano Performance: A mind/body approach, is a comprehensive exploration of innovative approaches for the study piano performance. The issues explored here may be interest to three categories of readers, although a wider audience will be able to gain much from it; first, to performers and pedagogues at the conservatoires and music departments of universities; second, the private piano teaching fraternity; third, clinicians and health practitioners.