Gary E. McPherson

Gary E. McPherson
University of Melbourne | MSD · Melbourne Conservatorium of Music

PhD (University of Sydney)

About

184
Publications
163,514
Reads
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6,191
Citations
Additional affiliations
January 2002 - July 2009
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Position
  • Zimmerman Endowed Chair
January 2002 - July 2005
Education University of Hong Kong
Position
  • Professor of Creative Arts
July 2009 - present
University of Melbourne
Position
  • Ormond Professor and Director, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music

Publications

Publications (184)
Article
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As with many other musical traits, the social environment is a key influence on the development of singing ability. While the familial singing environment is likely to be formative, its role relative to other environmental influences such as training is unclear. We used structural equation modeling to test relationships among demographic characteri...
Article
Teacher feedback is an integral component of helping students understand their current level of achievement and what they can do to improve their performance. This study built on literature in educational psychology by adopting a framework developed by Hattie and Timperley to explore how different types of feedback are used in studio instrumental l...
Article
Full-text available
The strategies that enable musicians to adapt their behaviors so that they can break through, feel energized, and perform well collectively distinguish what it is to be a self-regulated learner. These strategies range from one’s ability to monitor thoughts and actions to being able to navigate and control one’s emotions, especially when feeling fru...
Chapter
Investigation of the role of music in early life and learning has been somewhat fragmented, with studies being undertaken within a range of fields with little apparent conversation across disciplinary boundaries, and with an emphasis on preschoolers’ and school-aged children’s learning and engagement. The Oxford Handbook of Early Childhood Learning...
Article
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Research has shown that people inaccurately assess their own abilities on self‐report measures, including academic, athletic, and music ability. Evidence suggests this is also true for singing, with individuals either overestimating or underestimating their level of singing competency. In this paper, we present the Melbourne Singing Tool Questionna...
Chapter
The Oxford Handbook of Care in Music Education addresses ways in which music teachers and students interact as co-learners and forge authentic relationships with one another through shared music-making. Concepts of care addressed in this handbook stem from philosophies of relationship, feminist ethics, musical meaningfulness, and compassionate musi...
Article
The Oxford Handbook of Care in Music Education addresses ways in which music teachers and students interact as co-learners and forge authentic relationships with one another through shared music-making. Concepts of care addressed in this handbook stem from philosophies of relationship, feminist ethics, musical meaningfulness, and compassionate musi...
Article
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This study reviews empirical research literature that deals with existing caring approaches to nurture and educate gifted children in music. The focus on the ethics of care stems from the need to expand notions of talent development in music from a purely behaviorist focus often associated with traumatic experiences, toward a perspective that addre...
Article
Admission procedures to elementary school in Music Conservatoires in Portugal consist in the assessment of aural aptitude. This investigation aims at assessing the power of aural aptitude at predicting future musical achievement as well as the assessment of two other variables for the same purpose: motivation and intentions of parental support. For...
Article
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Self-efficacy is a key factor in performance success, yet little is known about how music educators nurture students’ self-belief within studio and class music lessons. This study explored teachers’ perceptions of pedagogical priorities in the development of self-efficacy. The goal was to understand how teachers intuitively nurture students’ perfor...
Article
The purpose of this study was to conduct a systematic review of research literature about feedback in music. We employed the Preferred Reporting Systems for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method to systematically review literature about feedback in music education and music psychology from the first identified article in 1973 to Nove...
Article
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The purpose of this article is to provide one prominent perspective from the research literature on a conception of feedback in educational psychology as proposed by John Hattie and colleagues, and to then adapt these concepts to develop a framework that can be applied in music performance teaching at a variety of levels. The article confronts what...
Article
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The widespread cancelation of cultural events during the early 2020 stages of the COVID-19 pandemic led professional performing musicians across the world to experience an increasing economic fragility that threatened their health and wellbeing. Within this “new normal,” developing countries have been at a higher risk due to their vulnerable health...
Article
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Singing ability is a complex human skill influenced by genetic and environmental factors, the relative contributions of which remain unknown. Currently, genetically informative studies using objective measures of singing ability across a range of tasks are limited. We administered a validated online singing tool to measure performance across three...
Article
Volume 2 of the Oxford Handbook of Music Performance is designed around four distinct parts: Enhancements, Health and Wellbeing, Science, and Innovations. Chapters on the popular Feldenkrais method and Alexander technique open the volume, and these lead to chapters on peak performance and mindfulness, stage behavior, impression management and chari...
Article
In this chapter we deconstruct some of the (often unwritten) assumptions of assessment so that readers are aware of the flaws and limitations that are inherent in any form of evaluation made by humans. A section on assessing musical performance covers aspects of norm-referenced and criterion-based assessment issues, and the lack of standardized cri...
Article
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In the past 2 years our world has experienced huge disruptions because of COVID-19. The performing arts has not been insulated from these tumultuous events with the entire music industry being thrown into a state of instability due to the paralyzing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examined how classical professional musicians’ a...
Chapter
This chapter begins by discussing prominent learning theories that contextualize development and then drills down to individual components that are relevant to learning to perform music. Developmental factors, such as distinguishing giftedness from talent, predispositions to learn, sensitive and critical periods, and perceptual abilities are discus...
Article
The toolkit of strategies that help individuals adapt their behaviors to break through, feel energized, and perform successfully collectively embody the concept of being a self-regulated learner. This toolkit of strategies is what this chapter is about, and its purpose is to help musicians more skillfully infuse ideas and principles from the self-r...
Article
There are significant and long-lasting benefits when beginning instrumentalists are exposed to a sound-before-sign approach. Likewise, refinement of play-by-ear skills by experienced, proficient musicians can enrich their musicality and lead to benefits for other performance skills including playing by ear, playing from memory, sight-reading, and i...
Article
The eighty scholars from thirteen countries who prepared the fifty-four chapters in this handbook are leaders in the fields of music psychology, performance science, musicology, psychology, education, music medicine, science, and music education. They include academics who hold prominent positions in music institutions worldwide, emerging early-car...
Article
This chapter surveys research dealing with musical potential, musical giftedness, and musical talent to dispel some of the myths and misconceptions about the nature and scope of musical development. It addresses the issue of whether we are all born musical, before exploring ways of how to define and explain musical potential, giftedness, and talent...
Article
Volume 1 of the Oxford Handbook of Music Performance is designed around four distinct parts: Development and Learning, Proficiencies, Performance Practices, and Psychology. Chapters cover a range of topics dealing with musical development, talent development, and chapters dealing with learning strategies from a self-directed student learning perspe...
Article
This chapter synthesizes available information on music reading and highlights recent approaches to studying the acquisition of sight-reading expertise. We focus on factors contributing to fluent music reading: eye movement, perceptual skills, auditory skills, and memory. The eye movements of accomplished sight-readers are different from those of s...
Article
This chapter provides our explanation of why certain teachers are able to leave such a positive impact on their students’ love for performing music. It draws on the work of John Hattie, whose explanation of how to make learning visible details ten mindframes that have been shown through extensive research to explain successful learning and inspirat...
Article
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In the current education climate, Australian schools are encouraged to provide arts programs, yet there is little dedicated funding for provision and leadership must balance resource allocation with other curriculum and policy priorities. To determine how best to support school leaders in this area, we undertook a three-year project with local indu...
Article
Arts programs are increasingly recognized for their role in promoting student development and cohesive school communities. Yet, most Australian schools are left to navigate a landscape characterized by shifting policy goals and external providers of diverse quality and intent. Drawing on interviews with 27 stakeholders from 19 Catholic primary scho...
Article
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Previous research has shown that musical self-efficacy is one of the predictors of academic achievement, but few studies have analyzed the function of social support in the construction of musical self-efficacy. In this study we analyze the relationship between three sources of support perceived by music students – parents, teachers, and peers – an...
Article
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The quality of parental support is recognized as a crucial factor in the early stages of a student’s development, and particularly in instrumental music education. At the start of 2020, the outbreak of a global pandemic crisis posed new and unprecedented challenges to education, forcing families to stay at home to prevent contagion. This investigat...
Article
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In this article, we systematically reviewed the research literature dealing with expectancy-value motivation theory within music contexts. Employing the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) approach, a total of 1,120 records were retrieved and examined, with 110 eventually included in the analyses. Frequencies...
Article
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The situational context within which an activity takes place, as well as the personality characteristics of individuals shape the types of strategies people choose in order to regulate their emotions, especially when confronted with challenging or undesirable situations. Taking self-regulation as the framework to study emotions in relation to learn...
Article
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IN THIS STUDY, THE ROBUSTNESS OF AN ONLINE tool for objectively assessing singing ability was examined by: (1) determining the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the tool; (2) comparing the task performance of web-based participants (n  285) with a group (n  52) completing the tool in a controlled laboratory setting, and then det...
Article
Motivation is a crucial aspect of learning, particularly in the field of music. For decades, motivation for learning music has been a much-discussed subject, and yet its influence still remains a convoluted issue. This study systematically analyses peer-reviewed English language studies, according to PRISMA guidelines, in order to understand how ch...
Book
Full-text available
Music is one of the most universal ways of expression and communication in human life and is present in the everyday lives of people of all ages and from all cultures around the world. Music represents an enjoyable activity in and of itself, but its influence goes beyond simple amusement. Listening to music, singing, playing, composing and improvis...
Article
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Personal perceptions of self-efficacy are particularly relevant in the field of music performance, which is oriented toward the outward expressions of one’s own ability through public performances. Within this context, a number of personal variables, including social support and performance anxiety, have been shown to be associated with musical suc...
Article
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Vitality is the feeling of being alive, vigorous, and energetic, and is an important indicator of overall motivation and wellbeing. Studio music instruction holds rich potential for creating feelings of vitality through close relationships, the potential for developing skills, and a shared endeavor of artistic expression. But they also have the pot...
Article
The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of using a self-directed practice diary on conservatory pianists’ self-regulated learning tendencies. We sought to determine whether the implementation of a self-directed practice diary based on the three-phase model of self-regulated learning would lead students to gradually demonstrate more sel...
Article
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The professional practice of classical music performers has been better understood and enhanced across the last two decades through research aimed at tailoring rehearsing strategies that support the development of a sense of self as an agentic and proactive learner. One approach focuses on helping students make use of various tools that can enhance...
Article
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Performing at the very highest levels requires rigorous preparation before the important performance. Musicians and especially music students encounter many challenges when preparing themselves for an important musical performance. This study sought to identify and analyze the context-specific temporal organization and self-regulation efforts that...
Article
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Over the last 2 decades, 5 skills relating to visual (performing rehearsed music, sight-reading), aural (playing by ear, playing from memory), and creative (improvising) aspects of music performance have been defined and investigated. To date, however, there has been little research investigating the relationship between these 5 aspects of performa...
Article
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The ability to sight-read traditional staff notation is an important skill for all classically trained musicians. Up until now, however, most research has focused on pianists, by comparing experts and novices. Eye movement studies are a niche area of sight-reading research, focusing on eye-hand span and perceptual span of musicians, mostly pianists...
Article
Instrumental and vocal music students in regional and remote areas of Australia are often significantly disadvantaged in their development by the lack of local teachers who specialize in the instrument being learned. The current rollout of National Broadband Network (NBN) across Australia offers the potential for overcoming this geographical disadv...
Article
For many music students, the transition to university-level studies can be a time characterized by high levels of stress as they adjust to academic standards and the challenges of demanding performance assessments. Given this context, this study investigated the impact of stress on students’ well-being, specifically the facet of subjective vitality...
Book
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education offers global, comprehensive, and critical perspectives on a wide range of conceptual and practical issues in music education assessment, evaluation, and feedback as these apply to various forms of music education within schools and communities. The central aims of t...
Article
The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to describe university music students’ perceptions of competitiveness, perfectionism, and teacher control in conservatory-style learning environments, and (2) to test a theoretical model of a network of relationships among perceptions of competitiveness, perfectionism, teacher control, quality of motivatio...
Article
Full-text available
Within education, the importance of creativity is recognized as an essential 21st-century skill. Based on this premise, the first aim of this article is to provide a theoretical integration through the development of a framework based on the principles of complex dynamic systems theory, which describes and explains children’s creativity. This model...
Article
The aim of this paper was to investigate if a general consensus could be established for the term “musician.” Research papers (N = 730) published between 2011 and 2017 were searched. Of these, 95 papers were identified as investigating relationships of any sort connected with a musician-like category (e.g., comparison of musically trained vs. non-m...
Chapter
Highlighted within this chapter is a collection of best practices for encouraging student musicians to develop as self-regulated learners. Two model lessons are presented that are emblematic of the kinds of considerations, methods, and techniques that teachers may find useful for classroom applications with a variety of beginning, intermediate, and...
Book
Full-text available
The first section provides an expanded view of infancy and early childhood, embracing a key theme that most young children's early music-making is improvised and used to communicate with others and the self. These chapters demonstrate the importance of "motherese" or "parentese" to young children's overall development, the extraordinary diversity a...
Article
Typical musicians devote most of their time to blocks of physical practice and mistake-avoidance, as opposed to mental preparation, desirable difficulties, and strategies that strengthen self-efficacy and autonomy. For this reason, teachers try to steer students away from mindless drill and towards self-regulated learning strategies. Yet, both the...
Chapter
The chapter introduces the edited OUP book 'Music and Music Education in People's Lives', the first of five Oxford Handbooks paperbacks published in 2018 as successors to the best-selling Oxford Handbook of Music Education, originally published in two volumes in 2012. The five volumes are theme-based and updated from the originals. The chapter prov...
Book
Full-text available
Music and Music Education in People's Lives is one of five paperback books derived from the foundational two-volume Oxford Handbook of Music Education. Designed for music teachers, students, and scholars of music education, as well as educational administrators and policy makers, this first book in the set provides a framework for understanding the...
Article
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The way musicians appraise their abilities to succeed in a forthcoming evaluative performance impacts on the range of emotions they will experience. According to Lazarus’ cognitive-motivational-relational theory, emotions may wield powerful consequences depending on whether the performance is interpreted as a threat (high importance/primary apprais...
Chapter
This chapter discusses self-regulated learning in the context of music. Self-regulated learning theory holds significant potential for increasing the efficiency of musical skill acquisition across all aspects of music performance instruction. The chapter begins with a review of selected research that has studied skill acquisition when learning to p...
Article
Full-text available
This article describes the development of a music practice microanalysis protocol that is based on the three-phase model of self-regulated learning (i.e., Forethought, Performance and Self-Reflection). Up until now, most studies on music practice have tended to focus on behavioural aspects. The expanded view presented here outlines a technique for...
Book
Full-text available
Abstract Until now, no single resource has attempted to bring together such a varied range of disciplines to study the phenomenon of the musical prodigy, nor attempted to cover such a diverse range of topics. The 35 chapters which comprise Musical prodigies: Interpretations from Psychology, Education, Musicology and Ethnomusicology are organized...
Book
Full-text available
Abstract Until now, no single resource has attempted to bring together such a varied range of disciplines to study the phenomenon of the musical prodigy, nor attempted to cover such a diverse range of topics. The 35 chapters which comprise Musical prodigies: Interpretations from Psychology, Education, Musicology and Ethnomusicology are organized...
Chapter
We survey three interlocking talent development models: the Differentiating Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT), the Developmental Model for Natural Abilities (DMNA), and their merging into a Comprehensive Model of Talent Development (CMTD). The authors use the CMTD framework to analyse the phenomenon of musical prodigiousness, defined as a quant...
Article
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We sought to understand the potential for positive non-musical outcomes for economically and socially disadvantaged primary school students who are involved in instrumental music learning programs. Two schools with students experiencing generational poverty, current or first-generation immigrant or refugee status who were running El-Sistema inspire...
Article
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This study extends an eight-country mapping exercise undertaken (McPherson & O’Neill, 2010; see Research Studies in Music Education issues 2010-2011) to now include students’ motivation to study music within the Australian context. It sought to determine whether music learners (students learning an instrument or voice), might be more motivated to s...
Research
Full-text available
ISME Research Commission Published in Council for Research in Music Education, 1999
Chapter
Full-text available
Archaeological evidence indicates that modern humans have been making music, portable art, and painting the walls of caves for at least the last 35,000 years. Through the activities of drawing and song these two art forms are also the first in which young children take an active part. In this chapter, we review what is known about children’s artist...
Article
Full-text available
Music is an integral part of the cultural heritage of all known human societies, with the capacity for music perception and production present in most people. Researchers generally agree that both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the broader realization of music ability, with the degree of music aptitude varying, not only from indivi...
Article
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This article reports on a 10-year longitudinal study of children’s musical identity, their instrumental practice, and subsequent achievement and motivation for playing music. Before commencing learning on their instrument, participants (N = 157) responded to questions relating to how long they thought they would continue playing their instrument. O...
Article
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Within the culture of an all-male private school, sport often holds a special status as compared with music. As an area of learning and participation, sport is typically associated with masculinity and receives broad social acceptance, whereas music is often seen at the margins of the curriculum and considered as an activity for a select few who ar...
Article
Full-text available
Within the culture of an all-male private school, sport often holds a special status as compared with music. As an area of learning and participation, sport is typically associated with masculinity and receives broad social acceptance, whereas music is often seen at the margins of the curriculum and considered as an activity for a select few who ar...
Article
Full-text available
Music education researchers have sought to clarify two fundamental issues. The first concerns ‘the extent to which musical progress is sequenced and orderly, and why some children’s progress appears to be effortless in contrast to others who struggle’ (McPherson, 2005, p. 5). The second concerns how successful learners are able to acquire the resil...