2.    Research contextualisation

The performance of music requires the ability of musicians to accurately, flexibly and reliably translate their musical ideas into actions. The actions of musicians are accompanied by a constant stream of sensory feedback. In the first place, musicians hear the outcome of their actions. Secondly, sensors in their bodies generate feedback towards the central nervous system concerning joint position and movement, muscle length and force exerted on tendons. This source of feedback is called proprioception, which has been defined as “the sense of the relative position of one's own parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement” (Anderson, Anderson and Glanze 1994, 1284). Furthermore, instrumental players feel the contact with their instrument whilst playing. Lastly, musicians may receive visual feedback on their actions. For instance, pianists see how their hands move in relation to the keyboard. The coordination of the actions required for the performance of music can only take place effectively when it is functionally linked to the perception of its consequences. Put another way, perception and action are tightly coupled within musicians’  nervous systems. The skills required for the performance of music can therefore be classified as perceptual-motor skills. One of the current definitions of perceptual-motor skills is: “Any ability or capacity involving the interaction of perception and voluntary movement, typical examples being the ability to type and the ability to play a ball game” (Colman 2015). Motor skills are acquired and improved as a result of practice and experience. Over time, smoothness and accuracy of the movements involved increase. This phenomenon is called motor skill learning. Richard Schmidt proposed the following definition of motor skill learning: “A set of processes associated with practice or experience leading to relatively permanent changes in the capability for movement” (Schmidt and Lee 1999, 264).

One of the goals that I pursue, both in teaching piano and in teaching piano methodology, is to create a link between current scientific information on motor skill learning and piano pedagogy. Even though little research has been done on the learning process of pianistic skills, information arising from research about other perceptual-motor skills can be applied in the field of piano pedagogy. Over the past years I have collected and organised scientific knowledge from the field of perceptual-motor skill learning and human motor control that I found relevant for the pedagogic approach of piano lessons. Based on this information, I have put together an over-arching vision on the learning process of pianistic skills, which I present to students in my piano methodology course. In this chapter, I will summarize the information that underlies the pedagogical approach of piano lessons conveyed in my piano methodology course, their implications for music teaching in general, and piano pedagogy in particular.

This chapter starts with a discussion of intentional, goal-directed actions, focusing on how these are processed in the nervous system. I will explain how the brain uses predictions of the sensory consequences of one’s actions in order to generate movements that produce the intended result: predictive processing. Furthermore, I will argue that in music making, the production of intended musical outcomes is the goal of one’s actions. Accordingly, musical intentions and corresponding auditory expectations of outcomes of musical actions are the primary agent of motor control processes. Next, I will discuss how musical intentions and motor control are linked in the brain and how they become better adjusted to each other as a result of learning processes. The learning processes leading to more successful translations of intended perceivable outcomes into actions are called ideomotor learning processes and take place without the learner being aware of it, as a result of self-organization taking place in the nervous system. After this, I will discuss musical intentions in detail, contrasting musical imagery (conscious mental experiences of musical sounds that are not physically present) with musical imagination (non-conscious auditory intentions underlying musical actions). Subsequently, I will discuss the concepts of self-organization and implicit motor learning, summarizing the constraints-led approach to motor skill acquisition and reviewing information on implicit and explicit motor learning strategies. The next part of this chapter demonstrates how ideomotor learning processes can be facilitated by music teachers in various ways. I will summarize the educational concept of nonlinear pedagogy, which suggests that practitioners (teachers, coaches) can manipulate factors that influence motor performance of the learner (“constraints”) in order to guide learners towards optimal movement solutions. Moreover, I will present a variety of constraints that can be manipulated by piano teachers in order to facilitate the learning process of pianistic skills. This will include various applications of implicit motor learning in piano pedagogy. After this, I will summarize the pedagogic approach to the acquisition of pianistic skills that I convey in my piano methodology course. The chapter will finish with a discussion of the tension that exists between traditional approaches to motor skill learning in music pedagogy (and the paradigms that underpin them) and more recent, research-supported teaching strategies.

2.1     Predictive processing

Interviewer: Tell us the secret of beautiful sound.

Murray Perahia: I wish I knew. Pianists go into even books about sound production. And I tried to read these books and they’re Greek to me, I don’t know, about the level of the arm or the… I don’t know, you probably have studied all of this. For me it’s Greek. It’s something in the heart and the way you hear the music that tells you how the sound is playing. The combination of the way you hear it and the way your heart tells you to hear it. For me there’s no magic, it just comes straight through.  I sometimes think about technique, but largely it’s instinctive.

Interview with pianist Murray Perahia by Arie Vardi (Perahia 2012)

Human beings possess the capacity to move intentionally, i.e. to move in such a way that intended outcomes are achieved. For example, a person intending to pick up a pen lying in front of him, will move his body, arm and hand in a gesture that accurately and effortlessly leads to the desired result. People are sometimes aware of their intentions and capable of expressing them verbally. However, they are largely unaware of the processes taking place in their nervous systems that transform their intentions into actions. In music making, the production of intended musical outcomes is the goal of the activity. Musical intentions and corresponding auditory expectations of outcomes of musical actions are the primary agent of motor control processes. Put differently, based on anticipations of intended musical sounds, the nervous system generates patterns of movement that lead to the production of the former. Novembre and Keller explain this fundamental insight by means of the following example:

Let us take a basic example: striking a piano key with a finger. The movement (striking the key) is intended to generate a goal (a piano tone). When this is observed from the “outside” perspective of another individual, this phenomenon seems straightforward: the movement preceded its goal. However, when considering a “first person” perspective, it is the musician’s intention (i.e., producing a piano tone) that leads the generation of a movement: moving the finger toward the piano key. This distinction might seem trivial, but in fact it represents a fundamental step to understanding that movements and their ensuing effects are intrinsically coupled in the human brain and in cognition. More specifically, a representation of a perceptual effect can trigger the movement necessary to produce the effect itself (Novembre and Keller, 1).

Before initiating a goal-directed action, the individual must have a representation of the desired effect in mind and has to use this representation to select a movement pattern that will successfully bring about this effect. This insight was first described by the philosopher William James and has become known as the “ideomotor principle” (James 1890). Recent neuroscientific research has suggested that the nervous system achieves this transformation of intention into accurate motor control by means of predicting the sensory consequences of one’s actions, a phenomenon known as predictive processing (Adams, Shipp and Friston 2013). Based on the intended outcome of the action, the brain continuously predicts the required movements and the sensations that will arise as a result of them. These predictions are based on previous experiences and implicit knowledge of our own body and the world around us. Implicit knowledge here refers to the individual not being aware of having learned it and not being capable of expressing it verbally, but demonstrating the knowledge indirectly via performance (Willingham, et al. 2000), otherwise known as tacit knowledge. Put simply, the brain “knows” how to affect the surroundings in order to achieve intended results, and which actions of the body are required, as a result of prior experiences. Preceding the initiation of actions and during their performance, the brain keeps readjusting its predictions, thus enabling accuracy and early processing of feedback that results from one’s actions. The feedback that results from such actions can be divided into exteroception, by which one perceives the outside world, and proprioception, which is the sense of the relative position of one's own parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement (Anderson, Anderson and Glanze 1994). Muscles, tendons and joint capsules are equipped with sensors that continuously keep the nervous system updated on muscle effort, the force exerted on tendons, joint position and speed of movement. Adams et al. (2013) have argued that the signals the brain sends down the spine in order to generate intended actions should be seen as predictions of the proprioceptive consequences of these actions. Classical reflex arcs at the level of the spine respond to these predictions by fulfilling them: they bring about changes in muscle length and joint position so that the actual proprioceptive signals match the predictions, thus producing the intended movements (Adams, Shipp and Friston 2013).

The effects of predictive processing can be seen in certain aspects of motor control in musicians. For instance, pianists have been found to perform wrong keypresses (“wrong notes”) softer than correct keypresses. In conjunction with this, differences in brain activity connected to wrong or correct keypresses are observable already 100 milliseconds before keypresses are fully executed (Maidhof, et al. 2009). In practical terms, this indicates that pianists “know” they are going to play a wrong note a split second before playing it and even (non-consciously) try to mitigate negative consequences of the wrong note by playing it softer. This phenomenon is attributed to predictive processing in the pianist’s brain, more specifically the detection of a mismatch between a predicted sensory consequence of an action and the intended action goal.

2.2     Ideomotor learning

In order to perform intentional actions successfully, the individual needs to “know” in advance what the consequences of a particular movement will be. As a result, voluntary action requires the ability to associate movements and their perceivable consequences. When individuals perform actions, they learn what the consequences of these actions are, a process known as ideomotor learning (Melcher, et al. 2013). The capacity for linking movements and their ensuing effects is inborn and is fundamental for motor skill acquisition in all stages of life (Hommel and Elsner 2009). Ideomotor learning happens spontaneously, in the sense that it does not require effort or attention of the learner. Moreover, it takes place non-consciously, as a result of self-organizing properties of the nervous system, i.e. the intrinsic tendency of the nervous system to improve its organization without an external control agent (Haken 2008).

Elsner and Hommel (2001) have proposed a two-stage model for the acquisition of voluntary action control, which aims to explain what happens in the brain during the process of ideomotor learning. The first stage is characterized by the individual performing exploratory actions and “discovering” their sensory consequences. Concordantly, this might be named the “incidental” stage. Applied to music making, the incidental stage can be seen when novice learners explore their instruments in order to get acquainted with them, or when more experienced players explore their instruments, aiming to discover how a certain musical outcome that is new for them can be generated. Individuals experience that a certain movement is followed (nearby in time) by certain sensory events. As a result, the representations of both movement and resulting sensory consequences become connected in the brain in two directions: activation of one representation will tend to activate the other one as well. Some examples of this co-activation will be presented below. The action effect thus becomes a retrieval cue for the associated motor pattern. In stage 2 of the model, these retrieval cues are used for the selection of goal-directed movements by anticipating their effects. The emergence of an intention activates representations of related action effects, resulting in a sensory anticipation of the action that is about to be performed. For musicians, this means that auditory anticipations of outcomes of musical actions are generated. By means of the acquired movement–effect association, this anticipation will activate the related movement pattern, which is then performed and actually produces the intended effect. Since this stage is characterized by moving intentionally, it might be named the “intentional” stage (Elsner and Hommel 2001).

Ideomotor learning results in the emergence of associations between movement patterns and intended perceivable outcomes, also known as action-perception couplings. The brain can form action-perception couplings as a result of tight functional and anatomical links between brain areas involved in perception and brain areas involved in motor control. Current neuroscience suggests that action perception and action execution are intrinsically coupled in the human brain (Novembre and Keller 2014). This point of view is supported by the observation that individuals who perceive events of which they know (as a result of previous learning) that they may result from certain movements, sometimes start performing the movements leading to them, a phenomenon known as ideomotor response activation (Elsner, Hommel and Mentschel, et al. 2002). Put differently, movements can be evoked by using their perceivable consequences as external cues. Ideomotor response activation can even be observed when individuals do not perform any physical movements. For example, various studies have demonstrated that areas of the brain associated with motor planning and execution are co-activated when musicians listen to their instrument (Bangert, et al. 2006). Furthermore, it has been shown that the imagination of perceiving an event automatically activates motor parts of the brain involved in bringing about this same event. For example, it has been found that pianists who imagine producing certain sounds on their instruments automatically activate corresponding motor areas of their brains, even when they do not move physically (Davidson-Kelly, et al. 2011). Conversely, the performance of actions automatically triggers activation of perceptual brain areas, even in the absence of perceivable action effects. It has been demonstrated that the production of silent playing movements leads to activation of auditory areas of the brain (Bangert, et al. 2006). The action-perception couplings required for music making emerge as a result of being musically active. Accordingly, the co-activations described above are only observed in individuals who had (varying amounts of) musical training. Nonetheless, it has been found that action-perception couplings are formed remarkably quickly: non-musicians develop a certain amount of co-activation of auditory and motor brain areas within a couple of days of training a simple musical task (Lahav, Saltzman and Schlaug 2007).

Perception leading to conscious recognition and perception leading to motor control have been hypothesized to be processed along different neural pathways in the brain. According to the dual-stream model of action and perception, conscious perception and recognition is a function of ventral neural pathways originating in auditory and visual brain areas, whereas perception intended for activating motor control is processed by dorsal neural pathways (Goodale and Milner 1992). The ventral pathways are located more towards the bottom of the brain, the dorsal pathways more towards the top. Dorsal connections between auditory and motor brain areas allow for quick transformation of perceived or imagined musical sounds into motor control.  It has been found that musicians who improvise regularly and musicians who do not (regularly) engage in improvisation (“score-dependent musicians”) show different patterns of neural activation involved with the transformation of auditory perception into motor action planning (Harris and de Jong 2015). More specifically, improvising musicians showed larger activation of auditory cortex and extensive right-hemisphere activation of the dorsal frontoparietal network, which was not found in the score-dependent musicians. In subsequent research, both groups of musicians had to replicate and transpose non-rehearsed musical fragments by ear. Not surprisingly, the improvising musicians performed this task better than the score dependent musicians: the improvising musicians scored higher on replication of both pitch and rhythm (Harris, van Kranenborg and de Jong 2016). Harris explains the observed behavioural and neural differences by means of the dual-stream model of action and perception and in terms of predictive processing:

Current practice in classical music can be understood in the context of the dual-stream model of action and perception which claims that conscious aural perception is functionally and anatomically distinct from online audiomotor control. Conscious aural perception and discrimination (audition-for-perception) is a function of the ventral stream, while online audiomotor control (audition-for-action) is a function of the dorsal stream. The fact that music performance is primarily dependent on the latter suggests that the training of conscious aural discrimination skills might have less effect on performance than audiomotor training. Activation of the right dorsal frontoparietal network in improvising musicians suggests that their performance is reliant primarily on online audiomotor control (audition-for-action) rather than on conscious aural perception (audition-for-perception. […] Current brain models suggest that the brain predicts the sensory consequences of our actions and revises motor commands even before overt movement can take place. Even during the performance of an action, early sensory input via the dorsal stream enables the correction of movements before their sensory effects are able to reach perceptual awareness. Prediction of the sensory consequences of our actions is based on previous experience, in particular on implicit knowledge of action syntax acquired non-consciously during practice and performance. The fact that classical musicians do not engage in the improvisation of novel music suggests that, in their case, the brain’s prediction of the aural consequences of instrumental performance is not supported by implicit knowledge of the music syntax. (Harris 2017, 167)

Continuing this line of thought, Harris suggests a causal relation between traditional approaches of classical music education (in which playing from sheet music is dominant) and the observed relative inability of classically trained musicians to play by ear. Finally, he mentions the predominantly declarative (explicit) approach of classical music theory training (i.e. an approach that emphasizes the acquisition of extensive knowledge, and conscious recognition/discrimination of auditory elements) as a potential cause of the difficulties classical musicians typically experience when having to play by ear. The ability to make rapid and accurate translations from (mentally) perceived sounds to motor actions is dependent on the acquisition of procedural (implicit) knowledge rather than on declarative (explicit) knowledge. Procedural and declarative modes of learning are now understood to proceed along functionally and anatomically distinct neural pathways. According to Harris, the ability of improvising musicians to play aurally perceived music in more than one tonality can be seen as the expression of enhanced implicit knowledge of music syntax, suggesting that the practice of improvisation could promote the implicit acquisition of hierarchical musical syntax and vice versa (Harris, van Kranenborg and de Jong 2016, 13).

2.3.1     Musical imagery and auditory imagery

The concepts of musical imagery and auditory imagery partially overlap. Musical imagery is generally described as a multimodal mental representation of music, i.e. a combination of auditory, motor, visual, visuo-spatial and analytical components. For example, Keller describes musical imagery as a multimodal process by which an individual generates the mental experience of auditory features of musical sounds, and/or visual, proprioceptive, kinaesthetic, and tactile properties of music-related movements, that are not (or not yet) necessarily present in the physical world (Keller 2012, 206). In this definition, musical imagery is not limited to the imagination of auditory aspects of music. Intons-Peterson proposes the following definition of auditory imagery: “The introspective persistence of an auditory experience, including one constructed from components drawn from long-term memory, in the absence of direct sensory instigation of that experience” (Intons-Peterson 1992, 46). In this definition, auditory imagery is not limited to the imagination of musical sounds but involves the imagination of sound in general, including for example speech and environmental sounds.

In his review of empirical findings about auditory imagery, Hubbard concludes that auditory imagery is related to musical ability or experience, but that it is not clear whether differences in auditory imagery lead to differences in musical ability and experience or whether differences in musical ability and experience lead to differences in auditory imagery (Hubbard 2010, 323-324). Keller and Koch have suggested that individuals with more musical training possess greater vividness of auditory imagery than do individuals with little or no musical training (Keller and Koch 2008, 289). Auditory imagery has been suggested to contribute to increased ability in sight-reading, musical performance, and musical note identification. Additionally, auditory imagery is evoked during notational audiation by trained musicians, and there are anecdotal reports that auditory imagery was used in composition by several noted composers, Beethoven being a well-known example (Hubbard 2010, 324).

Deliberate, effortful musical imagery (“mental imagery rehearsal”) has been shown to be a valuable practice strategy for musicians (K. Davidson-Kelly 2014). Bernardi et al. (2013) have found auditory imagery to be the most beneficial element of mental practice, whereas mental visualization of motor actions may have a negative influence on learning outcomes:

Altogether, these findings have practical implications for the way musicians could rehearse or memorize new repertoire when the instrument is not available: First, imagery of the sounds should be a default operation, a foundation on which other operations rest. Second, analyzing the structure of the piece in terms of harmonic relations, melodic phrases, and rhythmic structures is another key component of effective MP [mental practice]. This applies to formal analysis not just as a deliberate, explicit operation, but also as a background process that runs parallel to the auditory/motor rehearsal. Third, reliance on external models [i.e. listening to recordings] can be an effective way to support practice, as long as it is clear that the goal is to build up an auditory/structural mental representation that holds even when the model is no longer present. Finally, motor and visual cues as well as overt finger tapping could be of occasional help, depending on the specific nature of the piece and the subject’s preferences. However, they alone do not provide a reliable foundation for mental study, and in some cases they might even become a source of distraction. (Bernardi, et al., 286)

Auditory imagery has been found to involve many, but not all, of the brain areas involved in auditory perception. The brain areas that become active when hearing music are largely the same as when imagining music. The main difference in brain activation between imaging and hearing music is the role of the primary auditory cortex, which is activated by auditory perception but not activated as strongly by instructions to generate or use auditory imagery (Hubbard 2010, 321).

It has been shown that anticipatory auditory imagery benefits music performance by enabling rapid and thorough action preplanning, as demonstrated in speeded reaction time tasks (Keller and Koch 2008). The efficiency of this mechanism increased with musical experience, which may be attributed to the effects of music training on the vividness of auditory images and/or functional links between auditory and motor brain regions (Keller, Dalla Bella and Koch 2010, 508). In addition to this, anticipatory auditory imagery has been demonstrated to result in less forceful movements:

This mechanism [anticipatory auditory imagery] may assist in (1) selecting which movements should be made (e.g., which keys of a musical instrument to act upon), and (2) planning how these movements should be executed in order to produce the intended distal effects (ideal sounds) in a biomechanically economical manner. In sum, cross-modal ideomotor processes may function dually to facilitate planning efficiency and biomechanical economy in voluntary action. It may be the case that anticipatory auditory imagery, while not necessarily facilitating timing accuracy, generally enhances biomechanical economy by encouraging less forceful, smaller amplitude movements (Keller, Dalla Bella and Koch, 512).

2.3.2     Musical imagination

As mentioned above, I use the term musical imagination to refer to musical intentions, in the sense of non-conscious mental auditory anticipations of intended musical sounds that initiate and steer motor control processes prior to and during musical actions. I deliberately chose the word imagination, in order to emphasize the generative, flexible and personal aspects of musical intentions. The generative aspect of musical imagination is obvious in improvising musicians, who need to generate musical ideas “on the spot”. Nevertheless, even classical musicians (who generally perform well-rehearsed musical pieces that are notated) have to internally generate musical intentions. This can (for example) be inferred from the observation that musical scores allow performers certain amounts of freedom. Scores from the Baroque era often provide (almost) no information regarding articulation, dynamics or even tempo, thereby presenting performers with a great amount of freedom. In addition to this, musical imagination does not imply a rigid idea of how a musical piece should sound, but is inherently flexible, allowing musicians to deviate “on the spot” in response to performance circumstances, inspiration or as a result of interaction with other players. Some classical musicians exhibit remarkable performance-to-performance invariance in the musical approach of their repertoire, the classical pianists Krystian Zimerman and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli being examples of this. Notwithstanding this observation, in principle musicians are free to decide to play pieces differently from performance to performance. An extreme example of this is the classical pianist Glenn Gould, who is reported to have played certain pieces radically different from take to take (Tommasini 2018). Even though listening experiences and demonstrations by teachers play a role in musical learning processes, musical imagination emerges as a result of internal generative processes and is therefore by definition a personal phenomenon.

2.3     Musical imagination and musical imagery

And, here's a clincher: ´I have never practiced scales and always got bad marks for technique’ he says. So where did he get all those silvery scale passages, lightning arpeggios and thundering octaves that he releases with such ease during his performances? When asked that question by a music critic/writer from the German Suddeutsche [Süddeutsche] Zeitung, he answered, ‘It is the LISTENING, not the PLAYING. I develop a sound image my mind and then I try to project this image in my music. That's all. It's not always easy, but for me it is the only possible way.’

Interview with pianist Arcadi Volodos by Cheryl North (Volodos 2003)

Musicians have mental representations of the musical sounds they intend to bring about. Various names are used by musicians and music teachers to describe this capacity: musical imagination, audiation, auditory imagination, inner hearing, the mind’s ear, to name a few. Some instrumental musicians experience the inner drive for producing musical sounds so vividly that they cannot suppress the urge to sing or hum along whilst playing, pianists Glenn Gould and Keith Jarrett being well-known examples of this phenomenon. The capacity for hearing music in one’s mind is not only found in musicians, but is present in a vast majority of people and can for example be observed by the fact that many people exhibit spontaneous musical activities such as singing, humming, whistling or rhythmic finger-tapping (Honing 2010).

Professional musicians are generally capable of vividly imagining musical sounds that are not present at that moment. The skill of reading scores of unknown pieces and forming mental images of how these pieces sound (“notational audiation”) is common among professional musicians. A minority of musicians regularly apply mental practice (or, more precisely “mental imagery rehearsal”): they practice by imagining the sound of the piece they are learning, without actually producing this sound (K. Davidson-Kelly 2014). Mental practice requires both extensive musical training and considerable effort. The capacity for consciously imagining music in the absence of it is called musical imagery. It may be effortfully initiated (for example in mental practice) but can also arise automatically (Schaefer 2017, 25). A well-known example of automatically arising musical imagery is the experience of a tune being spontaneously recalled and repeated within the mind, also known as “earworms”, or (more accurately) “involuntary musical imagery” (Jakubowski, et al. 2017, 122). More than 90 percent of people experience earworms regularly, i.e. at least once a week (Liikkanen 2008).

The concepts of musical imagery and musical intentions differ at a crucial point, namely the role of consciousness. Whereas musical imagery refers to conscious experiences of imagined music, musical intentions are not (necessarily) experienced consciously. As has been argued above, musical intentions (mental auditory representations of intended musical sounds) arise prior to and during performance, and shape musical actions, regardless of musical skill level or instrument. Musicians do report having musical intentions which underly their actions (see for example the quotations from Murray Perahia and Arcadi Volodos earlier in this discussion), but do not report their musical intentions being conscious experiences of musical sounds during performance. Given this crucial difference, the question arises how musical imagery and musical intentions are related. Bailes suggests that musical imagery may be an involuntary corollary of musical activity, such as working towards an ideal musical sound in performance based on internally “hearing” how it should sound (Bailes 2002, 1). Continuing this line of thought, musical imagery should be seen as a “side-effect” of musical intentions. Keller distinguishes between the use of mental imagery prior to performance (“offline”) and during performance (“online”), (Keller 2012, 207). However, Keller does not explicitly state whether online mental imagery (necessarily) takes place by means of consciously experienced musical sounds. In his book “The Inner Game of Music”, double-bass player Barry Green addresses the issue of musical intentions: “Effectively, you are playing a duet between the music in your head and the music you are performing. Any notes you play that don’t correspond to your imagined sense of the music stand out, and your nervous system is able to make instant, unconscious adjustments” (Green 1986, 75). I assume that Green uses the word “duet” metaphorically, in the sense that he does not actually experience two sources of sound whilst playing.

I use the term musical imagination to refer to musical intentions, using it in the following sense: non-conscious mental auditory anticipations of intended musical sounds that initiate and steer motor control processes prior to and during musical actions. As has been argued above, musical imagery and musical imagination differ, but they also partially overlap. Musical imagination may lead to conscious experiences of imagined musical sounds, for example in mental practice. More importantly, musical imagination and musical imagery both involve activation of (parts of) the auditory cortex and automatic co-activation of (parts of) the motor cortex. Thus, knowledge about musical imagery may help in understanding the role of musical imagination in music making. Therefore, the next part of this discussion will be a summary of scientific information about musical imagery and auditory imagery, after which I will discuss the concept of musical imagination, explaining its usage in my piano methodology course.

2.4.2     Implicit and explicit motor learning

Recent scientific research has produced a substantial amount of information about the differential effects of implicit and explicit approaches to learning perceptual-motor skills. However, the terms implicit and explicit motor learning have been used in a non-uniform way among experts in the field of motor learning. Kleynen et al. (2014) have presented definitions of implicit and explicit motor learning resulting from a consensus-seeking procedure involving a group of 49 international scientists and practitioners with expertise related to motor learning. They propose the following definitions:

Explicit motor learning can be defined as learning which generates verbal knowledge of movement performance (e.g., facts and rules), involves cognitive stages within the learning process and is dependent on working memory involvement. Implicit motor learning can be defined as learning which progresses with no or minimal increase in verbal knowledge of movement performance (e.g., facts and rules) and without awareness. Implicitly learned skills are (unconsciously) retrieved from implicit memory. (Kleynen, et al., 9)

Implicit motor learning has been found to have advantages over explicit motor learning that are relevant for music pedagogy. Numerous studies have demonstrated that implicitly learned motor skills are less susceptible to deterioration under psychological stress, compared to explicitly learned motor skills (R. Masters 1992), see Zhu et al. for an overview of studies that have shown this (Zhu, Poolton and Masters 2012). The relevance of stress-resistant skills is self-evident in the field of music. Furthermore, implicit motor learning has repeatedly been found to produce motor skills that remain relatively stable whilst performing a second task concurrently (“multitasking”), in comparison with explicit motor learning (Maxwell, Masters and Eves 2003). This benefit is meaningful for musicians, since musicians typically must be able to perform whilst carefully observing other members of an ensemble, often having to adjust aspects of their performance (such as timing and dynamics) to a high level of accuracy. Continuing this line of thought, acquiring motor skills implicitly may give musicians more attentional “space” for musical communication with their fellow performers. Furthermore, implicitly learned motor skills have been demonstrated to have enhanced transfer to novel situations and skills, relative to explicitly learned motor skills (Totsika and Wulf 2003). In other words, an implicit learner outperforms an explicit learner when required to perform a variation of the trained skill in question or having to perform the skill under different circumstances. This is a relevant benefit for musicians, since having to perform under widely varying circumstances is a normal element of the life of a professional musician.

Researchers have presented several explanations for the benefits of implicit motor learning. Richard Masters (1992) has proposed the “reinvestment theory” to explain the relative stress resistance of implicitly learned motor skills. This hypothesis states that relatively automated motor processes can be disturbed by the learner trying to exert conscious control over his movements based on task-relevant declarative knowledge. According to Masters: 

[…] if, in passing from novice to expert, or unpractised to practised, explicit learning can be minimized, the performer will have less conscious knowledge of the rules for execution of the skill, and will be less able to reinvest his or her knowledge in time of stress. This should result in a lower incidence of skill breakdown under stress. In practical terms, the performer will be less likely to choke. (R. Masters)

One of the differences between implicit and explicit motor learning is the acquisition by the learner of verbal knowledge of movement performance: explicit motor learning generates this knowledge whereas implicit learning proceeds with no or minimal increase in verbal knowledge (Kleynen, et al. 2014). Even when no instructions on how to move are given by trainers, instructors or teachers, some learners do develop verbal knowledge of how they move during the learning process of a certain skill. Poolton and Zachry describe this phenomenon like this: “[...] beyond outside instruction, learners also accumulate declarative knowledge from their own trial-and-error attempts to find successful ways to complete a task” (Poolton and Zachry 2007, 68). For example, a novice golf player might find out by himself that he shifts his weight from his right foot to his left foot during his golf swing. However, one of the objectives of research on implicit motor learning is to measure the outcome of motor learning that took place with little or no increase in verbal knowledge of motor performance. This implies that research about the differential outcomes of implicit and explicit motor learning must involve an intervention that suppresses the acquisition of verbal knowledge of movement performance for the learners in the implicit learning group. In early research about the differential outcomes of implicit and explicit motor learning, the build-up of verbal knowledge was suppressed by dual-task learning: learners in the implicit-learning group had to perform a concurrent secondary task whilst practising the primary skill. For example, in the study by Masters (1992) the implicit learners had to generate and call out random letters of the alphabet at a specific rate whilst learning to putt a golf ball. The idea behind the application of dual-task learning is: “[…] that the secondary task is a resource-limiting device which will place such demands on short-term memory capacity that accretion of explicit putting-skill knowledge will be virtually nil” (R. Masters 1992).

Although dual-task learning has been shown to suppress the acquisition of verbal knowledge, it is too unpractical for real learning situations such as sport training sessions, physical education classes and music lessons. On top of that, dual-task learning has been found to slow down the learning process. As a result, the need was felt for a learning strategy that produces the aforementioned benefits of implicit motor learning whilst being practically applicable and not slowing down the learning process. Considering this, Richard Masters suggested using analogies or metaphors to provide instruction in motor learning processes (R. S. Masters 2000). Research about the learning outcomes of analogy motor learning has shown that it does result in the benefits associated with implicit motor learning such as robustness under secondary task load (Liao and Masters 2001) and under stressful conditions (Lam, Maxwell and Masters 2009), without slowing down the learning process. Also, it was found that analogy motor learning results in reduced acquisition of explicit movement rules, which suggests that it can be considered an implicit motor learning strategy. The benefits of analogy motor learning in comparison to explicit motor learning have been reproduced in several studies (Tse, et al. 2017). Nevertheless, there are studies that have shown no difference between analogy motor learning and learning by technical instruction (Schücker, Hagemann and Strauss 2013). I will discuss the topic of analogy learning more deeply in paragraph 2.5.1.

The benefits of implicit motor learning have consistently been shown in experimental research and are relevant for music pedagogy. Nevertheless, there are several reasons for being restrained in implementing implicit motor learning in music pedagogy and dismissing with explicit motor learning altogether. In the first place, long-term learning results of implicit motor learning have not been researched enough to allow for conclusions about its long-term effectiveness (Beek 2011). The development of musical skills typically takes place over a long period of time. Furthermore, little research has been done about the application of implicit motor learning strategies in music pedagogy. Although there are strong reasons to assume that the benefits of implicit motor learning also apply to music pedagogy, more experimental evidence is needed to support this assumption.

2.4     Self-organization and implicit motor learning

As has been argued in the above, ideomotor learning (the acquisition of links between mental representations of movements and perceivable outcomes) takes place as a result of being actively involved in a certain task. It results in perception-action couplings, which enable the learner to transform intended perceivable outcomes into goal-oriented actions. Ideomotor learning occurs without awareness of the learner, as a result of self-organization in the nervous system. Self-organization here refers to improved organization that emerges without an external control agent (Haken 2008). The process of self-organization that continuously takes place in the nervous system can be compared with the co-operation that emerges in ant colonies when they construct an ant bridge: as a group, the ants exhibit smart and effective behaviour (they reach the food source), even though there is not a single ant that is in charge of (or even oversees) the whole activity. The coordination between the ants emerges spontaneously, as a result of simple patterns of interaction between the ants themselves and their environment (Hartnett 2018). In a similar fashion, coordination between different parts of the nervous system emerges spontaneously, without any part of it being in charge of the process.

This paragraph first introduces the constraints-led approach to motor skill acquisition, which is a conceptual model based on the principle of self-organization. Next, I will discuss the influence of verbal knowledge of movement performance and awareness on the learning process of motor skills. More specifically, I will summarize the results of scientific studies into implicit and explicit motor learning.

Figure 1: Model of music production and perception

Based on this model, we investigate how music teachers can influence the process of music production within their pupils, aimed at facilitating the acquisition of instrumental skills. In the first place, we discuss teaching strategies for helping pupils acquire or clarify mental auditory representations of intended (improvements of) musical outcomes, namely demonstrations, musical metaphors and clarifying musical activities. Next, we examine how music teachers can encourage their pupils to listen to specific features of their playing by means of listening assignments and goal-oriented feedback. We continue by discussing how music teachers can help their pupils in finding playing gestures that match their musical intentions, for example by using movement metaphors. Furthermore, I introduce the concept of in-between steps (also known as intermediate steps) and present students with examples of its application in piano pedagogy. In addition to this, we study a selection of practice strategies that piano teachers can convey to their pupils in order to increase the effectiveness of their practicing process. All the information that has been discussed so far is then summarized in a set of “guidelines for an intention-based approach to pianistic quality”. Moreover, I present the following checklist (in the form of a flowchart) for the pedagogic approach to pianistic quality that students can use to check whether the prerequisites for the acquisition of pianistic skills have been met:

2.6     Intention-based piano pedagogy

As has been demonstrated in the above, current scientific knowledge about motor control and motor skill learning presents music teachers with opportunities for evaluating traditional approaches to musical

motor learning processes and coming up with innovative, research-supported teaching strategies. In my piano methodology course, I aim to enable my students to benefit from these opportunities. My goal is to convey research-supported principles of effective teaching in a coherent manner. Additionally, I present students with a wide variety of practical applications of these principles in piano pedagogy, with the intention of stimulating them to create their own applications and applying these in their internship lessons. This part of my discussion presents a summary of the pedagogic approach of pianistic quality that I convey in my piano methodology course in order to achieve these goals. Since musical intentions of the learner (musical imagination) play a crucial role in this approach, I have decided to use the term intention-based piano pedagogy for it.

The discussion of intention-based piano pedagogy within the piano methodology course starts with a presentation of two contrasting instructional strategies, namely intention-based learning and instruction-based learning. By means of example lesson fragments, I suggest that some approaches to teaching motor skills rely primarily on instructions how to move (instruction-based learning), whereas other approaches are aimed at helping pupils to discover movement solutions “from within” that achieve their musical intentions (intention-based learning). Next, I argue that the production of intended musical outcomes is the goal of musical actions. We speak about the concept of musical imagination, defining it as the non-conscious mental auditory anticipations of intended musical outcomes that initiate and steer motor control processes prior to and during musical actions. We continue by discussing intentional movements, focusing on how the brain brings about successful actions based on intentions by means of predictive processing. Correspondingly, we study how action-perception couplings emerge as a result of ideomotor learning, more specifically how auditory and motor cortex improve their co-operation, thus enabling learners to transform their musical intentions into movements. In order to further clarify the central role musical imagination plays in the acquisition of pianistic skills, I have designed the following model of music production and perception:

Figure 2: Checklist for the pedagogic approach to pianistic quality

After this discussion of educational principles and concepts, we continue with the examination of practical applications of them in piano pedagogy.  We discuss a broad selection of common aspects of pianistic quality, such as articulation, dynamics and pedalling. For each aspect, we exchange teaching strategies such as exercises, in-between steps, listening assignments and movement metaphors. Lastly, the research-supported educational principles for achieving pianistic quality also underlie the questions on the observation sheet that the students use for providing themselves and each other with feedback on their actions in internship lessons. See paragraph 3.2.2 for more information about peer-learning within the piano methodology course.

2.7 Traditional versus research-supported approaches to motor skill acquisition

As described before, when observing internship lessons in the years prior to this research, I noticed that students tend to apply isolated movement instructions: literal and generalized movement norms that are not connected to musical goals. On the one hand, during methodology lessons students find it obvious that musical imagination is the primary agent in motor control. On the other hand, they seem to find it difficult to put this insight into practice in their lessons. One of the potential explanations for this apparent difficulty is a paradigm clash between notions about motor learning processes that are traditionally passed on within piano pedagogy and more recent scientific insights into motor learning that underlie the pedagogical approach conveyed in piano methodology. In early stages of their development as a piano teacher, students often apply approaches that their own teachers have used for them. They model their teaching after previous instructors, thus implicitly taking over ideologies connected to them. This tendency can be interpreted as an expression of their sense of responsibility: they feel the need to teach their pupils properly and want to provide them with good instructions that will prevent them from developing bad motor habits. Despite the good intentions behind their approaches, some of the tacit assumptions underlying their actions might hamper the effectiveness of their teaching.

In this paragraph I will focus on three elements of traditional piano pedagogy that potentially conflict with research-supported approaches to motor skill acquisition, namely the necessity of conscious stages of motor learning, the isolation of movements and their ensuing musical effects, and the usage of ideal movement templates, i.e. ideas and instructions about “how one should move in order to play the piano properly”. 

2.7.1     Consciousness and motor learning

Traditional views on motor skill acquisition emphasize the need for the learning process to start with a stage in which learners receive verbal, explicit instructions about how to move and exert conscious control over their movements. This notion can be recognized in the stages of motor skill learning proposed by Fitts and Posner (Fitts and Posner 1967). Their model consists of three progressive stages: a cognitive stage in which movements are performed relatively consciously, an associative stage during which the performer learns to perform the skill with gradually diminishing conscious control, and an autonomous stage during which the performer learns to carry out the skill with little conscious effort. The notion that conscious control of movements is beneficial or even mandatory for novice learners is also found in piano pedagogy, both in historical approaches of piano teaching and in current practices. The famous piano pedagogue Tobias Matthay (1903) expresses the necessity of conscious control in learning like this:

Yet, the act of playing, is a widely different experience from the act of learning to play! Practically everything we learn, has first to be done consciously; and also very often self-consciously too! Only by habit can we ultimately succeed in “naturally” accomplishing the required actions. The greater the talent, the greater the speed and the less the apparent effort with which we learn, that is all. Playing forms no exception to this universal law. (Matthay, 4)

Piano pedagogue Ellen Amey (1921) states the following about conscious control:

Broadly defined, it is the ability which enables him [the pianist] to control his effects at all times; his ability to control consciously and to direct the physical in the performance of conceptions formed from impressions or mental images, within recall. This same ability should manifest itself proportionately in the study and performances of the student. It is as necessary to him as to the artist, and the very qualities that make it a recognized factor are those that make the pupil a student and the hour a success. (Amey, 1)

The Taubman Approach is an example of a contemporary approach to piano pedagogy based on conscious control of movements. Among other things, it aims to provide injured pianists with tools to motorically “retrain” them in order to overcome their injuries. Pianist and piano pedagogue Teresa Dybvig (whose teaching approach follows the principles formulated by Dorothy Taubman) presents the following explanation of the role of consciousness in the retraining of pianists: “Pianists who retrain their techniques build their consciousness while they rebuild their techniques, so eventually, they know consciously how to play each finger in a beautiful toned balance, how to move from note to note, how to play chords -- how to handle every musical situation the repertoire requires.” (Dybvig 2004)

On the one hand the role of consciousness in musical motor skill acquisition should not be considered a settled matter. Experimental research has not addressed musical learning processes sufficiently for justifying categorical statements. On the other hand, the notion that a learning stage in which learners exert conscious control over their movements is necessary and unavoidable is contradicted by experimental evidence. As has been summarized in paragraph 2.4.3, providing learners with literal instructions how to move and asking them to focus their attention on their own movements yields inferior learning results in terms of learning speed, retention, accuracy, stress-resistance and transfer to related skills, when compared with the outcomes of learning under externally focused conditions. The superiority of an external focus of attention has been shown in a wide variety of skills and seems to be independent of age, level or personal preference of training approach of learners. All in all, it is considered to be a robust phenomenon. Moreover, Harris has pointed out a potential fundamental flaw in current teaching strategies for instrumental skills, namely the reliance on declarative knowledge and conscious perception (Harris 2017, 77-92). Instrumental teaching approaches are typically based on providing learners with verbal movement instructions, for instance about hand position. However, music performance requires the implicit (or “procedural”) skill of transforming perceived or imagined musical sounds into motor control. Declarative learning (learning “THAT”) and procedural learning (learning “HOW”) occur in anatomically and functionally distinct areas of the brain. Harris expresses the need for instrumental pedagogy to address this discrepancy between current instrumental teaching strategies and recent neuroscientific insights, more specifically to develop approaches that facilitate procedural learning processes. The application of implicit motor learning strategies might be one of the ways to meet this need.

2.7.3     Ideal movement templates

Piano pedagogy traditionally places a lot of emphasis on how to sit and move properly, so that “natural”, “optimal” or “economical” movements will emerge. This emphasis can for example be recognized in the title of the famous piano method by Rudolf Maria Breithaupt from 1903: “The natural piano technique”⁵ (Breithaupt 1903). Piano methods (both historical and contemporary) typically include many pictures of “correct” and “incorrect” sitting postures, arm/wrist/hand positions and finger gestures. This indicates that traditional piano pedagogy tacitly assumes that there is a set of movement norms which can be considered “the correct way of playing”, and which is applicable to all learners: an “ideal movement template”. Moreover, this ideal movement template is implicitly expected to be beneficial for learners, thus receiving correct instructions at the start of their learning process so that they can develop good motor habits.

Although traditional piano pedagogy is remarkably uniform in its assumption that ideal movement templates exist and are beneficial, it is notorious for disagreeing on the movement norms themselves. The history of piano pedagogy is studded with debates about for example proper hand position and the role of arm weight that continue to the present day. More importantly, recent scientific insights into motor learning put the value of idealised motor patterns into perspective. In the first place, elite athletes have been found to perform their highly trained skills with considerable differences in motor performance, both among different athletes and between attempts of a single athlete (van der Loo 2010). Training systems involving deliberately “incorrect” variations of the target movement (“Differential learning”) have been found to yield identical or superior learning outcomes compared to “classical” technique training involving instructions and corrections towards an idealized movement (Schöllhorn, Davids and Hegen 2012). Furthermore, proponents of nonlinear pedagogy point out the danger that an ideal movement template may not suit individual properties of learners: “There is little value in instructing athletes to copy an idealised motor pattern that may not suit their individual intrinsic dynamics” (Davids, Button en Bennett 2008, 118). The website iresearchnet.com explains why patterns of movement only represent optimal solutions for individuals when they match their intrinsic properties:

Task goals relate to the specific intentions and aims of individuals during task performance. With few exceptions, such as predetermined movement patterns specified by the rules of a sport, exemplified by the performance criteria in diving, ice skating, or gymnastics, task goals tend to not precisely specify how a task should be achieved. Movement coordination solutions are, therefore, only optimal for individuals due to the unique interactions between individual, environmental, and task constraints, meaning that the search for a putative general ideal movement pattern or classical technique is a redundant goal in coaching and teaching. Functional movement patterns of an individual performer may vary, even within activities which require high levels of performance outcome consistency, such as a gymnastic vault, a long jump approach run, or a golf swing, because the task, environmental, and individual constraints differ from performance to performance. (Task Constraints sd)

Rather than instructing and correcting learners based on ideal movement templates, I suggest students to view emerging patterns of movement as individual solutions for achieving musical goals. Pedagogical interventions that actually help pupils to achieve musical goals likely lead to permanent changes in their patterns of movement. Ideally, piano teachers offer pupils assistance in procedurally discovering gestures that lead to intended musical outcomes. Holding on to ideal movement patterns may hamper this process.