Mental Practice In Music Performance: A Literature-Based Glossary and Taxonomy

Abstract

Mental practice is a strategy that can be used to acquire the necessary skills for piano and other music performance. This type of practice strategy involves the use of imagery as opposed to the motor skills used in physical practice. In a preliminary review of piano pedagogy material and recent scientific literature, the benefits of mental practice were established. However, this review also revealed a lack of clarity in the use of terminology which sometimes interfered with readability. In order to better understand this problem of terminology, 33 current studies on mental practice in music performance were collected and examined for both the quantity and quality of term usage. Terms were identified and recorded using existing terminology and classification methods. Terminological records were created for each term appearing more than twice in the literature. In total, 83 records were created. Issues related to frequency of use (repetition), use of multiple terms (synonymy), lack of term definitions, and the need for clarity in term usage (semantic vagueness and ambiguity) were then analyzed using these records. This term analysis process resulted in the creation of a glossary and taxonomy. The glossary of 21 terms and corresponding hierarchical taxonomy (tree diagram) are proposed as an aid to help clarify the terminology of mental practice in music performance. Given the value of mental practice in learning to play music it is important to develop and maintain terminology that will facilitate both the understanding of existing literature and the design of future studies.