Page 57 - How to Shine on Stage

The strategies of elaboration and organization are complex and in-
tricate cognitive strategies in learning an instrument, and most children
in primary music school employ them under the teacher’s watchful eye.
Teachers use elaboration strategies to aid explanation when identifying
melodic or interpretive elements in a piece. Elaboration and organiza-
tion require a considerable amount of declarative knowledge of harmo-
ny and form.
The vast majority of self-regulating strategy models include three
main types of metacognitive strategies: 55

1. planning (setting goals, asking questions, enables the activation of
prior knowledge)
2. monitoring (checking the understanding of thought processes and
detecting errors)
3. regulation (eliminating errors)
Planning strategies include activities designed to help students use
cognitive strategies and stimulate important aspects of prior knowledge
by organizing the material in a way which is easier to understand. Stu-
dents who use planning strategies are more successful in achieving aca- Indirect Factors of Musical Performance Success
demic goals than those who do not use them (Zimmerman, 1989).
The planning in learning an instrument is done by weekly struc-
turing the student’s practice routine. The teacher puts down in the stu-
dent’s practice notebook what the student should practise and how to do
it (quickly or slowly, by parts or as a whole, perhaps adding technical ele-
ments that need to be practised). In this manner, the short-term goals for
the student are established. However, since students are required to per-
form in monthly productions, long-term goals are also established. These
include not only the strategies for adequate practice in order to learn the
instrument, but also the strategies for successful performance (how to re-
lax before a performance, how to focus on the music and not on the au-
dience, how to convey the message of the music to the audience). At the
primary and partly even secondary level of music education, metacogni-
tive planning is mainly guided by the teacher, with the student gradual-
ly beginning to internalize these strategies and using them on their own.
In addition to short- and long-term practice planning it is also nec-
essary to plan musical performances. This planning presupposes the
mastery of two aspects (Gabrielsson, 2012):

1. understanding the content, structure, and meaning of music
2. complete mastery of the instrumental technique