Preparing for Success: A practical guide for young musicians (Issues in Practice) - Softcover

Hallam, Susan; Gaunt, Helena

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0854739033 ISBN 13: 9780854739035

Publisher: Institute of Education, 2012

Synopsis

Pursuing a career in music is one of the most challenging and satisfying things you can do. Because music expresses something fundamental about our humanity, it is almost impossible to make it a profession without putting heart and soul into it. This book is a practical guide for young people who wish to build a career as a professional musician. It will help you build a realistic professional vision, support your development, and understand what it takes to make a successful career. As well as providing lots of information drawn from recent research it offers practical tools and exercises, to enable you to relate the information to your own situation, and to help realise your potential. The book covers three main areas: • helping you to motivate yourself, set goals, and get the most from tuition, practise and rehearsal; • nurturing your creativity and expanding your experience and professional horizons; • mapping out the professional landscape and outlining vital parts of getting a career started. Readers will find it an effective tool whenever they are in search of ways to understand their experiences, solve problems or identify goals. It will be of interest to students and teachers of music in all areas of education.

About this title

Review

Preparing for Success: A practical guide for young musicians is an excellent practical guide for anyone thinking seriously about pursuing a career in the music profession.
The journey to becoming a musician (and the reality of entering the profession) has changed significantly in recent years. There are now a myriad of training and education options available for young musicians and this publication provides an excellent signpost to the options available, the importance of life-long learning, navigating a complex profession and being realistic about success.
The desire to become a musician usually emerges from a desire to transfer your love of playing music into a career, but there are often many hurdles to overcome in order to be ready to tackle the challenges of a demanding and complex profession. With this in mind, Preparing for Success importantly details the holistic needs of musicians – these include ensuring adequate health and wellbeing, developing entrepreneurial skills and preparing young musicians to be resilient in the face of the inevitable ups and downs that are part and parcel of a portfolio career that requires young musicians to be ready to deal with ambiguity and to be flexible, with the capacity to respond to the demands of a fast-changing profession.
Overall, Preparing for Success encourages young musicians to be clear about their sense of purpose, of knowing what exactly they hope to achieve and by when. As with any publication dealing with supporting people to better performance, the book also engenders reflection about what it means to be self-analytical, to develop a high level of emotional intelligence and to be clear about understanding both your strengths and musical identity.
I thoroughly recommend this book for any young musician starting to consider a professional musical career. When I started my own professional study some twenty years ago, my main focus was on mastering the violin. What I now know is that a broader consideration of wider learning activities, the importance of mentoring and an analysis of the complexities of managing a portfolio career (as detailed in Preparing for Success) would have been invaluable. (Michelle Wright 2012-05-01)

About the Author

Professor Susan Hallam is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London (IOE) and currently Dean of the Faculty of Policy and Society. She pursued careers as both a professional musician and a music educator before completing her psychology studies and becoming an academic in 1991. Her research interests include: disaffection from school; ability grouping and homework; and issues relating to learning in music, practising, performing, musical ability, musical understanding and the effects of music on behaviour and studying. She is the author of several books, including Instrumental Teaching: A practical guide to better teaching and learning (1998), The Power of Music (2001) and Music Psychology in Education (2005). Susan is editor of The Oxford Handbook of Psychology of Music (2009) and has many other scholarly articles to her name. She is past editor of Psychology of Music, Psychology of Education Review and Learning Matters. She has twice been Chair of the Education Section of the British Psychological Society, and is past treasurer of the British Educational Research Association, an auditor for the Quality Assurance Agency and an Academician of the Learned Societies for the Social Sciences. Dr Helena Gaunt is the Assistant Principal (Research and Academic Development) at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, and a National Teaching Fellow (2009). Her current research focuses on: one-to-one and small group tuition in conservatoires; orchestral musicians in the twenty-first century; and the role of improvisation (verbal and musical) in developing professional expertise. Alongside research, she is a professional oboist, and has been a member of the Britten Sinfonia. Helena is a co-editor of Music Performance Research and a member of the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Music Education. She chairs the Innovative Conservatoire (ICON) group and the Forum for Instrumental/Vocal Teaching for the International Society of Music Education (ISME).

Edition details

• Publisher: Institute of Education
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0854739033
• ISBN 13: 9780854739035
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 285