Art in Motion. II Motor Skills, Motivation, and Musical Practice: Motor Skills, Motivation, and Musical Practice

Musicians, dancers and athletes spend a tremendous amount of time and effort preparing for performance in the hope of success, aiming for certainty, flexibility and expressiveness. Their use of visualization, verbal labels, muscle energy, and emotion is often based upon intuition instead of knowledge. Art in Motion intends to fill this vacuum. Effective training and teaching hinge on motivation, self-regulation, useful feedback, and an understanding of perception, cognition, timing, motor skill learning, and automation. Information about empirical research concerning mental representations of movement and musical goals can drive the creative process, facilitating the artist at work. Innovative and intentional - purposeful and meaningful - techniques of practice are developed.