Making Music

Desmond Maley is the music librarian at the J.W. Tate Library,
Huntington College, Laurentian University and editor of the Newsletter
of the Canadian Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and
Documentation Centres.

This study of the psychological aspects of musical performance is based
on interviews with two concert pianists and 19 principal musicians from
the National Arts Centre, Montreal Symphony, and Quebec Symphony
orchestras.

Partington, a psychology professor at Carleton University, provides the
introduction and the commentaries that accompany every chapter. But the
heart of Making Music lies in its interviews, excerpts from which are
structured around themes like background and career development,
learning and artistic preparation, practising, pre-concert preparation,
performance states, stress management, and transcendent performance.

Much of the material contained in Making Music is reminiscent of
Timothy Gallwey’s The Inner Game of Tennis, which is referred to
several times in this volume. There are parallels between musical
performance and athletics; each requires the same discipline, focus, and
controlled emotion. A highlight is the story of the musicians’
backgrounds and the teachers who inspired them. The role that
visualization plays in pre-concert preparation is emphasized, along with
such strategies as having “starting places” at different points in
the score in case the performer runs into trouble.

A disappointment is the relatively short space devoted to the crucial
dimension of practising, where it would have been helpful to include
more examples. The book also has some errors in editing. Nevertheless,
with its wealth of anecdote and insight, Making Music is a rewarding
addition to the performance-art literature.