Monitoring and planning capacities in the acquisition of music performance skills

We investigate changes in cognitive capacities that occur as musicians acquire performance skills. Previous studies suggest that skilled behaviour is characterized by advanced abilities to monitor one's own performance or to plan upcoming events. We first report a study of child pianists (aged 6-14 years old) of beginning and intermediate skill levels who performed well-learned musical pieces. Computer-detected pitch errors in the performances provided evidence for skill-related increases in both monitoring and planning: Children with more musical training showed quicker detection and correction of errors, more anticipatory and less perseveratory behavior, and larger range of planning than children with less training. Next we report a study of adult musicians' advanced performances, which showed heightened sensitivity to melody and repeated pitch structures. Planning and monitoring capacities increased most during initial stages of musical skill acquisition, whereas sensitivity to musical structure increased across all skill levels.