Individual differences in music performance

Music cognition depends on the existence and deployment of processes for de tecting, storing and organizing musical materials according to underlying s tructural features. Common cultural experiences develop these processes to a certain degree, but specifically designed and supported learning environm ents are required to achieve the levels of expertise required to perform we stern art music. Certain motivational and social factors are therefore impl icated in the maintenance of activities that promote skill-acquisition, suc h as practice. Expert musical performance is not just a matter of technical motor skill, it also requires the ability to generate expressively differe nt performances of the same piece of music according to the nature of inten ded structural and emotional communication. This review examines these abil ities and describes how some of them have been shown to have lawful relatio nships to objective musical and extra-musical parameters. Psychological res earch is thus engaged in a process of demystifying musical expertise, a pro cess that helps to improve upon culturally prevalent. but ultimately non-ex planatory, notions of inborn 'talent'.