Twin Data Support a Sensitive Period for Singing Ability.

As with many other musical traits, the social environment is a key influence on the development of singing ability. While the familial singing environment is likely to be formative, its role relative to other environmental influences such as training is unclear. We used structural equation modeling to test relationships among demographic characteristics, familial environmental variables (early and current singing with family), vocal training, and singing ability in a large, previously documented sample of Australian twins ( = 1163).

Using a music microanalysis protocol to enhance instrumental practice.

The strategies that enable musicians to adapt their behaviors so that they can break through, feel energized, and perform well collectively distinguish what it is to be a self-regulated learner. These strategies range from one's ability to monitor thoughts and actions to being able to navigate and control one's emotions, especially when feeling frustrated or anxious. Given the challenges of the music profession, it becomes imperative for teachers to equip their students with the necessary skills to self-regulate their own actions, feelings, and thinking so that they are eventually able to cope with the demands required of a contemporary professional musical career.

How accurate are self-evaluations of singing ability?

Research has shown that people inaccurately assess their own abilities on self-report measures, including academic, athletic, and music ability. Evidence suggests this is also true for singing, with individuals either overestimating or underestimating their level of singing competency. In this paper, we present the Melbourne Singing Tool Questionnaire (MST-Q), a brief 16-item measure exploring people's self-perceptions of singing ability and engagement with singing.

Caring approaches to young, gifted music learners' education: a PRISMA scoping review.

This study reviews empirical research literature that deals with existing caring approaches to nurture and educate gifted children in music. The focus on the ethics of care stems from the need to expand notions of talent development in music from a purely behaviorist focus often associated with traumatic experiences, toward a perspective that addresses socio-emotional and cultural aspects of human development across the lifespan. We employed the Preferred Reporting Systems for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews method to review literature concerning caring approaches to the upbringing and education of children gifted for music.

Feedback in Music Performance Teaching.

The purpose of this article is to provide one prominent perspective from the research literature on a conception of feedback in educational psychology as proposed by John Hattie and colleagues, and to then adapt these concepts to develop a framework that can be applied in music performance teaching at a variety of levels. The article confronts what we see as a lack of understanding about the importance of this topic in music education and provides suggestions that will help music teachers refocus how they use feedback within their teaching. Throughout the article, we draw heavily on the work of John Hattie and his colleagues whose explanations on all facets of feedback, but especially those forms of feedback that are focused on ensuring students understand "where to next"-have had a huge impact on school education through various publications.

Potential impacts of titanium dioxide nanoparticles on trace metal speciation in estuarine sediments.

Engineered titanium dioxide (TiO) nanoparticles (NPs) are widely used and consequently released into the environment. The subsequent accumulation of TiO NPs in depositional environments may affect the geochemical behavior of trace metals, which needs to be assessed. Here, we performed experiments to investigate the speciation change for molybdenum and tungsten in the presence of TiO NPs.

Effects of Passion, Experience, and Cultural Politics on Classical Musicians' Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The widespread cancelation of cultural events during the early 2020 stages of the COVID-19 pandemic led professional performing musicians across the world to experience an increasing economic fragility that threatened their health and wellbeing. Within this "new normal," developing countries have been at a higher risk due to their vulnerable health systems and cultural policies. Even in such difficult times, the music profession requires musicians to keep up their practicing routines, even if they have no professional commitments.

Effects of Threat and Motivation on Classical Musicians' Professional Performance Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In the past 2 years our world has experienced huge disruptions because of COVID-19. The performing arts has not been insulated from these tumultuous events with the entire music industry being thrown into a state of instability due to the paralyzing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we examined how classical professional musicians' ability to cope with uncertainty, economic struggles, and work-life interplay during COVID-19 was influenced by various factors that affect a crucial part of the development and sustainment of music careers: musicians' practice.

Social Support as a Facilitator of Musical Self-Efficacy.

Previous research has shown that musical self-efficacy is one of the predictors of academic achievement, but few studies have analyzed the function of social support in the construction of musical self-efficacy. In this study we analyze the relationship between three sources of support perceived by music students - parents, teachers, and peers - and their influence on levels of self-efficacy for learning and for public performance. We analyze three groups of students under the hypothesis that relationships among those variables can vary with age and the level of education.

Regulation of Emotions to Optimize Classical Music Performance: A Quasi-Experimental Study of a Cellist-Researcher.

The situational context within which an activity takes place, as well as the personality characteristics of individuals shape the types of strategies people choose in order to regulate their emotions, especially when confronted with challenging or undesirable situations. Taking self-regulation as the framework to study emotions in relation to learning and performing chamber music canon repertoire, this quasi-experimental and intra-individual study focused on the self-rated emotional states of a professional classical cellist during long-term sustained practice across 100-weeks. This helped to develop greater awareness of different emotions and how they vary over artistic events (9 profiled concerts and 1 commercially recorded album).

Music Self-Efficacy for Performance: An Explanatory Model Based on Social Support.

Personal perceptions of self-efficacy are particularly relevant in the field of music performance, which is oriented toward the outward expressions of one's own ability through public performances. Within this context, a number of personal variables, including social support and performance anxiety, have been shown to be associated with musical success and are therefore relevant for research that seeks to understand the four sources of self-efficacy (mastery experiences, vicarious observation, verbal persuasion, physiological states) that are integral components of Bandura's (2002) Social Learning Theory. Previous research, as well as observed differences among musicians associated with educational level (preuniversity) and gender (male/female), underpins the context of this study, which presents evidence regarding the factors that are capable of mediating perceptions of self-efficacy for musical performance.

Student Vitality, Teacher Engagement, and Rapport in Studio Music Instruction.

Vitality is the feeling of being alive, vigorous, and energetic, and is an important indicator of overall motivation and wellbeing. Studio music instruction holds rich potential for creating feelings of vitality through close relationships, the potential for developing skills, and a shared endeavor of artistic expression. But they also have the potential to deplete vitality - through controlling teaching, a poor quality relationship, or harsh criticism from the teacher.

Applying Self-Regulated Learning and Self-Determination Theory to Optimize the Performance of a Concert Cellist.

The professional practice of classical music performers has been better understood and enhanced across the last two decades through research aimed at tailoring rehearsing strategies that support the development of a sense of self as an agentic and proactive learner. One approach focuses on helping students make use of various tools that can enhance their learning, particularly in terms of what they do, feel and think when practicing and performing music. This study expands literature on expertise development by embracing the idea that this line of research would benefit from additional studies where the researcher forms part of the research process as an active participant who generates data, especially when these researchers are "members" of the social world they study, and therefore have insider knowledge.

Conservatory Musicians' Temporal Organization and Self-Regulation Processes in Preparing for a Music Exam.

Performing at the very highest levels requires rigorous preparation before the important performance. Musicians and especially music students encounter many challenges when preparing themselves for an important musical performance. This study sought to identify and analyze the context-specific temporal organization and self-regulation efforts that music students employ during their preparation period.

Eye-movement efficiency and sight-reading expertise in woodwind players.

The ability to sight-read traditional staff notation is an important skill for all classically trained musicians. Up until now, however, most research has focused on pianists, by comparing experts and novices. Eye movement studies are a niche area of sight-reading research, focusing on eye-hand span and perceptual span of musicians, mostly pianists.

Thermoresponsive Coatings on Hollow Particles with Mesoporous Shells Serve as Stimuli-Responsive Gates to Species Encapsulation and Release.

Nanoscale capsule-type particles with stimuli-respondent transport of chemical species into and out of the capsule are of significant technological interest. We describe the facile synthesis, properties, and applications of a temperature-responsive silica-poly( N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) composite consisting of hollow silica particles with ordered mesoporous shells and a complete PNIPAM coating layer. These composites start with highly monodisperse, hollow mesoporous silica particles fabricated with precision using a template-driven approach.

Microstructural characteristics of surfactant assembly into a gel-like mesophase for application as an oil spill dispersant.

Hypothesis: Polyoxyethylene (20) sorbitan monooleate (Tween 80) can be incorporated into the gel-like phase formed by L-α-phosphatidylcholine (PC) and dioctyl sulfosuccinate sodium salt (DOSS) for potential application as a gel-like dispersant for oil spill treatment. Such gel-like dispersants offer advantages over existing liquid dispersants for mitigating oil spill impacts.

Experiments: Crude oil-in-saline water emulsions stabilized by the surfactant system were characterized by optical microscopy and turbidity measurements while interfacial tensions were measured by the spinning drop and pendant drop techniques.

A Bottle-around-a-Ship Method To Generate Hollow Thin-Shelled Particles Containing Encapsulated Iron Species with Application to the Environmental Decontamination of Chlorinated Compounds.

Thin-shelled hollow silica particles are synthesized using an aerosol-based process where the concentration of a silica precursor tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) determines the shell thickness. The synthesis involves a novel concept of the salt bridging of an iron salt, FeCl, to a cationic surfactant, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), which modulates the templating effect of the surfactant on silica porosity. The salt bridging leads to a sequestration of the surfactant in the interior of the droplet with the formation of a dense silica shell around the organic material.

Amphiphilic Polypeptoids Serve as the Connective Glue to Transform Liposomes into Multilamellar Structures with Closely Spaced Bilayers.

We report the ability of hydrophobically modified polypeptoids (HMPs), which are amphiphilic pseudopeptidic macromolecules, to connect across lipid bilayers and thus form layered structures on liposomes. The HMPs are obtained by attaching hydrophobic decyl groups at random points along the polypeptoid backbone. Although native polypeptoids (with no hydrophobes) have no effect on liposomal structure, the HMPs remodel the unilamellar liposomes into structures with comparable diameters but with multiple concentric bilayers.

Tuning the Wettability of Halloysite Clay Nanotubes by Surface Carbonization for Optimal Emulsion Stabilization.

The carbonization of hydrophilic particle surfaces provides an effective route for tuning particle wettability in the preparation of particle-stabilized emulsions. The wettability of naturally occurring halloysite clay nanotubes (HNT) is successfully tuned by the selective carbonization of the negatively charged external HNT surface. The positively charge chitosan biopolymer binds to the negatively charged external HNT surface by electrostatic attraction and hydrogen bonding, yielding carbonized halloysite nanotubes (CHNT) on pyrolysis in an inert atmosphere.

Interfacial adsorption and surfactant release characteristics of magnetically functionalized halloysite nanotubes for responsive emulsions.

Magnetically responsive oil-in-water emulsions are effectively stabilized by a halloysite nanotube supported superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticle system. The attachment of the magnetically functionalized halloysite nanotubes at the oil-water interface imparts magnetic responsiveness to the emulsion and provides a steric barrier to droplet coalescence leading to emulsions that are stabilized for extended periods. Interfacial structure characterization by cryogenic scanning electron microscopy reveals that the nanotubes attach at the oil-water interface in a side on-orientation.

Release of surfactant cargo from interfacially-active halloysite clay nanotubes for oil spill remediation.

Naturally occurring halloysite clay nanotubes are effective in stabilizing oil-in-water emulsions and can serve as interfacially-active vehicles for delivering oil spill treating agents. Halloysite nanotubes adsorb at the oil-water interface and stabilize oil-in-water emulsions that are stable for months. Cryo-scanning electron microscopy (Cryo-SEM) imaging of the oil-in-water emulsions shows that these nanotubes assemble in a side-on orientation at the oil-water interface and form networks on the interface through end-to-end linkages.