History: 1. Historical increases in expert music performance skills: optimizing instruments, playing techniques, and training -- Psychology: 2. From cognition to action -- 3. The nature of memory for music performance skills -- 4. Musical synchronisation -- Movement analysis: 5. Hand movements and musical performance -- 6. Movement analysis in pianists -- 7. Fingering and bowing in violinists : a motor control approach -- 8. Movements and analysis of drumming -- Representation in the brain : 9. Brain structures of musicians : executive functions and morphological implications -- 10. The motor representation in pianists and string players -- 11. Brain activation during piano playing -- 12. Brain activation during string playing -- 13. 'Singing in the (b)rain' : cerebral correlates of vocal music performance in humans -- 14. Sensory-motor networks in singing and speaking : a comparative approach -- 15. The role of inhibition in the motor control of finger functions -- Apollo's curse - loss of motor control in musicians: 16. The end of the song? : Robert Schumann's focal dystonia -- 17. Epidemiology, phenomenology, and therapy of musician's cramp -- 18. The neurophysiology of focal hand dystonia in musicians -- 19. The development of focal dystonia in musicians as a consequence of maladaptive plasticity : implications for intervention -- 20. Music performance anxiety

Examines the neural basis of musicianship and forms a comprehensive account of the motor skills and associated cognitive processes which are behind musical talent. This book covers a range of instruments and performance situations, and examines motor problems in musicians in later life.