Find answers to frequently asked questions about the Peabody Institute’s Playing Well program of study.
Registration is currently unavailable for Playing Well. Please check back as we’ll be updating our online courses soon!
No! The Playing Well curriculum is open to anyone interested in practical, scientifically grounded approaches to avoid injury and maintain health for peak performance and career longevity as an instrumental musician.
Playing Well courses are not currently running.
The Playing Well Non-Credit courses have been curated by experts from the Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and elsewhere. The primary course developer is Dr. Serap Bastepe-Gray. Throughout the courses, you will be exposed to multiple expert perspectives, including musicians, music pedagogues, performing arts medicine specialists, physical and occupational therapists, and somatic educators (including Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, and others).
Please check this FAQ page to see if your question appears here. If you cannot find the answer, please email [email protected]. Your inquiry will be answered within 48 hours.
Because these are non-credit, self-paced courses, everything is up to you. The materials, including the course content, resources, activities and tests, have been carefully constructed and curated by our faculty here at the Peabody Institute. To achieve the intended outcomes of the course, it is recommended that you complete everything as it is presented for you.
Your score in the course is determined solely by the final exam grade. The final exam unlocks once you have scored at least 80% on each of the topic quizzes, which you can take as many times as you wish. The passing grade for final exam is also 80%. None of your other work (e.g. reflections, analysis) is evaluated in this course format – it’s up to you to engage with the materials in the ways that are most valuable to you.
This course is not for credit, but the Playing Well curriculum is also available in a for-credit version. For more information, visit our online for-credit offerings.
All textbook materials are included in the course. We recommend that you download the companion workbook for self-study.
Yes, you may download and save the workbook and all course PDFs.
To complete the course activities, download the companion workbook, designed for use in the practice room and as a place to complete and store lesson activities. You may also find a mirror, phone, tablet or laptop helpful for analyzing your movements.
The course is designed to take about 8 hours to complete. But because these are non-credit, self-paced courses, everything is up to you. The materials, including the course content, resources, activities and tests, have been carefully constructed and curated by our faculty here at the Peabody Institute. To achieve the intended outcomes of the course, it is recommended that you complete everything as it is presented for you.
The course is built to accommodate a variety of schedules. Work through the materials over days, weeks, or months – it’s completely up to you!
You have access to the course for 6 months starting with the day you first access the course.
The Playing Well courses address all instruments. Throughout the courses, reference is made to specific instruments when the topic is directly related to the unique circumstances of playing them.
Playing Well is designed specifically for instrumental musicians. While many of the topics are pertinent to singers, this curriculum was designed to address the need for information about the body while playing and strategies for avoiding injury as an instrumental musician.
Yes! Coming soon:
Yes, certificates of completion will be made available as the course collection expands.
It’s up to you. Our recommendation is to take all of the material in the order listed, but you may choose to skip from Starting Your Anatomy Study to a specific course if you desire.
You are welcome to skip that material, but keep in mind that this curriculum’s unique feature is the application of anatomy study specifically to instrumental musicians, so you may miss some of the relevant approaches to your discipline. Also keep in mind that you must pass each quiz to be able to access the final exam.
To receive a free downloadable poster with healthy performance tips, and for more information about Playing Well, including news and updates about course availability, fill out the form at this link or on this page.