Gary Edward McPherson (born 1 April 1954) is an Australian music educator, academic and musician, who has researched various topics within the areas of musical development, music performance science and music psychology. He has served as the Ormond Chair of Music at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (MCM) since 2009 and between July 2009 and July 2019, served as director of the MCM at the University of Melbourne. McPherson's research primarily focuses on exploring the factors that influence the development of musical proficiency during childhood, later performance excellence, and the motivators of music participation in individuals of all ages and musical skill levels. Much of his research has been informed by his interest in the formation of musical abilities and identity in developing musicians. McPherson served as the foundation Professor of Creative Arts at the Hong Kong Institute of Education from 2002 to 2005. Prior to taking up his position at the MCM, he was a Professor of Music Education and the Marilyn Pflederer Zimmerman Endowed Chair in Music Education at the School of Music, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2005 to 2009. Early life and education As a boy McPherson played soprano cornet in the Parkes Town Band, and by the age of 16 had won over 50 regional, state and Australian titles before he changed to trumpet in the last two years of high school. He went on to complete a four-year Diploma of Music Education at the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music, graduating in 1977. He obtained his Licentiate and Fellowship in Trumpet Performance from Trinity College, London in 1975–76 and then undertook a Master of Music Education at Indiana University, graduating in 1982. He earned his PhD at the University of Sydney in 1993 with a dissertation entitled: ‘Factors and abilities influencing the development of visual, aural and creative performance skills in music and their educational implications’ which investigated the acquisition of five types of musical performance skills: performing rehearsed music, sight-reading, playing from memory, playing by ear, and improvising. Research McPherson is a proponent of evidence-based approaches to music pedagogy and his work seeks to understand the nature of learning, musicianship and music performance. His research has explored the acquisition of different facets of performance skills during childhood. He is known for having helped to introduce self-regulated learning, self-determination theory and self-efficacy research to music learning and teaching research in the context