How To...Build a website

Manage Music Performance Anxiety

©Dianna T Kenny PhD, MA (Sch Couns), BA (Hons), DipEd, ATCL (piano), MAPsS
Professor of Psychology, Professor of Music
Director, Australian Centre for Applied Research in Music Performance
Sydney Conservatorium of Music
The University of Sydney

“The essence of all art is having pleasure giving pleasure”
Mikhail Baryshnikov

What is Music Performance Anxiety (MPA)?

Music performance anxiety is the experience of marked and persistent anxious apprehension related to musical performance that has arisen through specific anxiety conditioning experiences and which is manifested through combinations of affective, cognitive, somatic and behavioural symptoms. It may occur in a range of performance settings, but is usually more severe in settings involving high ego investment and evaluative threat. It may be focal (i.e. focused only on music performance), or occur comorbidly with other anxiety disorders, in particular social phobia. It affects musicians across the lifespan and is at least partially independent of years of training, practice and level of musical accomplishment. It may or may not impair the quality of the musical performance (Kenny, in press).
MPA can be partially understood within the theoretical framework of anxiety theory. Anxiety is a future-oriented mood state whose central component is a sense of uncontrollability and helplessness focused largely on future threats, danger or perceived negative events. These negative affective states are accompanied by physiological or somatic responses that place a person in a state of readiness to counteract the helplessness. Anxiety may be triggered by conscious, rational concerns or by cues that trigger, unconsciously, earlier anxiety producing experiences or somatic sensations. Once triggered, the person shifts into a self-evaluative attention state, in which self-evaluation of perceived inadequate capabilities to deal with the threat, in this case, the imminent music performance, is prominent. The attention typically narrows to a focus on catastrophic cognitive self-statements that disrupt concentration and performance.

The relationship between anxiety and performance under test situations is complex. Some people experience anxiety as debilitating while others need and welcome anxiety as a way of enhancing their performance. Debilitating and facilitating anxiety can co-occur in the same individual. For some people, a single experience of failure may be sufficient to elevate test or performance anxiety. The cumulative effects of serial successes or failures will result in a negative relationship between attainment and anxiety (ie the higher the anxiety, the lower the attainment). However, this relationship may be affected by level of aspiration in the performer, and the relationship between aspiration and ability. High aspiration with low ability will produce greater performance or test anxiety, because failure is both more likely under these circumstances and more likely to cause distress because the individual’s self-esteem is threatened by sub-optimal performance.

Brodsky (1996) cautions that MPA must be seen on a continuum of severity to differentiate what he describes as “normal everyday healthy aspects of stress and anxiety that are intrinsic to the profession…”  (p. 91) to the severely debilitating symptoms of “stage fright,” which he defines as an experience close to panic.  The figure below demonstrates the relationship between various descriptors of performance anxiety and their relative severity.

Career stress             Tension in performance             Performance Anxiety             Stage Fright

The impact of Music Performance Anxiety on Cognitions and Performance

Highly performance anxious people demonstrate reliable differences in the way they think about performance situations compared to low anxious people. These include:

i.    stronger negative expectancies before the event
ii.    stronger negative bias in their retrospective self-evaluations of performance
iii.    stronger expectation that their performance will be judged negatively by their examiners/audience
iv.    stronger concerns about the consequences of a poor performance
v.    heightened responsiveness to changes in reactions of judges or audience
vi.    failure to derive comfort from evidence that they have handled the situation skilfully (Wallace & Alden, 1997).

In short, highly anxious individuals will overestimate the likelihood and consequences of negative evaluation compared to low anxious individuals. Performance is therefore more likely to be impaired in situations involving evaluation.

While there are clear cognitive differences between high and low anxious performers, a frequently neglected aspect of social anxiety in general, and MPA in particular, is that the highly anxious individual does not necessarily demonstrate impaired performance or performance that is inferior to that of low anxious individuals (Strahan & Conger, 1998). Even in situations where the highly anxious do perform less well than the less anxious, social or artistic performance catastrophes are rare because highly anxious professional performers are likely to engage in a number of pre-performance compensatory activities, such as over-learning, additional rehearsals, or visiting the venue before the performance to ensure that their performance can withstand the additional anxiety they know they will experience during the performance.

Treatment of Music Performance Anxiety

A wide range of therapies has been offered for the management of music performance anxiety. These include drug therapies (eg beta blockers, antidepressants), meditative techniques (yoga, meditation), physiological and physically based interventions (Alexander Technique; progressive muscle relaxation), psychological therapies (cognitive-behaviour therapy; systematic desensitisation), and music therapy.

Effectiveness of Interventions

Currently, studies point to the effectiveness of therapeutic approaches based on cognitive-behavioural therapy. The most effective treatments incorporate cue-controlled progressive muscle relaxation, breathing awareness, cognitive restructuring, behavioural rehearsal, and imagery. Approaches incorporating these elements are more effective than either placebo or beta-adrenergic-blocking agents.

One way to reduce anxiety is through graded exposure to the feared situation. This combined with cognitive techniques that challenge cognitive distortions (eg “My performance was hopeless”), reframing to change expectancies, addressing low self-efficacy and management (and reduction) of physiological arousal appear to be the best treatment modalities to date. If physiological arousal is optimal, even high levels of worry and apprehension will not produce a performance catastrophe.

It may not be surprising that some professional musicians prefer pharmacological solutions for their music performance anxiety, despite the fact that they are less effective than cognitive behavioural approaches and carry the risk of serious side effects. Musicians, like the most people, want the quickest and easiest solution. Drugs may have an early role in helping to bring music performance anxiety under control, particularly if the level of physiological arousal is so great that achieving any reduction in the early stages of therapy may be difficult. However, withdrawal from these as soon as possible will allow therapy to be focused on self-management.

Awareness of the availability of effective treatments for musicians with performance anxiety should be introduced to student musicians at an early stage of their musical training. Sound pedagogy, appropriate parental support and expectations, and the learning of self-management strategies early in one’s musical education can help to mitigate the effects of entering a highly stressful profession.

Parenting style appears to be of great importance in the prevention of anxiety and depression in children. Parents who are responsive, unobtrusive, not overly protective, and who give children age appropriate opportunities to exercise control over their environment foster a sense of control and this provides protection against the development of anxiety.

Recapitulation: Putting it all Together in the Performance

When artists perceive their performances as challenges rather than threats, they are more likely to interpret the physiological arousal they experience as excitement rather than anxiety. An important component of the shift in thinking about one’s performances is what psychologists call “self-talk.” These are the silent messages that go through one’s mind during times of stress or when trying to solve a problem. Most people will experience some form of physiological arousal during a threat/challenge. The outcome of the performance may depend on how that arousal is interpreted by the performer. In negative self-talk, in which the performer perceives his performance as a threat, the self-talk is likely to be “My heart is going crazy. I’m losing control, I am going to make a mess of this.” The possible consequence is that the performance will be suboptimal because too much energy is focused on the anxiety and not the task at hand. By contrast, the performer who interprets a faster heartbeat as normal before a performance and tells him/herself to focus on breathing is more likely to maintain control and give a good performance.  The music teacher can assist the student to identify the negative self-talk (also called cognitive distortions) of their students and help them to challenge these. Below are some of the more common forms of distorted thinking that students can learn to replace with more realistic statements.

ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: black-and-white thinking: If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure.
OVERGENERALIZATION: a single negative event is viewed as a never-ending pattern of defeat.
MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it to the exclusion of positive aspects of the situation. 
DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting they "don't count."
JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
MIND READING: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you.
THE FORTUNETELLER ERROR: You anticipate that things will turn out badly and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.
MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate your own errors and failings or others’ achievements and minimise your own accomplishments.
EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
‘SHOULD’ STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with shoulds and shouldn'ts, The emotional consequences are guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. "I'm a loser."
PERSONALIZATION: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event, for which in fact you were not primarily responsible (Burns,  2007).

Managing one’s breathing, and preventing over-breathing or hyperventilation, is an important strategy to reduce anxiety immediately prior to a performance. To accomplish this, it is wise to develop and practise breathing and relaxation techniques over a period of time and to incorporate these into one’s practice, rehearsal and performance schedule. Learning progressive muscle relaxation and learning to detect and let go of muscle tension during practice and rehearsal will allow this skill to become automatic when it is needed most, during an important performance.

Another important element in a successful performance is focus and attention. In his book, The Confident Performer, David Roland advises, “focussing on the performance process is the most constructive” (p. 32) and likely to be more effective than self- or audience-focus. Many artists describe this focus as “losing themselves in the music.”

“Quality mental imagery, combined with quality physical practice, increases your overall effectiveness and brings you closer to your dreams.” (Orlick, 1990).

Pedagogical Principles for the Prevention of Music Performance Anxiety

Prevention is ALWAYS better than cure. In the case of MPA, preventive management should be an integral part of musical education. Children should be offered frequent, low stress opportunities to perform almost from the beginning of their musical training. These performances should be presented in a positive, non-judgmental way, so that young performers can learn that performance is an integral, enjoyable and manageable part of their musical education. Children should not be prematurely thrust into competitive environments whose focus is evaluation (such as auditions or competitions) unless it is made very clear to the student that no negative consequences will accrue to a poor performance. Repertoire should be well within the technical capacity of the student and the material should be over-learned to the point of automaticity. All of these strategies will enhance the student’s sense of competence and control so that when confronted with critical performances, a strong sense of a competent self will guide a self-actualised performance.

References

Brodsky, W. (1996). Music performance anxiety reconceptualised: A critique of current research practices and findings. Medical Problems of Performing Artists, September, 88-98.
Burns, D. (2007). 10 distorted thinking patterns. Retrieved 10.10.08 from http://thebookshare.blogspot.com/2007/08/10-distorted-thinking-patterns.html
Kenny, D.T. (in press). Negative emotions in music making: Performance anxiety. In Juslin, P. & Sloboda, J. (Eds). Handbook of Music and Emotion: Theory, Research, Applications. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Orlick, T. (1990). Psyching for sport: Mental training for athletes. Illinois: Leisure Press.
Roland, D. (1997). The confident performer. Paddington, Australia: Currency Press.
Strahan, E. & Conger, A. (1998). Social anxiety and social performance: Why don’t we see more catastrophes? Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 13(4): 399-416.
Wallace, S. & Alden, L. (1997). Social phobia and positive social events: The price of success. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106: 416-424.