How teachers can help.

Jane, a talented high school student, has enjoyed her flute lessons for several years, playing in the school band and orchestra. This year, her teacher placed her in the first chair position in both band and orchestra. She practiced hard for her part in the performance and was excited and a bit nervous when her "big moment" came.

Suddenly, something happened to her that had never happened before. Her mind went blank. As she tried to begin playing, her lips started to shake, and her trembling hands couldn't hold the flute steady. Jane frantically tried to begin playing, but time seemed to stand still. She felt frozen, rooted to her chair, beads of sweat forming and pouring in tiny rivulets down her back. Her teacher looked quizzically at her and waited, but Jane couldn't begin. After what seemed like an eternity, the second flute player began to play her solo. Jane joined in, with a trembling and wispy sound. After she finished, she wished a trapdoor would open up under her so she could disappear forever, so intense was her shame and embarrassment. She talked to no one afterward, not even her teacher. No one seemed to have noticed, and Jane kept her secret terrors to herself. But from then on, Jane avoided solo performance at all costs, and eventually gave up on plans to apply to a conservatory of music, because all the music schools required an audition. She let go of a potentially promising musical career.

What is Performance Anxiety?

Every musician, student or music teacher has had the experience of worrying about a performance, calming and encouraging a musician friend and, usually, watching a case of "nerves" turn what could have been a good performance into something less. Violinists, percussionists and pianists fear trembling arms and fingers; woodwind players fear trembling lips; musicians of all kinds fear memory lapses and loss of concentration.

Is "stage fright" a normal and necessary part of musical performance? Or is it a truly disabling condition that, at the very least, can rob musicians of joy in performance and, at worst, destroy or derail potentially rewarding musical careers? The answer is "both of the above." If performing musicians, music students and teachers understand the difference between normal and disabling conditions and can struggle with severe stage fright openly and together, the experience of performing can be greatly enhanced and casualties to the profession reduced.

How do I know this? I know this from both personal and professional experience. As a violinist who has performed in chamber music, orchestral and solo venues, I have had firsthand experience with disabling performance anxiety since age 13. As a psychologist, I studied the phenomenon, focusing on conservatory student experiences and teacher behaviors, for my doctoral dissertation in clinical psychology. A combination of questionnaires, anxiety scales and structured interviews with music students revealed fascinating information about their performing experiences and their relationships with their teachers. Self-efficacy, a social learning theory widely applied to many challenging and problematic human situations, (1) helped me to understand these musicians' struggles with performance anxiety and how their teachers might best help. Self-efficacy is the belief in one's ability to use effective coping skills with the result of a successful outcome in performance. (2)

A certain amount of stage fright is a normal and inevitable part of any performance that matters to the musician. It's a "good stress," a state of heightened physical and mental alertness, a type of emotional high that intensifies and can thus enhance the performance. Disabling performance anxiety, by contrast, is anything but helpful to the performance. Categorized as a type of social phobia in the "Anxiety Disorders" section of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association, (3) performance anxiety causes its sufferer to experience the following symptoms:

* Anticipation of failure and fear of humiliation or exposure

* Intense anxiety and, sometimes, panic attacks 

* Awareness that the fear is excessive

* Avoidance of performance situations or enduring performances with intense distress

* Impaired performance

* Shyness, sensitivity to criticism, increased anxiety in situations other than performing and lowered self-esteem

What differentiates musicians who thrive on performance from those who dread it and suffer the disabling effects of severe performance anxiety? Contrary to commonly held, and often comforting, beliefs, the amount of technical practice and preparation, the degree of talent and the excellence of professional training with the "right teacher" are not factors that differentiate the confident from the terrified performer. "Preparation, preparation, preparation," or "practice, practice, practice," though important and necessary conditions for an effective performance, are insufficient mechanisms for coping with the anxiety involved in severe stage fright. What the exceedingly nervous performer needs is not only musical preparation, but also a way to manage the anxiety engendered by the performing situation.

Managing anxiety effectively requires self-efficacy. A musician can possess a strong sense of self-efficacy regarding musical technique or expression but a weak sense of self-efficacy for coping with performance anxiety. Related to this, a musician can believe it is theoretically possible to reduce anxiety by employing certain strategies or coping skills, or that others can do it, while not believing in his or her own ability to use effective coping skills.

Many books are written and theories developed about musical training, instrumental technique, phrasing and interpretation, along with methodologies for practice and performance. This knowledge and skill, however, does not necessarily transfer to the management of anxiety in the performance situation. What are the sources of self-efficacy for the management of performance anxiety? Four main sources have been identified in the literature: performance accomplishments, emotional arousal, vicarious experience and verbal persuasion. (4) Each source may be strengthened by professional musicians, music students and their teachers and then utilized for managing performance anxiety.

Performance Accomplishments

In the music students I studied, and consistent with social learning research, performance accomplishments were the most powerful source of self-efficacy for managing anxiety. To cope effectively, anxious persons must, above all, approach, rather than avoid, the dreaded performance situation. Students with a history of the most frequent performances, subjectively experienced as successful, had the lowest levels of performance anxiety. Frequency alone was not predictive of lower levels of anxiety, but the combination of frequency with positive appraisal of the performance was a predictor. Interestingly, this was the self-efficacy source least consciously utilized by teachers, who tended to rely more heavily on the other sources of self-efficacy when they addressed the issue of anxiety with their students. When musical training is considered, it is necessary to devote attention to technical perfection, correcting errors and attending to what was wrong with the performance. Students are interrupted frequently, given critical feedback about flawed performances and asked to repeat sections, incorporating their teachers' feedback. For the anxious student, who is a perfectionist and overly sensitive to criticism, a vicious cycle can begin in which the student selectively attends to negative aspects of his or her performance. A number of students I studied had endured negative, emotional tirades from their teachers after a flawed performance and had absorbed these verbal attacks in silence, assuming it was a necessary part of the learning experience. In this way, performance anxiety was magnified in susceptible individuals. Students kept performing, with increasing degrees of dread and humiliation because performance was required; others dropped out of a particular training experience or out of the profession altogether.

Teachers attentive to performance anxiety issues in their students, and musicians wishing to decrease their level of performance anxiety, can strengthen this self-efficacy source by practicing graded mastery--that is, helping the student prepare for an upcoming event by scheduling many practice performances in situations more and more closely resembling the actual anticipated performance, beginning with situations where little or no anxiety is experienced and moving by degrees through performance situations where more anxiety is experienced. The musician should perform as frequently as possible, playing compositions from beginning to end without interruption and attending to the subjective evaluation of the performance, particularly to what went right, as well as to what went wrong. Teachers can hold regular and frequent master classes with their students, where students are allowed to perform from beginning to end. Then, they are evaluated with an emphasis on positive, as well as negative, feedback, with attention to the students' interpretation of the feedback. Anxious students can internally interpret almost any kind of feedback as negative without their teachers' awareness. Before the actual performance, students should have the opportunity, if possible, to do a "mock performance" in the location where the final performance will be given and under conditions closely resembling the final performance, for example, with a mock audience or panel of judges present. By creating opportunities for frequent performance situations in which the student feels increasingly successful at managing anxiety, this most powerful source of self-efficacy can be strengthened with lasting results.

Physiological/Emotional Arousal

This self-efficacy source is important because anxious students will interpret almost any physiological signs of anxiety as harbingers of an impaired performance. Moderate physiological arousal enhances performance, if interpreted by the student as alertness or preparedness. Too much arousal, such as shaking hands, pounding heart, profuse sweating, lightheadedness or other elements of the fight-or-flight response, impairs performance. Self-efficacy is strengthened whenever a musician can reduce the degree of physiological arousal to a manageable level.

Teachers can facilitate this second most powerful self-efficacy source by exploring coping skills to help calm each individual. Techniques that work best for some students may be less effective for others. Examples of useful techniques include, but are not limited to, relaxation training; repetitive internal verbalizations, such as, "I am filling my body with calm and powerful energy"; breathing exercises; fantasy visualizations of the self as powerful and competent; and the regular practice of meditation or other forms of self-soothing disciplines. In contrast to the above techniques, which reduce arousal by calming the body and mind, powerful body interventions allowing the musician to release pent-up adrenaline before the performance may be equally or more effective. These may include pounding a tennis racket on a chair, pounding a pillow with one's fist, shouting and moving one's body vigorously or doing calisthenics. These kinds of exercises, which release excess energy, often are practiced by actors, alone and in combination with others. Teachers should not impose their favorite self-soothing practices on students, but should share them and help their students creatively try techniques uniquely useful to them. These techniques are important learned skills and are effective to the degree that they are diligently practiced.

The use of medication, most often beta blockers, falls under this source of self-efficacy. There are three important points for teachers to remember when discussing with students the use of medication to control anxiety: first, medications should be dispensed only by physicians and not "shared or borrowed" from other sources; second, students whose anxiety is so severe that medication is needed should never be shamed or made to feel inferior or guilty about using a drug; and third, care should be taken not to describe the medication as all-powerful, because the performer may then attribute a successful performance only to the drug, thus reducing his own sense of self-efficacy for managing anxiety. Medical interventions are best used, if at all, as part of a range of coping techniques incorporating all the self-efficacy sources. When considering physiological/emotional arousal, the overall goal should be to help the student learn to control the amount of arousal experienced and to interpret arousal as enhanced preparedness.

Vicarious Experience

All human beings learn from role models in the environment. Watching someone else perform the feared behavior is a well-known technique for the treatment of many phobias. However, watching someone perform apparently fearlessly and flawlessly can make a musician with performance anxiety feel worse. Keeping in mind several points, teachers and other students can be effective role models for an anxious musician. People learn best from coping role models with whom they can identify--in this case, other musicians who have struggled imperfectly, but are successfully coping with performance anxiety. With respect to stage fright, it is better for a teacher to discuss her own struggles with performance anxiety with her students, while encouraging students' peers to do the same, than to focus on expert and confident performers. Musicians learn from other musicians similar to themselves in some salient way--for example, a man may not identify with a female role model, or vice versa; a person may not identify with someone significantly older or with a person of a different race or social class; musicians may learn best from peers who play the same or similar instrument. Teachers can help their students identify role models, ask to watch them perform or simply talk to them about how they cope with anxiety. Musicians also can use themselves as role models, noting other areas in their lives where they have partially or successfully mastered anxiety. It is a powerful experience for a musician to discover that he is not alone with his fears and that many peers, and even teachers, are struggling, or have struggled, with the same anxieties.

Verbal Persuasion

This source of self-efficacy typically is the one most frequently used by music teachers and usually is the least powerful. Known as the "pep talk," it is belief in the student expressed by another admired or trusted person. Sometimes well-meaning pronouncements by teachers can hinder, rather than help, especially when addressed only to the obvious performance and not to the ability to manage anxiety. ("You are one of my best students, and I know you can do it." "It's all in your head." "Don't worry about it; you'll do fine.") It is a common misconception among music teachers that preparation or practice is what guarantees a successful performance. For the musician with severe stage fright, however, the humiliation of a botched performance due to a phobia may be more intense if she, her teachers, peers and family know how well prepared she is to perform the music, but she is unprepared to manage her anxiety. Verbal persuasion is only powerful to the degree that preparation has included coping skills related to anxiety. The person offering moral support should be trusted by the student as knowledgeable about anxiety management and not just about musical performance per se.

The use of specific, rather than general, feedback by the persuader is also more valuable to the musician. It is more effective to say; "I've watched you use your breathing and relaxation skills so well so many times that I know they'll be there for you today," than to say, "I know you can do it; you're a fine musician." The teacher also should check for how the student is interpreting verbal encouragement. Both before and after a performance, many students will nod outwardly in agreement with a teacher or other musicians while inwardly negating or disbelieving their verbal support. Musicians can become their own verbal persuaders by attending closely to the kind of verbal support that is most meaningful to them and using it to create an encouraging and helpful inner dialogue for anxiety management. Many musicians rely here on reminders to themselves of the deep spiritual meaning of music to themselves. ("I am an instrument for the spirit of music, speaking through me.")

Seeking Additional Help

Working actively to strengthen each source of self-efficacy can be extremely useful for any musician, even if anxiety is not experienced at a disabling level. For some musicians, however, the use of the techniques described above may be insufficient. Persons with a significant amount of trait anxiety, who may be extremely sensitive to criticism, shy, avoidant and physiologically reactive to stress in a general way, should be referred to psychotherapists who specialize in the treatment of anxiety disorders and who are known to understand the pressures on performing musicians. Some music education programs attempt to identify, at the time of admission, students who are especially vulnerable to performance anxiety in order to offer them special help and support.

Enhanced self-efficacy for coping with performance anxiety can prevent talented musicians from leaving the profession. Release from the grip of demoralizing anxiety can transform otherwise dreaded performing experiences into ones that are full of the joy of music.

AMT 

NOTES

(1.) Bandura, A., "Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change," Psychological Review. 84, (1977): 191-213.

(2.) Bandura, A., Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. (New York: W.H. Freeman Co., 1997).

(3.) American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. (Washington, D.C., 1994).

(4.) Bandura, A., "Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency," American Psychologist. 37, (1982): 122-147.

Anne Petrovich, MSW, PhD, is an assistant professor in the department of social work education at California State University, Fresno, and a psychotherapist. She is first violinist of the Cavatina String Quartet in Fresno and a member of the Fresno Musical Club.