Musicians, scientists and clinicians: mind/body perspectives. (College Faculty Forum).

After returning from the MTNA National Conference in Salt Lake City, I flew to Jacksonville, Florida, to attend two days of meetings of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB), of which my husband, Paul, a clinical psychologist, was completing his term as president. In addition to being supportive, I was happy to join his effort to promote music performance and research; his idea of a president's party was to invite several psychologist/musicians and me to perform classical music. The final conference celebration was a cabaret. All the performers except me were clinicians, researchers and psychology professors from as far away as Sweden, playing a mix of classical piano solos, duets, chamber music for horn and piano, old standards, barbershop quartet tunes (five men and a stand-in female tenor) and jazz piano played by a psychologist who has a clinical practice and researches Sufi healing practices. During two performances, physiological measures were taken to help understand the interplay between the body and music performance. The information-gathering device was wireless and worn under the pianist's regular clothing.

Biofeedback is the use of monitoring equipment to help patients learn to regulate their bodies. It also helps to assess how the mind and body are interacting. I attended several scientific lectures that explored various applications of biofeedback for people suffering from high blood preyure, headache and pain caused by various types of muscle tension. Also fascinating were sessions on nontraditional methods of healing as practiced in the Middle East, Far East and Brazil, and descriptions of psychotherapy and autogenic training in Japan.

For several years, AAPB has included a Performing Arts Psychophysiology Section. This year's chair was psychologist/piano teacher and MTNA member Marcie Zinn, NCTM. Wellness models, elite athlete approaches to optimal performance and stress management were addressed in an excellent session given by clinical psychologist/French horn player and MTNA member David Sternbach, research professor and director of the Center for Wellness at the College of Visual and Performing Arts, George Mason University, in Fairfax, Virginia. A study by Zinn was among the posters at the AAPB poster session. One of her piano students suffered cardiac arrest. Although she was resuscitated, she lost the ability to use her left hand. Zinn taught the student tunes for the right hand, but could not affect any improvement in the left. When Zinn began using accompaniment disks on her Clavinova, amazingly, as if the music caused the brain to rewire, the student began using her left hand again.

Other areas in which AAPB members are working that are particularly relevant to musicians include improving elite performance in athletes and artists, managing stress, treating overuse syndrome, preventing injury, managing breathing and hyperventilation as it impairs health and performance, and using brain wave biofeedback to help enhance peak performance and improve concentration. Since we are deeply dependent on mind-body regulation for optimal performance, it is heartening to learn of new applications of biofeedback techniques for musicians. In the Exhibit Hall at the MTNA National Conference this year, and again at AAPB, Marcie and Mark Zinn, NCTM, demonstrated how a biofeedback device with electrodes applied to the forearms of pianists and connected to a Yamaha Model 207 Clavinova could give graphic feedback representations of muscle tension in the extensor and flexor muscles. Although instrumental teachers consider it a staple of their work to remind students to "relax between the notes," the spiking red and green waves on the Clavinova's screen give immediate visual confirmation of a piano student's inadvertent stored muscle tension. This kind of feedback has the potential to expedite the gaining of facility, as well as reducing the incidence of pain or injury.

The theme of this year's AAPB conference was "expanding boundaries." So many of these "expansions" can impact on our work as teachers and performers. It is my hope that we will find ways to communicate with and learn from our scientist/clinician colleagues. Among the goals we have in common with AAPB is to help people better understand the complexity of mind-body relationships.

With this article, I complete my work as College Faculty Forum chair. I want to thank CFF committee members Judy Baker, NCTM; Melanie DeMent, NCTM; Benjamin Gish; Jane Magrath, NCTM; Jean Stackhouse; and Robert Weirich for their support and, in particular, for their suggestions of conference topics and panelists for our sessions in Cincinnati and Salt Lake City. I also want to welcome Kathleen Murray, NCTM, incoming College Faculty Forum chair. Murray is dean of the Lawrence Conservatory of Music and a member of the piano faculty. She is a member of the MTNA Board of Directors and, in that capacity, will be able to take our concerns directly to Board members for discussion.

Phyllis A. Lehrer, NCTM

National College Faculty Forum Chair

Kendall Park, New Jersey 

She is a professor of piano at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, Princeton, New Jersey.