TY - JOUR
T1 - Music Performance Anxiety
T2 - Can Expressive Writing Intervention Help?
AU - Tang, Yiqing
AU - Ryan, Lee
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank all the piano students for their participation and cooperation in this project, Dr. Andreas Eggertsberger, Ms. Chihiro Honma, Mrs. Natasha, and Mr. Emmanuel Danielson for their time and help on the recording evaluation, Yiqing’s former piano students Mr. John Gordy and Ms. Abby Eckert for their initial positive feedback to the intervention that inspired this project, and Dr. Lisa Zdechlik, Dr. John Milbauer, Dr. Rex Woods, Dr. Daniel Linder, and Prof. Edward Reid for their warm support on this project. Funding. This research was funded through an internal university grant: University of Arizona, College of Fine Arts small grant.
Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2020 Tang and Ryan.
PY - 2020/6/16
Y1 - 2020/6/16
N2 - Performance is an essential part of music education; however, many music professionals and students suffer from music performance anxiety (MPA). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a 10-min expressive writing intervention (EWI) can effectively reduce performance anxiety and improve overall performance outcomes in college-level piano students. Two groups of music students (16 piano major students and 19 group/secondary piano students) participated in the study. Piano major students performed a solo work from memory, while group/secondary piano students took a sight-reading exam of an eight-measure piano musical selection. All students performed twice, at baseline and post-EWI, with 2 or 3 days between performances. During the EWI phase, students were randomly divided into two groups: an expressive writing group and a control group. Students in the expressive writing group wrote down feelings and thoughts about their upcoming performances, while students in the control group wrote about a topic unrelated to performing. Each student’s pulse was recorded immediately before performing, and each performance was videotaped. Three independent judges evaluated the recordings using a modified version of the Observational Scale for Piano Practicing (OSPP) by Gruson (1988). The results revealed that, by simply writing out their thoughts and feelings right before performing, students who had high MPA improved their performance quality significantly and reduced their MPA significantly. Our findings suggest that EWI may be a viable tool to alleviate music performance anxiety.
AB - Performance is an essential part of music education; however, many music professionals and students suffer from music performance anxiety (MPA). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a 10-min expressive writing intervention (EWI) can effectively reduce performance anxiety and improve overall performance outcomes in college-level piano students. Two groups of music students (16 piano major students and 19 group/secondary piano students) participated in the study. Piano major students performed a solo work from memory, while group/secondary piano students took a sight-reading exam of an eight-measure piano musical selection. All students performed twice, at baseline and post-EWI, with 2 or 3 days between performances. During the EWI phase, students were randomly divided into two groups: an expressive writing group and a control group. Students in the expressive writing group wrote down feelings and thoughts about their upcoming performances, while students in the control group wrote about a topic unrelated to performing. Each student’s pulse was recorded immediately before performing, and each performance was videotaped. Three independent judges evaluated the recordings using a modified version of the Observational Scale for Piano Practicing (OSPP) by Gruson (1988). The results revealed that, by simply writing out their thoughts and feelings right before performing, students who had high MPA improved their performance quality significantly and reduced their MPA significantly. Our findings suggest that EWI may be a viable tool to alleviate music performance anxiety.
KW - expressive writing intervention
KW - music performance anxiety
KW - performance quality
KW - piano playing
KW - self-talk
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U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01334
DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01334
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85087121508
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 11
JO - Frontiers in Psychology
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
M1 - 1334
ER -