Welcome, Anxiety

 Are any of the following statements familiar to you?

  • I don't understand why I feel like this before playing.
  • I shouldn't feel like this.
  • If only I could control my anxiety level, then I could play as I know I can.
  • My hands are shaking and feel very cold.
  • I better let this audition pass. I don't think I can. 
These are some examples of musical performance anxiety (MPA). As musicians, we can experience these symptoms as very debilitating and interfere with our artistic development. It is not surprising that we want to control these experiences and we try everything to "fix" this problem. As we will see in this post, controlling is not the solution, but the problem.

Imagine that there is a dial in front of your eyes and a switch behind your head (Hayes et al., 1999; Juncos & de Paiva e Pona, 2022). The dial marks the intensity of your MPA. The switch reads “I am willing to experience my MPA” or “I am not willing to experience my MPA”. Maybe your MPA dial is maxed out at 10; while your switch is on "I'm not willing to experience my MPA". Your MPA symptoms are so intense that you are simply not willing to experience it and would like to turn the dial down to 0.

Perhaps you have tried everything to lower the anxiety dial: deep breathing, exercising, increasing practice hours, taking a beta-blocker, drinking alcohol, selecting pieces below your musical skills, etc. However, these strategies do not seem to work in the long term. Yes, maybe drinking alcohol before a recital can relax you and maybe you even did well at the recital. But we will agree that prolonged alcohol consumption can have negative effects on your health. Maybe you decided not to audition for the student orchestra, thinking you didn't have the right level. Yes, you avoid the potential pain of being rejected at that audition, but avoiding future auditions could limit your professional development. And although practicing breathing or exercising are healthy habits, what motivates them is not different from the previous examples: you are looking to decrease your MPA.

I don't doubt for a moment that you've done your best to try to lower your MPA. If it hasn't worked, it's because none of us can actually do it at will. What's more, paradoxically, the more efforts we make to try to decrease the MPA dial, the more concern we will have about experiencing MPA and the less willingness to play we will have. That is, it will be more difficult to flip the switch from "reluctant" to "willing." Another paradox is that we automatically focus all our energy on controlling what we can't control: the MPA dial.

We forget that what is truly under our control is the willingness switch. When we choose to shift our focus from the MPA dial to the willingness switch, we open the door for changes in our musical development. Choosing to play, despite MPA symptoms, is a skill that can be trained and developed. By focusing on behaviors that are relevant to our performance (see this post for more information on this point) and by remembering the values that guide our musical profession, little by little the symptoms of MPA will occupy less space in our minds. Thus, we will be able to concentrate on our execution and, with a greater probability, obtain better results and with a feeling of intense vitality.

What I propose to you is to learn to relate to your MPA symptoms in a different way. Let's use a metaphor to illustrate what I mean. Imagine that you want to organize a big party for your birthday, so you decide to invite all your friends and company. You have decorated your house, the grill is ready to be used, the drinks and snacks are served. You are having a great time with your friends, until the doorbell rings and behind the door is Max, your neighbor. You don't like Max. He is usually grumpy, doesn't say hello and is very loud. Before you can say anything to him, he enters the party. He starts eating and drinking, makes your friends uncomfortable and ruins some of the decorations you put up with so much care. You decide that it is enough and invite him to leave. Max leaves, but after a few minutes he returns. He opens the door and enters and again you invite him out again. This time, you stay by the door to prevent Max from entering again. It works, but the cost is not being with your friends enjoying the barbecue. Eventually you decide that it's more important to you to have a good time with your friends, so you leave the door and head back to the party. Max comes back in, but this time you decide not to pay so much attention to him. You know he's at the party, but you'd rather focus on your friends. However, you begin to notice something curious. Max is making a couple of your friends laugh and they seem to enjoy his company. You even realize that he has a sense of humor similar to yours. At the end of the party, you had a great day, even letting Max be present. If you had persisted in keeping him out, you would have missed out on the fun of your party. Despite his presence, you had a good time and even learned that Max is not as bad as you thought (Hayes et al., 1999).

Managing our MPA symptoms is the problem, not the solution. By focusing on controlling MPA, we miss out on the joy of making music. With practice, we can create the mental space to learn to enjoy the art we love so much, even living with a dial of 10. I invite you to ask yourself if you would be willing to expand your musical development, even if it means learning to relate to your MPA symptoms in another way.

If you want to know more about my work and my consulting services for musicians experiencing anxiety, I invite you to check out my website: alvarochang.com.

Radio photo by Ron Lach from Pexels. 
Balloons photo by Natalie Bond from Pexels.

References

Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (1999). Acceptance and commitment therapy: An experiential approach to behavior chang. New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Juncos, D. G. & de Paiva e Pona, E. (2022). ACT for musicians: A guide for using Acceptance and Commitment Training to enhance performance, overcome performance anxiety, and improve well-being. Universal Publishers.

Praxis (2023). ACT Immersion: An introduction to ACT as a process-based therapy [online course]. Retrieved from https://act.courses/signup/

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