2. Music Performance
Anxiety:
What are the causes of Music Performance Anxiety?
3. Focus Points:
Various causes, i.e. social anxiety, perfectionism, gender
etc…
How these causes might relate to each other.
What this could mean for finding a cure/ prevention for
MPA
4. Source Material
Kenny: Music performance anxiety and occupational stress
amongst opera chorus artists and their relationship with
state and trait anxiety and perfectionism.
Kenny: Music Performance Anxiety: New Insights From
Young Musicians.
Ariadna Ortiz Brugues: Music Peformance Anxiety: A
Review of the Literature.
9. New Insights from Young
Musicians
“Females are two to three times more likely to experience
anxiety than males…and this relationship appears to hold
for music performance anxiety (MPA) where studies
demonstrate that females have significantly higher MPA
than males.” -Kenny. D & Osborne. M (Page 103)
I have chosen the topic Music performance anxiety, and my essay question is ‘What are the causes of Music Performance Anxiety?’
I will be focusing on the carious causes of MPA, i.e. Social Anxiety, Perfectionism and gender etc… I will discuss how these causes might relate to each other such as perfectionism may be connected with gender and parental influence. I will explore what this could mean for finding a cure or prevention for MPA.
Some of the main sources of reference that I will use include:
I intend to discuss the personal experiences of both myself and my peers with Music Performance Anxiety, and compare these with the information that has already been provided by the other authors. I will possibly include data from a questionnaire based experiment, that would cover various potential causes of MPA and would aim to point toward some sort of correlation between the different factors.
I will begin my essay by explaining what MPA is, and will discuss its symptoms (such as closing of the throat, mild paralysis) and will discuss the connection with causes and possible reasons for these symptoms.
I will pay particular attention to MPA in children and adolescents, and will try to determine if there is a pattern in what causes the switch from confidence in performance to MPA and will explore the varying levels of self awareness.
There is more pressure from the media for girls to be perfect. For example airbrushing and page 3 leads to perfectionism, which in turn leads to MPA. Girls set unrealistic goals for themselves and therefore are more inclined to feel anxiety before/ during music performance.
Kenny and Osborne point out that “Females are two to three times more likely to experience anxiety than males…and this relationship appears to hold for music performance anxiety (MPA) where studies demonstrate that females have significantly higher MPA than males.” This connection between anxiety and MPA seems to be an important one to explore to further our understanding of it, and also raises questions about gender roles in music performance.Kenny. D & Osborne. M (Page 103)
I will conclude my essay by summarising my findings on the different causes of MPA, and will try to come to terms with a clearer understanding of these causes, to an end that could hopefully lead to a better knowledge of how to prevent it.
I have chosen to show this video as it claims to have a ‘cure’ for music performance anxiety. In my own experience this doesn’t seem to help, and in fact decreases performance ability- leading to further anxiety after performance. This raises a possible problem for finding a cure for MPA as there may not be a ‘blanket cure’ that all sufferers find useful, and will probably lead to the conclusion that curing MPA must be approached on a case-by-case basis.
