Award Partner: RAD Research

Shaking in the Wings: Creating a Drama-based Curriculum Derived from Actor Education to Address Music Performance Anxiety

Objective of Project:

The intern will investigate how curriculum derived from actor education can be effective as an educational intervention on how in educating musicians to mitigate music performance anxiety without the use of pharmaceutical and psychological interventions. The full curriculum will consist of 42 hours of instructional material which will form the basis of a post-secondary course. This project consists of original research in a sub-field of music performance anxiety that is virtually non-existent (i.e., adapting acting education) and has the potential to solve a systemic issue that has a significant and negative impact on the health, wellbeing, and performance of most professional musicians.

To understand the nature of this work, it is important to discuss music performance anxiety and the negative impacts it has on musicians. Performance anxiety is a subcategory of social anxiety in the DSM-5 in Chapter 18 (DSM-5 Diagnostic Criteria for Social Anxiety Disorder). Music performance anxiety occurs when a performing musician experiences impaired thinking, adverse behavioural effects, and inconvenient physiological reactions (Steptoe, 2001). These debilitating impacts interfere with the performer’s body and delivery (Clark & Clark, 2002) (e.g., disrupt one’s breath) and control of instrument (Osborne & McPherson, 2019), also causing stress including shaking (Clarke et al., 2020), fainting (Kenny et al., 2016), and nausea (Boyett, 2019). In a survey, 98% of 447 professional musicians reported experiences of music performance anxiety (Beder, 2017). Musicians’ experiences may be explained by the systematic omission of music performance anxiety in school curriculum (Dobson, 2011; Bennett, 2007). The stakes of this omission are high. Substance abuse and thoughts of career abandonment are common responses to music performance anxiety (Orejudo et al., 2018). Most intervention methods to treat performance anxiety use pharmaceutical and psychological methods (Blair & van der Sluis, 2022), requiring specialist knowledge to facilitate, beyond the scope for most post-secondary teachers. Acting, as a therapeutic technique, an art form, and an experience, can be transformative—it is a powerful technique that changes the performer into a character and changes the story into an inspiring narrative free of anxiety.

 

The expected skills and competencies of the Intern include:

Skills:

  1. research and writing skills: contribute to the curriculum on music performance anxiety by creating a curriculum handbook and contribute to scholarship by publishing in peer-reviewed journal articles (e.g., Music Education Research and Psychology of Music);
  2. presentation skills: presenting the work at BC conferences (e.g., research conference at UBC in June 2025); and
  3. teaching skills: teach BC-based workshops to musicians and teachers and provide copies of the curriculum handbook to better facilitate learning.

Competencies:

  1. expand knowledge and expertise in music performance anxiety and adapt curriculum based on feedback from music professionals and researchers;
  2. problem-solving: work to solve a system health issue prevalent among musicians in BC;
  3. mobilize BC-based post-secondary teachers to support BC musicians in managing music performance anxiety (i.e., empower the community by creating resilience and tools in addressing mental health challenges, specifically music performance anxiety); and
  4. catalyze change in the BC music community by using curriculum strategies that can be learned in accessible training workshops without the requirements of highly specialized experts and training in pharmacology and psychology.

How the project and internship will support the health organization:

This project supports the innovation and development of the organization’s core research and the creation of its research institute in providing expert advice and support to music institutions and the music community in the area of music performance anxiety. It takes a considerable amount of time and care to develop new curriculum, especially in a therapeutic discipline. The intern (PhD candidate) has an appropriate level of education and practical experience (teacher/performer) in creating suitable curriculum for this organization and pedagogies in addition to having experience working with vulnerable adults. The organization will benefit from having a fully developed manuscript containing the curriculum and pedagogies. The intern will be submitting this work to conferences and peer-review journals, which will help promote this organization’s credibility in leading new research and practical workshops to support the health and wellness of the BC music community. The organization supports the BC music community by presenting workshops for musicians to help reduce anxiety, and by having teacher workshops with methods for teachers to share with students. This project will decrease barriers for musicians with music performance anxiety in accessing BC jobs and reduce the impacts on the BC health care system (e.g., reduce anxiety symptoms which may contribution to a reduction in the use of anxiety medications by BC musicians, and potentially a reduction in psychological assessments and hospital visits). By reducing the impacts of music performance anxiety, this project helps BC musicians perform at a higher performance level with decreased anxiety. It is expected that BC musicians will be able to retain employment opportunities (e.g., fewer sick days and missed performance opportunities), suffer reduced job loss, and allow them to successfully compete for jobs at a local, domestic, and international level.

This project will help the organization in building instructional material for teaching, teacher training, and post-secondary workshop facilitation in post-secondary and music institutions. Several music schools and professional companies have expressed strong interest to the intern and organization in the need for wellness support for their musicians, including the Victoria Conservatory of Music, the University of Victoria, Pacific Opera Victoria, and the Friends of Music Society. In a survey of BC music schools, only one school responded that they have means of supporting students in managing music performance anxiety. There is a huge gap in health supports that is not being filled by other health organizations. The Victoria Conservatory of Music, for example, is currently seeking facilitators for wellness workshops to help support musicians in Victoria because of urgent wellness issues identified in the Victoria, BC based music community. This project fills a unique need because music schools and professional companies cannot administer pharmaceuticals to relieve symptoms of anxiety, nor can most schools afford to provide/hire professional psychologists to support students with anxiety. This research provides a viable alternative that administers acting therapy and not pharmaceuticals and psychological treatments. This organization also provides an intervention that offers a viable alternative to illicit street drugs which are rampant in BC. Substance use is a common response for musicians to deal with anxiety, and unfortunately the use of illegal drugs by musicians is an issue (Orejudo Hernández et al., 2018). Illegal drugs endanger a musician’s health and wellbeing; 14,400 people have lost their lives to opioids since the Province declared a public health emergency in 2016 (192 people in B.C. died, 2024). It is imperative that new ways to manage anxiety are introduced into the music field. The proposed work provides a viable alternative for musicians to manage music performance anxiety.

 

References

  • 192 people in B.C. died due to toxic drugs in March: coroner. (2024, May 6) CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/toxic-drug-deaths-march-2024-1.7196617
  • Beder, J. (2017). The 2015 musicians’ health survey results. Senza Sordino, 55(2). International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians. https://www.icsom.org/senzasordino/2017/06/ the-2015-musicians-health-survey-results/
  • Bennett, D. (2007). Utopia for music performance graduates. Is it achievable, and how should it be defined? British Journal of Music Education, 24(2), 179–189.
  • Blair, E., & van der Sluis, H. (2022). Music performance anxiety and higher education teaching: A systematic literature review. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 19(3). https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol19/iss3/05/
  • Boyett, C. (2019). Music performance anxiety. MTNA e-Journal, 10(3), 2–21.
  • Clark, M. R., & Clark, L. V. (2002). Singing, acting, and movement in opera: A guide to singer-getics (1st ed., pp. 104–110). Indiana University Press.
  • Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5 (5th ed.). (2013). American Psychiatric Association.
  • Dobson, M. C. (2011). Insecurity, professional sociability, and alcohol: Young freelance musicians’ perspectives on work and life in the music profession. Psychology of Music, 39(2), 240–260. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735610373562
  • Kenny, D. T., Arthey, S., & Abbass, A. (2016). Identifying attachment ruptures underlying severe music performance anxiety in a professional musician undertaking an assessment and trial therapy of intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy (ISTDP) Springerplus, 5(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/ 10.1186/s40064-016-3268-0
  • Orejudo Hernández, S., Zarza-Alzugaray, F. J., & Casanova, O. (2018). Music performance anxiety. Substance use and career abandonment in Spanish music students. International Journal of Music Education, 36(3), 460–472. https://doi.org/10.1177/0255761418763903
  • Osborne, M. S., & McPherson, G.E. (2019). Precompetitive appraisal, performance anxiety and confidence in conservatorium musicians: A case for coping. Psychology of Music, 47(3), 451–462. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735618755000
  • Steptoe, A. (2001). Negative emotions in music making: The problem of performance anxiety. In P. N. Juslin, & J. A. Sloboda (Eds.), Music and emotion: Theory and research (pp. 291–307). Oxford University Press.