This article is courtesy of Cued In.
At the intersection of artistry and science, Canadian clarinetist and researcher Dr. Christine Carter is reshaping how musicians approach performance and practice. Drawing on her background in cognitive and sports psychology, Carter examines how evidence-based learning strategies can foster musical growth and alleviate performance anxiety for students and teachers alike.
In this insightful article for J.W. Pepper, Carter shares practical, research-informed techniques that help musicians thrive on stage and in the practice room – revealing that the key to confident, effective performance may lie as much in the mind as in the fingers.
Can you describe your research and how performance psychology affects both music students and teachers?
I have long been interested in work done in the fields of cognitive and sport psychology and the possible applications for musicians. I remember taking my first course in cognitive psychology as an undergraduate student and being so shocked that some of the most robust learning phenomena were not yet implemented in music training contexts. I became particularly interested in general learning strategies and especially interleaving – the practice of alternating work on different tasks rather than doing long blocks of repetitive practice on single tasks consecutively. After experimenting with this strategy myself and seeing an immediate change in how much I could retain, this inspired the basis of my doctoral research and the work that has followed with an interdisciplinary team on learning. Beyond this empirical research (running actual experimental studies with participants), I do a lot of applied work – drawing from research across a wide variety of fields to help give musicians a toolbox of effective strategies on stage and in the practice room.
In terms of the audience, performance psychology really affects everyone. It is a broad field that addresses everything from the way we motivate ourselves to the way we learn and manage performance nerves. The more work I do in this field, the more broadly applicable I find many of the strategies. The same technique that can help manage nerves on a stage can help a teacher stay grounded in a stressful moment or help someone with insomnia fall asleep.
What are some common challenges K–12 music students face regarding performance anxiety, and how can teachers address them?
The biggest challenge music students face is not knowing that performance nerves are a normal part of doing anything outside of our comfort zone. Most performers or public speakers will feel this energy in their bodies, and it is not a sign that anything is wrong or that they are not cut out to perform. I remember my early experiences with nerves and the feeling that I wasn’t destined for a life in music if I couldn’t make the anxiety go away. This is where our thinking goes awry – we interpret the sensations in our bodies and the thoughts in our minds as evidence that we aren’t good enough instead of as evidence that our bodies are getting geared up to perform.
As teachers, first we can help students realize that these feelings and thoughts are completely normal. I use a simple mantra, “My body is getting ready to perform,” as a helpful starting place. How we feel in our bodies is not correlated with how well we will perform. We can feel very uncomfortable and still give an outstanding performance. It’s about embracing the discomfort as part of the process.
Once the performance context is reframed, breathing strategies can be especially impactful. I explore this in more detail below.
How do varying practice techniques impact students’ motivation and long-term musical development?
The brain is hardwired to pay attention to things that are changing. If we do the same thing repeatedly, processing in the brain starts to decrease. Because many of us are told to repeat things over and over again (e.g., “Play this 10 times perfectly, and if you make a mistake, return to square one”), we tend to feel quite guilty when our focus wanes and blame ourselves for not paying attention. Instead of fighting against this natural process, we need to structure practice with enough change and challenge so that engagement is necessary rather than forced. This not only benefits motivation – it’s much more interesting when the task is changing – the research is also clear that this kind of learning is more effective. In the case of music learning, we can use lots of varied practice techniques (e.g., changing rhythms, playing passages with different note groups, chunking, etc.), vary the material itself (alternating between passages rather than staying with a single passage for a long stretch of time), space out our practice across the day, and also vary things like the environment we are practicing in (practicing in different spaces rather than the same location and setup). While this may seem counterintuitive at first glance, if we look at the way children learn we can easily see that they naturally embrace challenge and variety. This is not just correlated with the speed of learning in childhood – it’s one of the drivers of this speed.
Are there strategies music teachers can use to help students practice effectively and avoid procrastination within limited time frames?
One of the most effective strategies is to embrace the “small.” When students are asked to practice for a large chunk of time each day (whether that be one hour, three hours, or more), it can feel overwhelming – even more so now in the age of short attention-grabbing social media interactions. When other to-do items like writing an email or a text take a short amount of time, we will tend to do these over tackling something bigger on the to-do list unless it is broken down further. Whatever the daily practice goal, this can be broken into smaller more manageable chunks of time that can then be tracked. Each hour can be broken down into four small hand-drawn boxes, for example, each representing 15 minutes. As practice is completed, the boxes can be checked off. Practicing for an hour would lead to the completion of four boxes rather than a single to-do item. And smaller windows of time can also be embraced, tackling one or two boxes per session.
Students can also experiment with the related Pomodoro Technique: practicing for 25 minutes (or something similar) and then taking a short break. Whether using this method or the method above, it is important to keep distractions at bay. Cell phones should be out of the room if possible, or at least out of sight.
We often think that we need large chunks of free time to make progress, but this isn’t so. Duolingo is a great example of this. With only a couple of minutes a day, progress toward learning a language can be made. It’s not to say that our students should only be practicing a few minutes per day, but that they can work with smaller windows throughout the day and stack them up. We’ve all experienced waiting for that one perfect hour or two-hour window that doesn’t come, only to end up not practicing at all.
Working in small bursts like this is motivating in part because the task is more manageable and requires less energy to start, but also because we can see our progress at regular intervals in real time. We feel like we are accomplishing something if even the short windows of time count. This mini-celebration of completion every 15 (or 10, or 25) minutes makes it much easier to build toward bigger goals.
How can music teachers use performance psychology to design classes and practice sessions that align with the brain’s natural learning processes?
As discussed above, implementing more challenge and variety is key to improving learning outcomes. If a teacher is working on a couple of challenging passages with a class, instead of doing many repetitions of a single passage, they can be alternated. This not only helps keep the students’ attention more engaged, it also helps them prepare for diving into something “the first time,” which is what we must do in performance. We can’t start a work 10 repetitions in. Passages can also be practiced in lots of different ways instead of straight repetitions. In addition to the strategies mentioned earlier, students can say the note names of the passage in rhythm (slowed down as necessary), speak the rhythms, sing the passage, or play the passage backwards. Recording and having students listen back can also be powerful. Practice strategies are infinite and can be created by the teacher and students in the class for further engagement. Types of activities can also be mixed up – working on short challenging passages, doing run-throughs to assess where things stand, creative (even if very simple) improvisation or composition activities, aural skill activities, etc.
What is most important is that we are engaging students in active problem-solving. If we are changing things up and keeping the tasks challenging enough, students’ brains are active, and it is this effortful processing that leads to greater learning retention. When something is done over and over again, the solution ends up being remembered, and the brain no longer has to solve the problem actively. For example, if we solve a math problem repeatedly (e.g., 11 + 7 – 9 = 9), we gradually stop going through the mental steps necessary to solve the problem and instead remember that the solution is 9. In practice, we want to solve as many problems as possible so that we are learning optimally and end up fully prepared for performance.
An important note about optimizing learning in the classroom or studio is that what is most effective for learning may not seem obvious in the moment. The types of activities that lead to the most effortful processing are also challenging by their very nature, and so performance in the moment may seem hindered. Repeating something many times leads to immediate performance gains due to the solution being remembered, and this can mistakenly guide us to create training environments that are not optimal for actual learning. We have all experienced the phenomenon of working on something in a highly repetitive way only to feel the gains in the practice room evaporate (or at least take a few steps back) the next day. We need to embrace challenge in the moment so that we are optimizing for retention.
How does mental preparation in the practice room affect performance?
Most musicians agree that the mental aspects of performance are significant. Most musicians also agree, however, that they spend limited time on mental skills training, and that they are often lacking tools that could help them. Performing requires a whole different set of skills than practicing alone in a room. We have to be able to attend to a different arousal level: managing our own nerves, a new environment, and people watching us. Endurance in performance, both physical and mental, is also different than the endurance required to play short passages in a practice room. All of these elements can be prepared for in advance so that the performance itself is less onerous.
What are some age-appropriate methods for incorporating mental skills into students’ daily and weekly practice?
Practicing in more challenging ways is itself a beneficial mental preparation for the higher demands of performance. We often make our practice sessions easy and comfortable, delaying the experience of real challenge to the performance setting. When we make practice sessions more challenging, the performance becomes easier by comparison.
Leading up to a performance, mock run-throughs and auditions are very important for building the mental and physical skills associated with performance. We often put off these kinds of opportunities because they feel challenging or we don’t feel ready. A first run-through rarely feels the way we want it to – and this is precisely why we need to do it ourselves in practice: so that the audience isn’t getting that first awkward run-through. These practice runs build up our performance endurance, help us figure out our pacing, work on the mental focus of performing, and help us discover what we still need to work on. In terms of the number of run-throughs, there is no right answer. Initially, we can start with runs of sections of movements, then full movements, full pieces, and finally the full program. For a challenging program, I recommend at least a week of full runs (ideally recorded) before the final performance.
For dealing with performance nerves, there are several breathing strategies that are very powerful. My favourite is “1:2 breathing” (sometimes referred to as “2:1 breathing” in the literature), in which the exhale is extended for twice the length of the inhale. Our heart rate slows on our exhale, and so this elongated exhale immediately helps calm the nervous system.
For the unhelpful thoughts that arise when we are nervous, one of the simplest strategies is to label the thoughts as thoughts and then bring the attention back to the process. For example, “I’m noticing that I am having the thought that this won’t go well,” and then refocusing on whatever process creates the sound you want (e.g., faster air or a faster bow). This feels very different than the initial thought, “This won’t go well,” with more distance from the anxiety-provoking content. We can also thank our mind – “Thanks, mind” – and return to what we are doing. It’s not about trying to get rid of the thoughts. This kind of battle can take us further off course. It’s about allowing them and unhooking from them. Negative thoughts are always going to arise – we can let them be there without giving them the power to steer the ship. I recommend checking out the work by Dr. Russ Harris and Dr. Steven Hayes on Acceptance and Commitment Training (also called ACT, derived from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) for more information on this kind of approach to unhelpful thoughts.
How can music educators manage their own stress and performance anxiety to better support their students?
Luckily, the same tools that we can share with our students – the embracing of challenge, run-throughs, breathing strategies, thought labeling – can help us as educators. So, in addition to teaching these tools, we can also model their use and benefit simultaneously.
Where can teachers find more information or resources about performance psychology?
Dr. Noa Kageyama’s Bulletproof Musician blog is a great starting place. He explores a plethora of topics on performance psychology in a variety of offerings.
I have written a couple of articles for Dr. Kageyama’s blog on learning and also participated in an interview about perfectionism with psychologist Dr. Ellen Hendriksen:
Why the Progress You Make in the Practice Room Seems to Disappear Overnight, Part 2
On the Perils of Perfect Practice
My own website is also a resource, with a link to my performance psychology blog. Readers can also get in touch with me there via the contact page of my website.
For those interested in digging deeper, an applied performance psychology textbook can be a great resource, providing a broad overview of topics, with references to the associated empirical research and further reading.
I will also include a few of my favorite books related to learning and mental skills:
• Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning —Peter Brown, Henry Roediger III & Mark McDaniel
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success —Carol Dweck
• 10-Minute Toughness: The Mental Training Program for Winning Before the Game Begins —Jason Selk
• Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect —Bob Rotella
• Fight Your Fear and Win —Don Greene
• The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living —Russ Harris
• ACT for Musicians: A Guide for Using Acceptance and Commitment Training to Enhance Performance, Overcome Performance Anxiety, and Improve Well-Being —David G. Juncos & Elvire de Paiva e Pona
• Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything —BJ Fogg
