Mindfulness and the self-regulation of music performance anxiety

Abstract

Music performance anxiety is the experience of strong and persistent anxiety related to the performance of music. It is highly prevalent among musicians and can lead to the impairment of performance quality, or the complete abandonment of an individual's study or career. To date, studies examining musicians' coping efforts have not examined the mechanisms that drive adaptive coping responses to manage music performance anxiety. This knowledge is essential before interventions to manage music performance anxiety can be designed and tested. The present research addressed this gap by investigating the role mindfulness played in guiding coping efforts to regulate music performance anxiety in a sample of university music performance students (N = 159). The study was longitudinal and questionnaire-based, and included two new measures designed to assess musicians' coping strategies, as well as measures of mindfulness, music performance anxiety, perceptions of performance quality, and final grade. A Self-Regulation Model of Music Performance Anxiety was developed to test mediational relationships. Results showed that the mindfulness facet act with awareness (expressed in dispositional and situational forms) was associated with lower music performance anxiety. Coping responses of higher hope and lower avoidance partially mediated dispositional act with awareness effects on situational act with awareness. The goal-oriented strategy of hope also contributed to increased practice efforts. During performance, the coping strategies of positive focus, self-kindness, and self-acceptance partially mediated the relationships between levels of situational act with awareness and music performance anxiety. Finally, the relationships between situational act with awareness and performance outcomes were fully mediated by levels of music performance anxiety. These findings lay the foundation for future research to run a randomized control trial to test a mindfulness-based intervention aimed at developing act with awareness and coping strategies, including hope, positive focus, selfacceptance, and less avoidance. Educators and clinicians working to reduce the negative impact of music performance anxiety need to consider how they target music students' ability to bring act with awareness, and the adaptive potential of hope, positive focus, self-acceptance, and less avoidance, to their preparation and performance.