In this chapter, I will explain the mechanisms that compose the routine, so that everyone can understand the reason for each exercise and the role they play in the overall routine.
There are 8 elements that I use in this routine. These are: Applied Relaxation, Mindfulness, Imagery, Analysis, Identification of problematic parts with goal setting, the Mental-Physical Combination Exercise, the PETTLEP Visualization Exercise and External Focus. All of them play different roles in the routine and combine to make a comprehensive and effective whole. I will explain each one in detail.
According to Guillermo Dalia (2004), when somebody experiences anxiety, there are 3 different components involved: a physiological component (our physical feelings as sweat, tachycardia, tremors, dry mouth), a cognitive component (negative thoughts), and a motor component (behaviours that we do to either avoid or escape the situation).
Each person has different levels of these components in their response to an anxious situation, but everyone has all of them. Also, these three components create a chain effect that ends on a vicious cycle, which we have to avoid or break.
With Applied Relaxation, we focus on our first physiologic response, and we learn to detect it and control it before it is on its highest level. This gives us a set of tools that helps us know when we are starting to get anxious / nervous and allow us to get relaxed on command even if we are in stage. This technique is called Jacobson’s Applied Relaxation technique,and it focuses on tightening and relaxing specific muscle groups in sequence, in order to get used to the feeling of our muscles when they are tense or relaxed, allowing us to recognise if they are tense, and having some tools to relax them.
According to Julio Torales, Marcelo O’Higgins, Iván Barrios, Israel González, and Marcos Almirón (2020) Applied Relaxation (Also called PMR, Progressive Muscle Relaxation), has helped to alleviate anxiety symptoms by helping patients learn how to reduce muscle tension, consequently reducing activation of other physiological systems involved in stress response. Also, it generates cognitive improvements, since a feeling of greater control over your body help patients to discover new ways of thinking during the relaxation procedures, because controlling your body helps a lot in controlling your thoughts and feelings. Even so, they point out that the exact physiological mechanism of Applied Relaxation is not yet completely understood.
Also, in their article they mention other research supporting the effectiveness of Applied Relaxation like Holland et al (1991), which compares the efficacy of alprazolam tablets with the use of Applied Relaxation in cancer patients, with a slightly superior results of the alprazolam, but by a small margin.
Pifarré’s research (2015) compared the effects of Applied Relaxation techniques, Diazepam pills and a placebo in the cortical metabolism (brain metabolism) of 84 oncological patients. Results showed that both Diazepam pills and Applied Relaxation techniques managed to lower the cortical metabolism significantly compared to the placebo, with very little difference in between them. This means that physical/psychological techniques such as Applied Relaxation can be as effective as powerful anxiolytics in reducing brain activity in stress situations.
Servant et al (2014) also showed that Applied Relaxation helps significantly in patients from anxiety disorders units, with results showing that this program significantly decreased the level of trait anxiety, depression, and worry.
Also Applied Relaxation has shown to be effective in elderly population in anxiety levels when Applied Relaxation was used correctly, according to Granizo (2019).
In this research, we will use an Applied Relaxation training modified by Guillermo Dalia and Ángel Pozo, which combines Jacobson Applied Relaxation techniques with Trigger word mechanisms. With these trigger word mechanisms, we are associating a trigger word of our choice with a relaxing state. This causes that, after many repetitions and associations of this word with our relaxing state, we can trigger this state by just the simple repetition of this word in our head, giving us a really powerful tool for relaxing on command.
Mindfulness is the name that has given to the outcome of training in formal meditation techniques, in which the subject achieves a state of relaxed and heightened awareness and is able to step back from thoughts and feelings. By practicing mindfulness repeatedly, the subject becomes more aware of the present and can avoid engaging in anxious negative-thinking patterns that might otherwise escalate a cycle of stress activity (Bishop, 2002).
According to Bishop et al. (2004), there are two main components of mindfulness, the self-regulation of attention and the orientation to experience. The first one is based on focusing what is occurring in the present, being aware of our changing thoughts, feelings, and sensations from moment to moment, which makes us able to feel really alert to the stimulus that occur in the present. This requires some focus and sustained attention, which are abilities that have to be trained in order to be able to perform mindfulness for longer periods of time. The second component of mindfulness is orientation to experience, which can be summarised as adopting a curious, open, and controlled mindset about our thoughts. The mind will inevitably wander and drift away and countless thoughts will come to your mind while you practice mindfulness. It is important to stay open, and accept that this will happen, be curious about these new thoughts, and let them fade away to go back to our breathing.
Examples of research that support the effectiveness of mindfulness in music include that of Magdalena Morales’ (2020), who tested Mindfulness exercises on music students with really good results, proving that the exercises helped students increase their awareness and have positive changes within and beyond their practicing, with powerful statements from the test subjects like: “Since one week, I have to say that my ears got way better. I was way more able to deep listen to my sound and what I’m doing.” Or “I had some really amazing moments where it was like “Jesus; finally you understood something about your behavior.”
Some of the subjects also stated that they became more aware of their own habits, leading to better structured practice sessions and better results, and increased focus, awareness, and positive thinking.
Czajkowski et al. (2020) researched as well about mindfulness in an 8-week MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) course using the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire with students from UK conservatories with amazing results:
- 20 out of 21 students reported enhanced body awareness in lessons practices and performances, becoming more aware about specific body parts, tension, and posture.
- Wind participants reported heightened awareness on their embouchure, breathing mechanisms and support. Pianists were more aware of their finger, wrists, backs, and chest. String players became more aware of their hands, arms, and shoulders.
- 11 participants specifically noted the effect that learning mindfulness had on playing related tension.
- They also felt enhanced body awareness on sound, sine being more relaxed and aware seemed to have an effect on sound and tone quality.
These are a few examples of research that exist on mindfulness. There is also a great deal of research in the field of sports to support mindfulness training. Also, it has been proven that mindfulness practice becomes more effective over time, and time spent meditating also had indirect effects on emotional exhaustion, work engagement, and job satisfaction, through mindfulness (Lu et al., 2021).
In this research, we will use two audio guided mindfulness exercises, which will be 5 minutes and 10 minutes long and will be used to raise focus and awareness on the subjects before performing some tougher exercises.
Susan Williams describes Musical Imagery as a “Multimodal mental representation of music, i.e. a combination of auditory, motor, visual, visuo-spatial and analytical components” (Williams, 2019). We could simplify this term by just saying that Imagery is just imagining what sound we want to produce, or “hearing with the mind’s ear” (A. Aleman et al. 2000) melodic sounds in the absence of external stimulation. This ability is necessary to musicians since we often rely on it to guide our performances, memorize, or compose new music.
Many people might think that being able to fully imagine and have control about what precise sound do we want to make might be too hard or not able to do by many people. It is true that it is a very developable ability and has to be trained, but that doesn’t mean that everyone can’t use it.
Music imagery is innate to every human being.
One easy and understandable example of this is Involuntary Musical Imagery (INMI), described by Williams (2015) as “introspective persistence of a musical experience in the absence of direct sensory instigation of that experience”. One case of INMI is the commonly known as “earworms”, which is basically experiencing music that repeatedly goes over in one’s mind without wanting it. This is often called sticky tunes as well, and it is living proof that any human being can perform Imagery to its most basic level.
As it will be shown later in this research, Musical Imagery is not an easy task at first, but with some training, it will become a really strong and powerful tool that every musician must use to their advantage. Also, as Aleman discovers in his research, music training improves both musical and non-musical auditory imagery (A. Aleman et al. 2000).
As stated before, Musical Imagery is an important ability for a musician, and musical training naturally improves it. We also know that improving our Imagery improves our performance, since we get to visualise better what sounds we want to make and it improves memorisation, physical rehearsal time, clarifying artistic intentions and/or preparing performances (Williams, 2019).
Every musician trains his technique, but not every musician trains his mind. As we have said before, imagery improves musical practice, and musical practice, in turn, improves our innate ability to imagine. Therefore, simply by practising imagery, we immerse ourselves in a virtuous cycle that will help us throughout our musical career.
With analysis, what I ask to the students is that they do a complete structural and harmonic analysis of the piece (different analysis like shenkerian can be used if the student is more familiar with them). This analysis exercise is used to comprehend the piece as a whole and give the students a mental scheme of what’s the big structure. Thanks to this analysis exercise, they are able memorise the piece a lot faster and they can learn the piece in a faster pace than they usually would.
Every trained musician can identify which parts of a piece will be more challenging or will demand more study time. When studying pieces with a small amount of time or a close deadline, it is vital to know ahead of time which parts will take you more time to master and tackle them from the very beginning. This is why we will combine identifying these problematic parts from the beginning with a goal setting strategy, which will allow us to work on these problematic parts in an organized and effective way.
To achieve this, we will use a model of goal-directed self-regulation used by Magdalena Morales in his Mindful Practicing research (Morales, 2020) which uses both weekly and daily goals. Weekly goals are defined as outcome goals, which are medium term goals and usually are pointed towards some desired outcome. They should be stated following the “SMART goals” framework, which defines effective goals as Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound” (Doran, 1981).
The daily goals are pointed towards performance or learning goals. Performance goals are focused on a certain task execution, like “playing this sonata with outstanding accuracy” (Morales, 2020). On the other hand, a learning goal is focused on mastering a specific skill, rather than performing the task. Learning goals also facilitate performance goals, and they should be thought as a challenge.
The SMART framework should be applied to daily goals as well, since setting daily goals that are too far beyond our reach or that are not realistic according to our abilities (Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound characteristics) might generate frustration on the subject, impeding progress and learning.
Morales tested this goal-setting strategy in 11 subjects from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with convincing results:
- 4 Subjects stated that setting goals helped them performing during practice sessions, and every subject showed a higher self-rating on the post-intervention questionnaires compared to the pre-intervention ones.
- 5 Subjects stated that structuring their practice sessions was strongly beneficial to them.
There were subjects that had difficulties organizing themselves or filling the format. There was even 1 subject who had worse ratings in the post-intervention questionnaire, showing negative development. After looking at the subject’s statements, Morales finds out that the subject had trouble organizing and reflecting about the practice, which gave him a lower score in some of the questionnaires. The rest of the 5 subjects who had difficulties filling the format still showed improvements and positive development in their questionnaires.
All this information shows that being compromised and following the goal-setting strategies showed can positively impact everyone’s study and practice time, but it needs dedication and compromise.
This exercise was taught to me by David Kuyken, who is my teacher at Koninklijk Conservatorium den Haag. At first, I saw this exercise as a really good exercise to coordinate hands in difficult passages, but once I started with this research, I realised that the exercise had a lot of mental practice in it, making it a really effective exercise.
As pianists, it is often hard to really get to know which exact movements you are doing with one hand while you play with both at the same time. This is due to us being too concentrated on many factors such as coordination between the hands, balance in the sound, technical difficulties, etc. Thanks to this exercise, we will be able to play with both hands and, at the same time, be able to focus and gain awareness on the micro movements that each hand is doing, allowing us to see areas of improvement in them that would be much harder to see otherwise.
I will explain the exercise using the example of a pianist, since it is the most graphic and easy way to understand it, but this exercise can be extrapolated to many instruments. To perform it, we should choose a passage that we find difficult or that we want to improve and in which both hands are involved. We will play one hand on the keyboard as usual and the other hand as if we were playing normally, but on the music stand of the piano while we mentally listen to what it would sound like if that hand on the music stand was playing on the keys. This exercise requires a great deal of concentration as it takes a high level of hand coordination and a very attentive visualisation of the music stand hand.
It is extremely important that the hand playing on the music stand feels that it is playing on a keyboard, so we have to imitate the movements that we would normally make, while mentally trying to listen to the sound that we want to project with it. This, added to the sound coming from the other hand, gives us the complete sound of the whole passage we want to practice. It is also highly recommended to slow down when studying in this way, as it basically requires a lot of concentration and playing at high speed will be very difficult.
This exercise should be done switching between the music stand hand and the keyboard hand to practise both.
It can also be performed by other instrumentalists such as:
- Violin, violas, cellos, and double basses: Doing like if we were passing the bow, but without a bow while with the other hand we press normally, imagining the sound we want to project.
- Winds: Playing normally without blowing (or blowing into a mouthpiece / reed separate from the instrument) imagining the sound we want to project.
- Etcetera.
It allows us to correct and improve movements that we were not even conscious about, and on top of it, it makes us imagine and visualize the other hand, mental practicing it the exact way that we want it to sound. It is a really complex exercise but one of the most complete and helpful exercises I’ve ever seen and performed.
The Performance Imagery Exercise is an exercise that uses the PETTLEP model of motor imagery to mentally practice our performance. According to the model, the Imagery Exercise should follow the PETTLEP guidelines, which are the following:
- Physical: Adopt the same posture, wear the same clothes, hold your instrument in the same way as when you actually perform.
- Environment: Do the imagery in the same or similar environment as the performance, when possible.
- Task: Imagine the exact task that you are preparing.
- Timing: Imagine playing the music in real time (not slower or faster).
- Learning: Imagine playing at your own skill level.
- Emotion: Imagine the emotions that belong to your performance – both your own and those connected to the music.
- Perspective: Imagine yourself as though looking through your own eyes, but also try looking as though from outside.
This model was made by Holmes and Collins (2001) for sports psychology, and it was intended for performance enhancement. Even though it’s proven to be effective on sports many times, there is little to none research about the use of the PETTLEP method in music.
According to Wright et al. (2014) this method can help in many things aside from performance enhancement, like helping athletes focus attention on task-relevant factors and preventing distraction from external stimuli. We will perform it by imagining our concert from the very beginning, from the moment we walk on stage until the very last applause, while following the PETTLEP guidelines.
In this research, we will use the PETTLEP method to get used to the usual levels of tension in performances, helping us manage them later when we are on stage.
Music making is a multimodal activity, since it requires motor skills, cognitive skills, and emotional skills. As Williams (2019) explains in her dissertation, our current conservatoire system usually focusses on acquiring technical skills and producing musicians that can make reliable recording-like performances. In many cases only after technical accuracy is achieved, are students focussing on musical elements. As stated in Chapter 1, one of the main elements that contribute to high levels of stress, burnout and depression amongst musicians is the expectation to produce virtually note-perfect performances.
Musicians today usually consider themselves as instrumental or vocal specialists – only focussing on playing one instrument well. In baroque times, for instance, they were trained as musicians who could sing and play many instruments. Music apprentices lived with their master for years, accompanying, watching, and learning from them from a young age, learning musician life skills that would become essential for them later on. This tradition has been lost and now the student is limited to 60-to-90-minute lessons once a week, which has inevitably led to the necessity to learn in a more direct and declarative way. Even though this system helps students get results faster, it skips fundamental skills that every musician needs to know.
As Williams (2019) mentions, in the 20th and 21st century, musicians have focused on this declarative way of learning, which means acquiring skills or information by speaking about them, while thinking consciously about our body movements (internal focus). Thanks to our discoveries in the human body and brain mechanisms, we follow a more analytical and technical approach.
This declarative approach has the advantage that it is measurable, since the musician can feel that he is more accurate in the sound, volume, articulation, pitch, etc.
While internal focus puts our attention into our body movements, external focus is defined by concentrating on the intended movement effect (Wulf, 2016). For basketball or tennis players, external focusing would be imagining where do they want the ball to go or feeling the movement of the racket instead of the arm. Since music making is an activity that requires such complex motor control and coordination, to consciously control or steer the body movements while playing would only hinder the movement itself, disrupting the execution.
In order to use external focus in music making and learning, the musician has to focus on what instead of how: what do they want to express with the phrase, or what do they want the audience to feel with it, which can be defined as the musical intention. This process is a procedural one since the player acquires the skill through experience and creative exploration rather than through oral transmission.
“The player would be imagining how the phrase should sound or what effect he is trying to make. His movements and choices of volume, speed, articulation would be informed by a non-verbal process originating from his imagination of the desired result. In this case, emotion (in the form of musical expression) is informing the mind (which is engaging in focus rather than judgements and analysis) resulting in the body’s movements (motor control)” (Williams, 2019).
Wulf (2007) states that when under pressure, attention tends to become less distal, degrading the quality of the performance.
In her research, Williams applies this external focus concept to music learning in three different projects with very different conditions and musicians, leading to positive reactions to approaching rehearsals and concert preparation with external focus and some “out of the ordinary” concert experiences.
On her research conclusions, she stated that “External focus is beneficial to musicians’ learning and performance experience” (Williams, 2019).
These are all the factors that take part in the routine. In the next chapter, I will explain what the routine is actually about and what should everyone do to put it into practice.
Figure 1: Susan WIlliams, 2019. Finding Focus. Doctoral thesis. Introduction: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/497578/498169
Figure 2: Susan WIlliams, 2019. Finding Focus. Doctoral thesis. Introduction: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/497578/498169
