This chapter describes the routine and specific design for how I implemented it in order to answer these questions:
- How could we implement mental practice and body awareness exercises into our daily routine?
- Is 1 month enough to start feeling the benefits of mental practice and body awareness exercises?
In order to research the effects of a mental practice and body awareness routine, I conducted 2 separate interventions, with different participants and environments, to obtain information from people with completely different backgrounds and lifestyles. The interventions were identical in design and were held at The Hague Koninklijk Conservatory and at Conservatorio Superior de Murcia “Manuel Massotti”.
The main objective of this research is to find out and create exercises for mental practice and body awareness that are both effective and can be easily introduced into musician’s daily routine. Secondly, the objective was to introduce these exercises into a full 1-month study plan and try them out with students from different conservatories. To evaluate the participants' improvement and performance within the intervention, the data collection tools were applied before, during and after the routine, using a mixed methodology composed of qualitative and quantitative methods.
In the intervention conducted in The Hague, there were a total of 4 subjects (1 female and 3 male) recruited to take part in the intervention. They were all master students from the classical department of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. They are aged between 21 and 28 years old (mean= 25) and specialized in piano (3) and cello (1). The gender, age and instrument of the participants was chosen at random, but there were difficulties finding different instrumentalists willing to take part in the intervention. In fact, of the 8 participants that originally took part in the intervention, only 4 got past the second phase, due to different reasons. All of them have different experience levels and cultures.
In the intervention conducted in Murcia, there were as well a total of 4 subjects (1 female and 3 male), from different educational levels (3 Bachelor students and 1 Master student). They aged between 19 and 27 years old (mean=22) and all of them specialized in piano. The gender, age and instrument were chosen at random as well.
The interventions were held at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and Conservatorio Superior de Murcia “Manuel Massotti”, where the participants study. It lasted 4 weeks and the amount of work varied, depending on the phase of the intervention, but averaging 20 minutes of work per day in each of the interventions.
There were many Materials given to the participants in different formats. They are data collecting materials:
- The Bett's Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery (Bett's QMI).
- Exercise Logbooks.
- Exercise materials in form of audio guides of the routine exercises.
Except for the Bett’s QMI, the material and audio guide were created by me, specifically for this intervention.
The routine that I thought of originally, is very flexible and many aspects of it can change between individuals. Since that form of the routine was not researchable, I had to make some adjustments to it, in order to make it a more stable and closed, with fixed exercises and frequencies. The final version of the intervention routine is the following:
Before starting the actual intervention, the subjects were required to fill out two forms, one pre-intervention questionnaire (qualitative methodology) and the Bett’s QMI (quantitative methodology). This last questionnaire helped us determine the improvement of the participants in their ability to imagine, which helped us see if the mental practice exercises were actually working.
All the phases had mandatory and non-flexible frequencies of the exercises with questionnaires and logbooks to collect data. Also, there was a differentiation between weekly and daily exercises, depending on the number of times a particular exercise needs to be done.
The first phase (Skill Development Phase) lasted 1 week, and in this week the participants performed Mindfulness, Applied Relaxation and Mental warm up + Skill Development exercises every day. There are logbooks where the participants had to write down their feelings and mental situation before and after the exercises, every day of the routine (the logbook should ONLY be filled before and after the mindfulness and applied relaxation exercises). After the week ended, the participants filled in the Bett’s QMI again.
The second phase (Study Phase) lasted 2 weeks. In these weeks the participants performed the 3 weekly exercises (analysis, identification of problematic parts and setting goals) at the beginning of the phase, as explained in Chapter 2, and this was done only 1 time in the phase. There were are also daily exercises (Mindfulness, Applied Relaxation, and the Mental-Physical combination exercise) which were are performed 5 days per week with 2 rest days that shouldn’t be consecutive. Before and after every Mindfulness + Applied relaxation exercise the participants continued filling the logbook and after the 2 weeks they had to fill again the Bett’s QMI.
The third and last phase (Performance Phase) lasted 1 week. In this week there was only 1 weekly exercise, which is the external focus score and 3 daily exercises, which are Mindfulness + Applied Relaxation exercises, Performance Imagery Exercise, and Recordings. These daily exercises had to be done 5 times a week with 2 rest days that shouldn’t be consecutive, just like in phase 2. The Mindfulness and Applied Relaxation exercises had to be performed every day of these 5 days, while the Performance Imagery and Recording exercises should be performed 3 and 2 days, respectively, and needed to be alternated. The subjects continued using the logbook and had to fill the Bett’s QMI one last time.
After the third phase, there was a concert where the students played the pieces they learned through the intervention to test their improvements and see how they feet with this way of learning. After this concert, they had to fill one last questionnaire which was related to the first pre-intervention questionnaire.
Here below is the overview of the routine exercises they did:
Initial Questionnaires
Questionnaire before Intervention.
Bett’s QMI.
Phase 1
Daily work (done every day of the week): Mindfulness 5 min + Applied Relaxation Phase 1 + Mental Warm Up exercise + Skill Development Exercise 1 or 2 (Alternate between them).
Logbook before and after Mindfulness and Applied Relaxation.
Bett’s QMI at the end of the week.
Phase 2
Weekly work (have it done as soon as possible): Analysis + Identification of problematic parts + Setting SMART Goals.
Daily work (5 days a week): Mindfulness 5 min + Applied Relaxation Phase 1 + Mental – Physical Combination exercise when studying the piece.
Logbook before and after Mindfulness and Applied Relaxation.
Bett’s QMI at the end of the week.
Phase 3
Weekly work (have it done as soon as possible): External focus score.
Daily work: Mindfulness 10 min + Applied Relaxation Phase 2 (5 days a week).
Performance Imagery Exercise (3 days a week).
Recordings (2 days a week).
Logbook before and after Mindfulness and Applied Relaxation.
Bett’s QMI at the end of the week.
Concert
Post Intervention Questionnaire
Final Intervention Questionnaire
The data collection was obtained as follows:
- Pre-intervention questionnaires.
- Logbooks.
- Bett’s QMI.
- Post-Intervention questionnaire.
The Pre- and Post-Intervention questionnaires were analyzed as qualitative data and the Logbooks and Bett’s QMI as quantitative data.
The questionnaires were coded following different factors: For the first question regarding how they go about learning a new piece, the answers were coded and categorized in self-regulation, practice methods, structure, and exploratory practice. The rest of yes-or-no questions were shown as statistics with further observations if the participants thought were needed. The summative scores in both the questionnaires, Logbooks and the Bett’s QMI were calculated and shown in the form of graphs.
Results were drawn from observations of the answers in the questionnaires and the evolution of the participants.
