Mindfulness for Musicians: Bringing sport psychology and mindfulness-based therapies to the Suzuki studio, group class, and orchestra room

With time-consuming demands and frequent evaluations, many student musicians experience debilitating music performance anxiety, hypercritical thoughts, and avoidance of performance situations (Fehm and Schmidt 2004, 98-109). Music teachers can help students cope with these experiences through mindfulness training. Mindfulness is achieved through purposefully and non-judgmentally paying attention to the present moment and developing awareness of emotions, thoughts, physical sensations, and behaviors (Kabat-Zinn 2005). Once cultivated, mindfulness offers clarity and acceptance to one’s present moment experience and improves emotional health and self-esteem (Lecuona de la Cruz and Rodriguez-Carajal 2014, 27-35).

While competitive athletes have long used mindfulness to improve performance, I believe musicians can also benefit from practicing mindfulness. Because research on connecting mindfulness with musicians and their training is limited, this article references psychology and sport psychology publications and reinterprets these findings for musicians.

Defining mindfulness and its misconceptions

Several misconceptions have developed since mindfulness originated with Buddhism 2,500 years ago. It is often viewed by modern Western society as a passive, secular exercise (Rappaport 2014, 24). But mindfulness does not necessarily produce a calm and quiet mind. Sometimes, mindfulness consists of sitting with strong emotions like worry, anxiety, panic, or fear. It is also not a passive act. Mindfulness requires one to actively concentrate on thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and behaviors. Many people believe that meditation is mindfulness; instead, mindfulness enhances meditation. Mindfulness enables people to view themselves as witnesses to what they see, hear, and feel during meditation (Kabat-Zinn 2005, 11). Mindfulness is not an escape from personal issues. It requires the acknowledgment and acceptance of the present moment, whether positive, negative, or neutral (Zizzi and Anderson 2017, 11). Finally, mindfulness does not require awareness of every single moment. Jon Kabat-Zinn, creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, counsels that “becoming even a tiny bit more mindful is good” (Gazella 2005, 62).

Mindfulness exercises

Below are three mindfulness exercises to present to your students as mechanisms for coping with stressful practice sessions, rehearsals, and performances.

1. Belly Breathing Exercise

Because effective breathing improves instrumental and vocal performances, teachers should assess a student’s breathing patterns. Diaphragmatic breathing, or “belly breathing,” effectively counters high-stress experiences. While babies and young children breathe with their entire bellies, adults typically breathe with the upper part of the lungs, also known as “chest breathing” (Altman 2014, 29). While chest breathing, people become susceptible to the body’s fight-or-flight response, which in turn, curtails the release of serotonin, the body’s “feel-good” chemical that is primarily stored in the stomach linings and intestines (Altman 2014, 31).

To assess a student’s breathing pattern, Jaume Rosset Llobet and George Odam, authors of The Musician’s Body: A Maintenance Manual for Peak Performance, present an exercise that determines if a student breathes entirely with the belly or the chest. This exercise is known as the “100 Count Exercise.” First, encourage the student to inhale deeply. While exhaling, instruct the student to count out loud quickly. If the student counts to a number that is less than 100, the student breathes with the chest. If the student counts to a number that is 100 or more, the student breathes with the belly (Llobet and Odam 2007, 14).

When the student recognizes a chest breathing pattern, teachers may present the “Belly Breathing Exercise.” Instruct the student to mentally divide the lungs into three parts. Then, encourage the student to inhale through the nose and focus on the bottom section of the lungs by filling up the stomach and pushing outwards. The student may place their hands on their stomach and rib cage to achieve this. Next, instruct the student to expand the thorax, the entire middle section of the body, by raising the ribs to fill the second section of the lungs. Lastly, direct the student to raise the chest to fill the third part of the lungs. While exhaling, encourage the student to breathe sequentially through the mouth, chest, thorax, and abdomen (Llobet and Odam 2007, 86).

In addition to lowering one’s susceptibility to the fight-or-flight response and releasing serotonin, breathing also helps to cultivate mindfulness. By focusing on the breath, the student contacts the present moment when anxiety, thoughts, and worries overwhelm the mind and body during high-stress performances. Teachers might dedicate one group class or rehearsal to these breathing exercises or dedicate a few lessons to students who often carry intense anxiety or fear.

2. Inner Critic Tally Challenge

While practicing or rehearsing, many musicians’ inner critics evaluate their skills intending to improve. The inner critic’s evaluations can be helpful during practice sessions, rehearsals, and performances. However, the inner critic can also be unproductive or harmful if it attacks one’s self-worth instead of objectively identifying technical deficiencies. To diminish the inner critic’s attacks, Mark Coleman, author of Make Peace With Your Mind: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free Your Inner Critic, encourages his readers to practice discernment instead of judgment. Discernment is associated with a clear, open-minded perspective while judgment is associated with reactivity and a close-minded perspective (Coleman 2016, 56).

While practicing judgment, a musician’s inner critic offers no solution to a poor performance; it interferes with an objective reflection about the performance. While practicing discernment, a musician’s inner critic recognizes and accepts the poor performance. Instead of attacking one’s self-worth, the inner critic objectively evaluates the reasons behind the poor performance and explores ways to improve.

To encourage the practice of discernment, ask your students to participate in the “Inner Critic Tally Challenge.” Students are asked over three days to tally each harsh, unproductive critique that comes to mind during lessons, classes, practice sessions, and/or rehearsal breaks. At the next lesson or class, ask these questions about your students’ discoveries:

1. How many tallies did you have each day and over the three days?
2. Did your tallies increase or decrease each day? Why do you think your tallies increased or decreased each day?
3. Did you tally during specific times of the day? For example, did you mark more tallies during morning practice sessions or evening rehearsals and classes?
4. How might the awareness of your inner critic’s thoughts help to calm your inner critic?
5. How might cultivating mindfulness assist you throughout this exercise?

Mindfulness is another method for calming the inner critic because it offers clarity, awareness, and a choice on how to respond to an unpleasant experience (Coleman 2016, 119). Coleman expands on the benefits of cultivating mindfulness in order to calm the inner critic:

Mindfulness helps you become acutely aware of your thoughts – the good, the bad, and the ugly…without awareness there’s no possibility of a different course of action. When we see the painfulness of our judgments clearly, we see that we have a choice, and we can begin to develop strategies to diminish their influence over us…It helps you discern what is healthy and helpful and what is not (Coleman 2016, 120).

The student may also identify the voice of the inner critic: maybe a parent, a sibling, or a former teacher. By identifying the inner critic’s voice with a former teacher, for example, a student will recognize that the inner critic’s judgments are not their own. If a student has difficulty connecting the inner critic’s voice with a specific person’s voice, Coleman encourages his readers to reflect on the environment they live or lived in: “Children are sponges and soak up the atmosphere they are in. They often pick up the way parents treat themselves” (Coleman 2016, 133). Identifying the inner critic’s voice offers more awareness to a student’s personal dialogue and teaches the student how to mindfully respond to the inner critic’s judgments.

3. Finding Flow Exercise

Flow is experienced when musicians cultivate mindfulness, employ effective breathing patterns, and calm their inner critics. Flow is a desirable state for musicians because it fully embraces the present moment and offers moments of deep focus and concentration. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, distinguished professor of Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University and leading expert on flow, defines flow as “a subjective state that people report when they are completely involved in something to the point of forgetting time, fatigue, and everything else but the activity itself” (Csikszentmihalyi 2014, 230).

When experiencing flow, musicians are in control, do not worry, and effortlessly merge awareness with action (Csikszentmihalyi 2014, 230). They evolve from an observer to an active participant, and they experience time moving quickly due to total immersion in the task (Csikszentmihalyi 2014, 231 and 240). To achieve flow, three conditions must be in place: a clear set of goals, a balance between perceived challenge and perceived skill, and a presence of clear and immediate feedback (Csikszentmihalyi 2014, 232).

Goals: Students can define a clear set of goals before a lesson, rehearsal, or performance by setting an intention: for example, “may I be focused,” or “may I be present” (Csikszentmihalyi 2014, 232). Students can also set a specific technical goal at the beginning of these experiences: “I will improve my tone in this passage,” or “I will connect my sixteenth notes with the pianist in the second movement.” Setting clear intentions and goals before lessons and performances helps musicians return to those intentions or goals when they lose concentration, worry, or self-criticize.

Balance: Flow is achieved when perceived challenge and perceived skill are balanced, but nonetheless high. Teachers should be aware of this fragile balance when assigning repertoire outside of the Suzuki Method books (Csikszentmihalyi 2014, 30). Outside repertoire should be both challenging and accessible, so the student feels motivated to practice and master the repertoire. In Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life, Csikszentmihalyi presents a chart that visually depicts this delicate relationship between challenge and skill. For example, if the student’s skill level is low and the challenge is high, the student may experience anxiety, or if the student’s skill level is low and the challenge is low, the student may experience apathy. According to Csikszentmihalyi’s chart, flow occurs when skill and challenge levels are both high (Csikszentmihalyi 2014, 31).

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**Feedback: **During a performance, self-doubt often causes worry and anxiety, therefore removing the musician from the present moment and further away from flow (Csikszentmihalyi 2014, 30). But during flow, musicians experience clear and immediate feedback and react, adjust, and perform with mental clarity. When musicians fully understand and embrace their environment, experience, and desired goals, they choose their next courses of action, free of self-doubt and uncertainty (Csikszentmihalyi 2014, 232).

To cultivate flow in students, consider initiating the “Finding Flow Exercise.” Start by encouraging the student to be mindful of any experience, no matter how small or brief, that brings flow to daily routines. Over six days, instruct the student to briefly journal about the experiences that brought flow and what factors contributed to each experience. The following is an example of a student’s reflection:

“I experienced flow while having coffee with my best friend. Our one-hour coffee meeting felt five minutes long. I was fully engaged during our meeting by equally listening to her and contributing to the conversation. I never doubted my comments or wondered about her perception of me.”

A week later, discuss with the student how these daily flow experiences might be incorporated into a practice session, rehearsal, lesson, and/or performance. The following is an example of a student’s discussion:

“I realized that while experiencing flow, I never accessed my phone. My phone was in another room or in my bag where I did not hear or see it. Due to this realization,

I decided that during my practice sessions, I will leave my phone in the other room to avoid its distractions.”

Conclusion

As student musicians mature, their technical facilities develop, their musical knowledge expands, and their performance experiences grow. Despite these tangible improvements, however, the students’ mental and emotional maturity may lag in development, leading to intense anxiety and panic during performances. Cultivating mindfulness leads to greater awareness, deeper clarity of one’s present moment experience, and the ability to fully contact the present moment. Frequent instruction on mindfulness and mindfulness-based exercises will help students to contact the present moment more fully while practicing and performing.

References

Altman, Donald. The Mindfulness Toolbox: 50 Practical Tips, Tools and Handouts for Anxiety, Depression, Stress and Pain. Ashland: PESI Publishing and Media, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Coleman, Mark. Make Peace With Your Mind: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free Your Inner Critic. Novato: New World Library, 2016.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow and the Foundations of Positive Psychology: The collected works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. New York: Springer, 2014. Springer Ebooks.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books, 1997.

Fehm, Lydia and Katja Schmidt. “Performance Anxiety in Gifted Adolescent Musicians.” Anxiety Disorders 1, no. 20 (Nov. 2004): 98-109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2004.11.011

Gazella, Karolyn A. “Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD Bringing Mindfulness to Medicine.” Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine 11, no. 3 (May 2005): 56-64. http://www.libproxy.wvu.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest- com.www.libproxy.wvu.edu/docview/204833586?accountid=2837.

Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. New York: Hyperion, 2005.

Lecuona de la Cruz, Oscar and Raquel Rodriguez-Carajal. “Mindfulness and Music: A Promising Subject of an Un-Mapped Field.” International Journal of Behavioral Research and Psychology (April 2014): 27-35. https://dx.doi.org/10.19070/2332-3000- 140006.

Llobet, Jaume Rosset and George Odam. The Musician’s Body: A Maintenance Manual for Peak Performance. London: Guildhall School of Music and Drama, 2007.

Rappaport, Laury. “Mindfulness, Psychotherapy, and the Arts Therapies.” In Mindfulness and the Arts Therapies: Theory and Practice, 24-37. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Zizzi, Sam J. and Mark B. Anderson, Being Mindful in Sport and Exercise Psychology: Pathways for Practitioners and Students. Morgantown: FIT Publishing, 2017.