Arts Medicine Journal N°91 On stage !

The goal of this study was to determine whether there is a link between tactile sensitivity and music playing. Does playing a musical instrument on a steady basis lead to alterations in the tactile sensitivity of the fingers? To look into this question, two groups of musicians were studied, pianists and string instrumentalists.

The first part of the study examines the mechanisms underlying tactile perception. A stimulus is perceived by the various mechanoreceptors located in the skin, and is then transformed into action potentials (nerve impulses) in the corresponding receptor fields. Discriminant sensitivity (tested by studying the discrimination threshold of two static points) is inversely proportional to the size of the receptor fields. Discriminating power is maximal at the fingertips, due to the high density of mechanoreceptors, the small receptor fields, and the extensive cortical representation. Tactile information is conveyed to the cerebral cortex via the lemniscal path. The excitatory and inhibitory areas of the receptor fields play a role in discriminant sensitivity. A review of the literature on the tactile sensitivity of musicians is also presented.

Performance anxiety can be debilitating, and so researchers and laypeople alike tend to assume that it is desirable to downregulate this emotion. Yet emerging perspectives in the emotion literature suggest that people sometimes aim to upregulate anxiety to aid performance. The present research investigated the emotion goals that musicians hold when performing. Drawing on a novel framework of emotion goals, the findings suggest that how people want to feel and how they want to appear to feel are determinants of performance anxiety. In Study 1 (N = 44), musicians mostly reported wanting to neither feel nor show anxiety during a performance, although a meaningful subset reported wanting to feel but not show anxiety during a performance. In Study 2 (N = 32), musicians who enacted an emotion goal to neither feel nor show anxiety reported less state unease and greater satisfaction with their performance than musicians who enacted a goal to feel but not show anxiety. This research yields insight into the emotion goals that musicians hold and how these goals influence desired performance outcomes.

Musicians suffer from physical and mental health symptoms more frequently than the general population. Although their specific demands and challenges have been researched increasingly in the past, explanations still remain somewhat unclear. We use a large epidemiological data set to compare psychosocial work environment among 1,607 members of the Norwegian Musician’s Union with a national sample of 8,517 employees from the general Norwegian workforce. Musicians reported more control over their work; however, they felt less supported and acknowledged, had more work-family conflicts and less motivation, and perceived their work as more demanding compared to the general workforce. In the musician sample, results indicated that classical and contemporary musicians are experiencing a less favorable psychosocial environment in terms of control, demands, and acknowledgment, orchestral players felt less control and soloist less support. Future studies should explore possible interventions to improve musicians’ psychosocial work environment.

Keywords: musician; psychosocial work environment; musicians’ health; epidemiological study; genre; role.

Under pressure, motor actions, such as those required in public speech, surgery, or musical performance, can be compromised, even when these have been well-trained. The latter is often referred to as ‘choking’ under pressure. Although multifaceted problems mediate such performance failure in anxiogenic situations, such as compromised motor dexterity and cognitive disruption, the fundamental set of abnormalities characterizing choking under pressure and how these abnormalities are related have not been elucidated. Here, we attempted, first, to classify behavioral, psychological, and physiological abnormalities associated with choking under pressure in musicians and, second, to identify their relationship based on datasets derived from a questionnaire with 258 pianist respondents. Explorative factor analysis demonstrated eight functional abnormalities related to the musicians’ choking, such as attention to the audience, erroneous motor actions, perceptual confusion, and failure of memory recall, which however did not include exaggerated attention to the performance. This suggests distraction of attention away from skill execution, which may underlie the spoiled performance under pressure. A structural equation analysis further inferred causal relationships among them. For instance, while failure of memory recall was influenced by passive behaviors manifesting under pressure, erroneous motor actions during performance were influenced by feeling rushed and a loss of body control. In addition, some specific personal traits, such as neuroticism, public self-consciousness, and a lack of confidence, were associated with the extent to which pressure brought about these abnormalities. These findings suggest that distinct psycho-behavioral abnormalities and personal traits underlie the detrimental effects of pressure on musical performance.

Key words: musician; skilled pianist; musical performance anxiety; questionnaire; personal traits.