Getting into the musical zone: trait emotional intelligence and amount of practice predict flow in pianists

Abstract

Being “in flow” or “in the zone” is defined as an extremely focused state of consciousness which occurs during intense engagement in an activity. In general, flow has been linked to peak performances (high achievement) and feelings of intense pleasure and happiness. However, empirical research on flow in music performance is scarce, although it may offer novel insights into the question of why musicians engage in musical activities for extensive periods of time. Here, we focused on individual differences in a group of 76 piano performance students and assessed their flow experience in piano performance as well as their trait emotional intelligence. Multiple regression analysis revealed that flow was predicted by the amount of daily practice and trait emotional intelligence. Other background variables (gender, age, duration of piano training and age of first piano training) were not predictive. To predict high achievement in piano performance (i.e., winning a prize in a piano competition), a seven-predictor logistic regression model was fitted to the data, and we found that the odds of winning a prize in a piano competition were predicted by the amount of daily practice and the age at which piano training began. Interestingly, a positive relationship between flow and high achievement was not supported. Further, we explored the role of musical emotions and musical styles in the induction of flow by a self-developed questionnaire. Results suggest that besides individual differences among pianists, specific structural and compositional features of musical pieces and related emotional expressions may facilitate flow experiences. Altogether, these findings highlight the role of emotion in the experience of flow during music performance and call for further experiments addressing emotion in relation to the performer and the music alike.

Personality related traits as predictors of music practice: Underlying environmental and genetic influences

“…Austin and Berg (2006) investigated practice motivation and regulation among children who played an instrument and reported that practice motivation (the item with highest loading was ''Time passes quickly when practicing'') was related to practice. Marin and Bhattacharya (2013) found that flow proneness was significantly related to daily amount of practice in hours among piano students, but not to their overall duration of piano training in years. However, flow does not seem to be experienced more often among professional musicians compared to amateur musicians (Sinnamon, Moran, & O'Connell, 2012), or among music students at higher year level (Wrigley & Emmerson, 2011).…”

Investigating the “Flow” Experience: Key Conceptual and Operational Issues

“…The difficulty of capturing flow is compounded in the psychological laboratory, where participants engage in what is typically an unfamiliar task in an inherently evaluative context. Both of these attributes -the unfamiliarity of the task and the evaluative nature of the context -are likely to work against the (already slim) likelihood of flow being experienced by a study participant, given that (1) flow appears more likely to be experienced by individuals who have developed considerable skill in the activity at hand (Jackson and Csikszentmihalyi, 1999;Rheinberg, 2008;Marin and Bhattacharya, 2013;Cohen and Bodner, 2019) and 2performance anxiety is not conducive to flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975;Fullagar et al, 2013).…”

Multidisciplinary Contributions to the Science of Creative Thinking

“…Recently we (Marin and Bhattacharya 2013) have explored this issue by investigating whether there is something inherent in the emotional personality of the professional musicians that could explain why some musicians experience flow states more easily and often compared to others. Recently we (Marin and Bhattacharya 2013) have explored this issue by investigating whether there is something inherent in the emotional personality of the professional musicians that could explain why some musicians experience flow states more easily and often compared to others.…”

“…Recently we (Marin and Bhattacharya 2013) have explored this issue by investigating whether there is something inherent in the emotional personality of the professional musicians that could explain why some musicians experience flow states more easily and often compared to others. We have found that flow experience can be significantly predicted by the amount of daily practice and trait emotional intelligence (Marin and Bhattacharya 2013). We have found that flow experience can be significantly predicted by the amount of daily practice and trait emotional intelligence (Marin and Bhattacharya 2013).…”