Regulation of Emotions to Optimize Classical Music Performance: A Quasi-Experimental Study of a Cellist-Researcher

Abstract

The situational context within which an activity takes place, as well as the personality characteristics of individuals shape the types of strategies people choose in order to regulate their emotions, especially when confronted with challenging or undesirable situations. Taking self-regulation as the framework to study emotions in relation to learning and performing chamber music canon repertoire, this quasi-experimental and intra-individual study focused on the self-rated emotional states of a professional classical cellist during long-term sustained practice across 100-weeks. This helped to develop greater awareness of different emotions and how they vary over artistic events (9 profiled concerts and 1 commercially recorded album). Data analysis included traditional psychometric measurements to test the internal consistency of the time series data as well as the relationship between variables (artistic events). The study mapped the cellist’s flexible regulation of 17 different positive and negative emotions empirically linked to learning and achievement while practicing within the social context of performing music publicly at a high level. Findings arising from the study help with understandings of how to support musicians to maximize their artistic potential by reducing emotion dysregulation and strengthening the types of adaptive methods that enable them to manage their own emotions.

Self-regulation strategies and behaviors in the initial learning of the viola and violin with the support of software for real-time instrumental intonation assessment

“…She also stood out because she challenged and motivated herself through intra-conversations: “Well, I told myself that I had to do better and that I could do more and that I shouldn’t do so badly.” Sarah and John’s footage also suggest that they had a positive emotional state related to the score. This may suggest that students adopt and use some features of more experienced performers (López-Íñiguez & McPherson, 2020, 2021), which shows a certain self-regulation power (McPherson, 2005; McPherson & Renwick, 2011; McPherson & Zimmerman, 2011; Zimmerman, 2013) related to the use of the software.…”

Feedback in Music Performance Teaching

“…Contemporary conceptualizations of feedback explore how students can be encouraged to actively seek out, create, provide, discuss, and apply feedback to progress their own learning (Brooks et al, 2021a , b ). This newly emerging focus challenges notions of a teacher setting work and providing highly directive feedback, and instead stresses ways to improve the learner by developing their capacity to self-regulate (Brooks et al, 2019b , 2021a , b ; Casas-Mas et al, 2019 ; López-Íñiguez and McPherson, 2020 , 2021 ; Mandouit, 2020 ).…”

The Music Practice Motivation Scale: An exploration of secondary instrumental music students’ motivation to practice

“…Self-determination theory is a macro theory of human motivation and development that discriminates between different forms of motivation (Kupers et al, 2015; López-íñiguez & McPherson, 2020). To this end, research on SDT has begun to demonstrate how the fulfillment of human psychological needs and internalized forms of motivation tend to lead to more autonomous, healthy conditions of functioning and account for substantial variance in outcomes such as creativity, deeper learning, well-being, passion, and personal growth (Evans & Bonneville-Roussy, 2016; López-íñiguez & McPherson, 2021). Notably, when behavior is self-determined, the person believes the locus of control regarding the activity is internal to the self, whereas, in controlled behaviors, the locus of control tends toward the external (Kupers et al, 2015).…”

“…Moreover, psychological needs support appears to increase achievement, personal well-being, and engagement (Niemiec & Ryan, 2009). Furthermore, it is often suggested that high levels of intrinsic motivation are required to cope with the demands of advanced music practice and performance (Butkovic et al, 2015; Hallam, 2013, 2014; López-íñiguez & McPherson, 2020, 2021; Valenzuela et al, 2018); this is especially important as music study is often a voluntary way to spend one’s time and an elective activity in most schools. Nonetheless, few experiences in public schooling may provide the appropriate setting required to fulfill the psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence as that of music participation.…”