Music performance anxiety can be facilitating or debilitating: Emotion accompaniment makes the difference

Abstract

Music performance anxiety (MPA) is most often defined as a negative experience that is harmful to successful performance, but potential facilitating effects of MPA often are acknowledged. The distinction between facilitating and debilitating effects often is attributed to various cognitive frameworks based on the quantity of anxiety, where smaller amounts may be helpful and larger amounts harmful. The hypothesis underlying the present study holds that the difference between facilitating and debilitating MPA is more a matter of quality than quantity, specifically the qualities associated with the other positive and negative emotions that accompany MPA. A web survey recruited 114 musicians to test for differences in MPA and accompanying emotions by responding to descriptions of four specific musical contexts. Results show that between roughly one-quarter and one-half of the musicians in the study viewed MPA as facilitating, depending on context. Respondents endorsing the facilitating quality of MPA (compared with the debilitating group) showed significantly higher levels of positive emotion accompanied by lower levels of both MPA and negative emotion in three of four contexts. Results are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that emotions accompanying MPA shape the quality of its effect on musical performance.