Psychology of Music, the unfinished business

The formation and training in musical arts requires a specialized psychology.

Art, entertainment, profession, business? Music is a very significant part of our society and, being a traditionally and, being a traditionally undervalued subject in our schools, we have not hesitated to build a very powerful formal education environment around this discipline.

Schools, academies, conservatories and so on are destined to fill the void that music leaves in our society. fill the gap that music leaves in the education system, and, depending on the aspirations of the students and, depending on the student's aspirations, he or she can choose from a more casual or recreational education to a more formal and professionally oriented one.

However, once we reach a certain level of specialization, we find an increasingly demanding performance, which entails an increasing number of hours of classes and rehearsals, and what began as a hobby or a pending school subject, becomes a high performance sport. As such, can involve all those associated psychological risks that we find in every sport. that we find in any sport.

The demands of music education.

On the one hand, a music student often has to, out of necessity, combine his or her musical training with his or her academic training, and let's not fool ourselves: musical training is not a complement, but rather is just as demanding, if not more so, than a university degree. (or much more, in the case of some careers), and we still have to hear that "you study music ... and what else?

And the fact is that, dedicating so much effort and time to music in a world that urges us "not to lose sight" of our "real" training, coupled with the tremendous demands and competitiveness of some centersThis means a very high risk for intrinsic motivation, that is, to be able to orient our behavior towards music simply because we like it, which results in many students dropping out early, leaving a lot of talent by the wayside, and many others may continue to develop other types of discomfort.

Managing stress and anxiety

First of all, the demand for performance and dedication beyond what one considers "normal" can lead to the state of mind known as "stress and anxiety", can lead to the state of mind we know as stress. Stress is an adaptive response of the organism to a situation of change in the environment or maximum demand, but without proper management, it can extend for longer than the evolution had calculated, and bring with it certain psychological consequences (anxiety disorders, depression) and physiological (indigestion, Muscle tension, headaches, back pain, etc.).

One of the psychological consequences of stress is anxiety, characterized by involuntary thoughts such as regrets ("I should have studied more", "I made too serious a mistake") or pessimistic expectations ("I will make a mistake in this part", "I will fail", "I want it to be over as soon as possible") which tend to be interrelated with physical reactions (tremors, sweating, tachycardia, etc.).

The irony is that this state, in high doses, is very detrimental to high performance when performing any task, especially if it is playing a piece in public when we are playing for a title.But the most disheartening thing is that what we used to be passionate about has given way to such negative feelings.

Progress in music psychology

It is this situation that has drawn the attention of psychologists to this medium, and although most of the work has consisted, at least in Spain, in investigating those optimal methods for teaching and learning music (constructive vs. directive learning), more and more centers are interested in the mental training of their young musicians.This variable had traditionally been left to chance and had served as a sort of tautological natural selection in conservatories ("if you can't handle this, you're not cut out for music").

Today more and more voices are being raised to say that no, these variables can be trained. Thus, there are certain techniques oriented towards the maintenance of intrinsic motivationWe can also use techniques based on working with objectives and the perception of self-efficacy, techniques to combat anxiety, such as breathing and relaxation in the search for that optimal level of activation or techniques to manage that pressure that, yes, will always exist, but it is in our power to regulate it, and we can do so through techniques such as exposure or cognitive restructuring, all with the ultimate goal of optimizing the experience and performance of not only our musicians, but also our dancers, actors and all those involved in the performing arts.

Finally, we would like to emphasize that the importance of the psychologist's work in the mental training of the musician is becoming more and more evident every day.. In a world as competitive as music, the mental factor can make the difference in the musical career of a professional.