Re-examining Musical Practice and Performance

Re-examining musical practice and performance by Angela Chan (March 2008)

In a recent chat with a seasoned concert pianist, we considered how performers may need to re-examine certain practice and performance routines in order to develop effective strategies to enhance musical performance.

In areas of sports, for instance, performance has been studied extensively through scientific monitoring of performers’ movement trajectories, qualities of movement, with systematic quantification of their performances. In contrast, effective performance preparation and enhancement in music performance has yet to be studied systematically, let alone effectively implemented in the cultivation of younger performers.

In terms of enhancing musical performance, there have been countless approaches purporting to achieve this purpose – from relaxation techniques to systematized approaches, ranging from the Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method, Taubman approach, to mental imagery, breathing exercises and more esoteric forms of mental control such as Zen meditation, (NLP) Neural Linguistic Programming and hypnosis. However, as difficult as it is to pinpoint exactly how each of these approaches might benefit musical performance, it is also difficult to gauge their relevance and effectiveness for specific individuals.

In the minds of many teachers and artists, a successful musical performance involves commitment, discipline, practice, and sufficient preparation. Although this is no doubt true, this alone cannot fully account for the apparent success or failure one sees in many students’ performances.

Considering that the music competition season is approaching, I would like to share a few thoughts with respect to facilitating musical performance based on my research in psychology and pedagogy.

Memory is one of the major factors that can impose a significant burden on inexperienced performers. As a seasoned piano examiner, I have heard many students who can play beautifully with reference to the music score. Yet, as soon as the score is removed, the playing crumbles. This raises the question: How can we assist students in developing a more secure memory in performance?

According to the work of many experimental psychologists studying memory, the more a person elaborates, in their mind, upon the information or event to be remembered, the deeper will be the level of mental processing of that information, and this will result in better recall. This idea is known in the psychology as "depth of processing". What significance does this principle have for the teacher or learner of music? One possibility is that, to help a student better remember a certain passage, the teacher may suggest that the student examine the score by studying the form, key, melodic and harmonic structure, intervals, rhythm, articulations, stylistic properties and performance indications on the score. By understanding the piece of music in its varied dimensions, the performer achieves a deeper and richer memory for the piece, resulting in a more secure memory during performance.

Another interesting concept that is worth mentioning is multi-sensory integration. By taking an approach to the music that involves integrating simultaneously information from many different senses—auditory, visual, tactile, proprioceptive (movement based), etc.— the performer can greatly enhance his or her performance routine. For instance, it may be helpful to suggest students to examine the physical and sensory aspects of the choreography of movement required while studying a piece of music. Alternatively, an examination of the spatial relationships between the body and the instrument may help establish a more resilient memory for the music by combining visual, kinesthetic and tactile cues. For instance, a student may develop a more secure memory by connecting the sensation of the hands, the quality of movement and perhaps emotional cues associated with the musical structure while attending to the aural aspects of the musical passage. Much akin to a dance, playing a musical passage by assimilating various sensory components into a unified experience can help strengthen the memory trace.

A more reliable performance may also be developed by training students to practice cutting off distractions. It has been well documented in the psychological literature that we have limited attention resources. To put it simply, when a required task exceeds the capacity of our available attention resources, performance is hampered. We may strategically alleviate ourselves from overloading attention by learning to cut off distractions.

Developing students’ abilities to become impervious to distractions can be a fun process. Some of my young students call it the “torture chamber treatment”, while others laugh so much when they later reflect upon their experiences. This is how it goes in my classes. I create public performance opportunities for my students prior to their formal performances. In these “open rehearsals”, disruptive distractions are deliberately introduced – from getting students to perform on a piano with missing keys, to performing in an unfriendly environment where cell phones keep ringing, audiences chat aloud and roam freely in the venue, babies cry, where there are sudden intrusive loud noises, and even a temporary black out. By facing unanticipated situations, students not only develop the ability to focus on their performances, they also learn to be adaptable and flexible in handling contingencies live on stage.

My former piano teacher in Hong Kong recounted an experience with her late teacher Adele Marcus at Juilliard, who insisted that she perform her entire competition repertoire without any warm up. She was required to play for her teacher at the moment she arrived at the studio on a freezing winter morning. She didn’t even get a chance to take off her jacket before playing. Marcus insisted “You have to be 500% prepared!” Her rationale is that one needs to be so thoroughly prepared that despite nerves, distractions, and all other potential sources of interference, the performer will still be left with a 100% readiness to communicate through the music.

Studying to perform music is a complex and multi-dimensional experience. It clearly involves much more than practice and memory. It involves communicating emotions through motion. In the process, one puts a personal signature onto the performance. Examining the process of how practice and performance preparation can be effectively assimilated may be the first step towards stimulating students to reflect upon their own mental processes. As we increase our students’ awareness of how their minds operate, we may hopefully also help them extend their introspective and critical thinking skills to other realms and become more effective learners in general.

By Angela Chan

Copyrighted March 2008.