Performance anxiety : cardiorespiratory activity in high- and low-anxious professional music students in a performance situation

Questionnaire studies indicate that high-anxious musicians may suffer from hyperventilation symptoms before and/or during performance. Reported symptoms include amongst others shortness of breath, fast or deep breathing, dizziness and thumping heart. A self-report study by Widmer, Conway, Cohen and Davies (1997) shows that up to seventy percent of the tested highly anxious musicians are hyperventilators during performance. However, no study has yet tested if these self-reported symptoms reflect actual cardiorespiratory changes just before and during performance. Disturbances in breathing patterns and hyperventilation may negatively affect the performance quality in stressful performance situations. The main goal of this study is to determine if music performance anxiety is manifest physiologically in specific correlates of cardiorespiratory activity. We studied 74 professional music students of Swiss Music Universities divided into two groups (high- and lowanxious) based on their self-reported performance anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory by Spielberger). The students were tested in three distinct situations: baseline, performance without audience, performance with audience. We measured a) breathing patterns, end-tidal carbon dioxide, which is a good non-invasive estimator for hyperventilation, and cardiac activation and b) self-perceived emotions and self-perceived physiological activation. Analyses of heart rate, respiratory rate, self-perceived palpitations, self-perceived shortness of breath and self-perceived anxiety for the 15 most and the 15 least anxious musicians show that high-anxious and low-anxious music students have a comparable physiological activation during the different measurement periods. However, highanxious music students feel significantly more anxious and perceive significantly stronger palpitations and significantly stronger shortness of breath just before and during a public performance. The results indicate that low- and high-anxious music students a) do not differ in the considered physiological responses and b) differ in the considered self-perceived physiological symptoms and the selfreported anxiety before and/or during a public performance.

Aufftrittsangst : kardiorespiratorische Aktivität bei ängstlichen und nichtängstlichen Musikstudenten in einer Auftrittssituation = Performance anxiety : cardiorespiratory activity in high- and low-anxious professional music students in a performance situation

Fragebogenstudien haben gezeigt, dass ängstliche Musiker vor und/oder während eines Auftritts möglicherweise unter Hyperventilationssymptomen leiden. Berichtete Symptome beinhalten Kurzatmigkeit, schnelles oder tiefes Einatmen, Schwindelgefühl und Herzklopfen. Bisher hat jedoch noch keine Studie getestet, ob diese selbstberichteten Symptome tatsächlich kardiorespiratorische Veränderungen widerspiegeln. Das Hauptziel dieser Studie ist es, zu bestimmen, ob sich Auftrittsangst bei Musikern physiologisch über kardiorespiratorische Muster äußert. Wir haben insgesamt 74 Musikstudenten von Schweizer Musikhochschulen getestet. Diese Studenten wurden aufgrund ihrer selbstberichteten Auftrittsangst (STAI-S) in zwei Gruppen unterteilt: ängstliche Musiker und nichtängstliche Musiker. Die Studenten wurden in drei unterschiedlichen Situationen getestet: Ausgangszustand, Auftritt ohne Publikum, Auftritt mit Publikum. Wir haben folgende Parameter gemessen: a) kardiorespiratorische Muster und endexpiratorisches CO2, welches eine gute nichtinvasive Schätzung des Hyperventilationsgrades liefert und b) subjektiv wahrgenommene Emotionen und subjektiv wahrgenommene physiologische Aktivität. Das Poster zeigt die ersten Resultate der 15 ängstlichsten und der 15 am wenigsten ängstlichen Musiker. Das Hauptinteresse gilt den folgenden Punkten: Herz- und Atemfrequenz, subjektiv wahrgenommenes Herzklopfen, subjektiv wahrgenommene Kurzatmigkeit und subjektiv wahrgenommenes Angstgefühl. Die Resultate dieser Studie zeigen erstens, dass ängstliche und nichtängstliche Musikstudenten zu den verschiedenen Messzeitpunkten eine vergleichbare physiologische Aktivität aufweisen und zweitens, dass ängstliche Musikstudenten ein signifikant höheres Angstgefühl haben und signifikant mehr Herzklopfen und Kurzatmigkeit wahrnehmen vor und/oder während eines Auftritts mit Publikum. Dies deutet darauf hin, dass sich ängstliche und nichtängstliche Musikstudenten a) bezüglich der subjektiv wahrgenommenen physiologischen Symptome und des selbst berichteten Angstgefühls vor und/oder während eines öffentlichen Auftritts unterscheiden und sich b) bezüglich der untersuchten physiologischen Reaktionen nicht unterscheiden.

Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) : cardiorespiratory activity in high- and low-anxious professional music students before a performance situation

Descriptors: music performance anxiety, respiration, hyperventilation Surveys indicate that high-anxious musicians may suffer from hyperventilation (HV) before or during performance. Reported symptoms include shortness of breath, fast/ deep breathing and thumping heart. However, no study has yet tested if these selfreported symptoms reflect actual cardiorespiratory activity. Themain goal of this study was to determine if MPA is manifested physiologically in specific correlates of cardiorespiratory activity associated with HV.We studied 74 professional music students from Swiss Music Academies. In this study, we compared the most anxious students (highanxious; n 5 20) with the least anxious students (low-anxious; n 5 23) based on their self-reported performance anxiety. We measured cardiorespiratory patterns with the Lifeshirt system, end-tidal CO2 with a capnograph (EtCO2, a good non-invasive estimator of HV), self-perceived physiological activation and affective experience in three situations on different days: baseline, performance without audience, and performance with audience. Comparing measures for the private vs. the public concert, high- compared to low-anxious students showed a significant drop in EtCO2 before the public concert and reported larger increases in anxiety, tension, palpitations and breathing difficulties. In contrast, heart rate, respiratory rate and volume did not differ significantly between groups. The results of this study support the hypothesis thatMPA may be associated with a tendency to hyperventilate and, thus, point to a potential hyperventilation problem in high-anxious music students.

Reconstruction Of Past Climate Conditions Over Central Europe From Groundwater Data

Here we present a 30 000 years low-resolution climate record reconstructed from groundwater data. The investigated site is located in the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin, in the corridor between the Scandinavian ice sheet and the Alpine ice field. Noble gas temperatures (NGT), obtained from groundwater data, preserved multicentennial temperature variability and indicated a cooling of at least 5-7 °C during the last glacial maximum (LGM). This is further confirmed by the depleted δ18O and δ2H values at the LGM. High excess air (ΔNe) at the end of the Pleistocene is possibly related to abrupt changes in recharge dynamics due to progression and retreat of ice covers and permafrost. These results agree with the fact that during the LGM permafrost and small glaciers developed in the inner valleys of the Giant Mountains (located in the watershed of the aquifers). A temporal decrease of deuterium excess from the pre-industrial Holocene to present days is linked to an increase of the air temperatures, and probably also to an increase of water pressure at the source region of precipitation over the past few hundred years

Classification of indian classical vocal styles from melodic contours

A prominent categorization of Indian classical music is the Hindustani and Carnatic traditions, the two styleshaving evolved under distinctly different historical andcultural influences. Both styles are grounded in the melodicand rhythmic framework of raga and tala. The styles differ along dimensions such as instrumentation,aesthetics and voice production. In particular, Carnatic music is perceived as being more ornamented. The hypothesisthat style distinctions are embedded in the melodic contour is validated via subjective classification tests. Melodic features representing the distinctive characteristicsare extracted from the audio. Previous work based on the extent of stable pitch regions is supported by measurements of musicians’ annotations of stable notes. Further, a new feature is introduced that captures thepresence of specific pitch modulations characteristic ofornamentation in Indian classical music. The combined features show high classification accuracy on a database of vocal music of prominent artistes. The misclassifications are seen to match actual listener confusions.

Constraints on Miocene oceanography and climate in the Western and Central Paratethys: O-, Sr-, and Nd-isotope compositions of marine fish and mammal remains

The Paratethys evolved as a marginal sea during the Alpine-Himalayan orogeny in the Oligo-Miocene. Sediments from the northern Alpine Molasse Basin, the Vienna, and the Pannonian Basins located in the western and central part of the Paratethys thus provide unique information on regional changes in climate and oceanography during a period of active Alpine uplift Oxygen isotope compositions of well-preserved phosphatic fossils recovered from the sediments support deposition under sub-tropical to warm-temperate climate with water temperatures of 14 to 28 degrees C for the Miocene. delta(18)O values of fossil shark teeth are similar to those reported for other Miocene marine sections and, using the best available estimates of their biostratigraphic age, show a variation until the end of the Badenian similar to that reported for composite global record. The (87)Sr/(86)Sr isotope ratios of the fossils follow the global Miocene seawater trend, albeit with a much larger scatter. The deviations of (87)Sr/(86)Sr in the samples from the well-constrained seawater curve are interpreted as due to local input of terrestrially-derived Sr. Contribution of local sources is also reflected in the epsilon(Nd) values, consistent with input from ancient crystalline rocks (e.g., Bohemian Massif and/or Mesozoic sediments with epsilon(Nd) < -9. On the other hand, there is evidence for input from areas with Neogene volcanism as suggested by samples with elevated epsilon(Nd) values >-7. Excluding samples showing local influence on the water column, an average epsilon(Nd) value of -7.9 +/- 0.5 may be inferred for the Miocene Paratethys. This value is indistinguishable from the epsilon(Nd) value of the contemporaneous Indian Ocean, supporting a dominant role of this ocean in the Western and Central Paratethys. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Stage fright: its experience as a problem and coping with it.

PURPOSE AND METHOD: This questionnaire survey of 190 university music students assessed negative feelings of music performance anxiety (MPA) before performing, the experience of stage fright as a problem, and how closely they are associated with each other. The study further investigated whether the experience of stage fright as a problem and negative feelings of MPA predict the coping behavior of the music students. Rarely addressed coping issues were assessed, i.e., self-perceived effectiveness of different coping strategies, knowledge of possible risks and acceptance of substance-based coping strategies, and need for more support.RESULTS: The results show that one-third of the students experienced stage fright as a problem and that this was only moderately correlated with negative feelings of MPA. The experience of stage fright as a problem significantly predicted the frequency of use and the acceptance of medication as a coping strategy. Breathing exercises and self-control techniques were rated as effective as medication. Finally, students expressed a strong need to receive more support (65%) and more information (84%) concerning stage fright.CONCLUSION: Stage fright was experienced as a problem and perceived as having negative career consequences by a considerable percentage of the surveyed students. In addition to a desire for more help and support, the students expressed an openness and willingness to seriously discuss and address the topic of stage fright. This provides a necessary and promising basis for optimal career preparation and, hence, an opportunity to prevent occupational problems in professional musicians. [Authors]

La veu dels músics a través de les seves experiències cognitives i emotives

Peer-reviewed

Bowing the violin : a case study for auditory-motor pattern modelling in the context of music performance

This project addresses methodological and technological challenges in the development of multi-modal data acquisition and analysis methods for the representation of instrumental playing technique in music performance through auditory-motor patterning models. The case study is violin playing: a multi-modal database of violin performances has been constructed by recording different musicians while playing short exercises on different violins. The exercise set and recording protocol have been designed to sample the space defined by dynamics (from piano to forte) and tone (from sul tasto to sul ponticello), for each bow stroke type being played on each of the four strings (three different pitches per string) at two different tempi. The data, containing audio, video, and motion capture streams, has been processed and segmented to facilitate upcoming analyses. From the acquired motion data, the positions of the instrument string ends and the bow hair ribbon ends are tracked and processed to obtain a number of bowing descriptors suited for a detailed description and analysis of the bow motion patterns taking place during performance. Likewise, a number of sound perceptual attributes are computed from the audio streams. Besides the methodology and the implementation of a number of data acquisition tools, this project introduces preliminary results from analyzing bowing technique on a multi-modal violin performance database that is unique in its class. A further contribution of this project is the data itself, which will be made available to the scientific community through the repovizz platform.

[Cantiones eroticae]

Soitinnus: sekakuoro, trumpetti, vanhoja soittimia, lyömäsoittimet, jouset.

Skill Development in Music Reading. The Eye-Movement Approach

This dissertation examined skill development in music reading by focusing on the visual processing of music notation in different music-reading tasks. Each of the three experiments of this dissertation addressed one of the three types of music reading: (i) sight-reading, i.e. reading and performing completely unknown music, (ii) rehearsed reading, during which the performer is already familiar with the music being played, and (iii) silent reading with no performance requirements. The use of the eye-tracking methodology allowed the recording of the readers’ eye movements from the time of music reading with extreme precision. Due to the lack of coherence in the smallish amount of prior studies on eye movements in music reading, the dissertation also had a heavy methodological emphasis. The present dissertation thus aimed to promote two major issues: (1) it investigated the eye-movement indicators of skill and skill development in sight-reading, rehearsed reading and silent reading, and (2) developed and tested suitable methods that can be used by future studies on the topic. Experiment I focused on the eye-movement behaviour of adults during their first steps of learning to read music notation. The longitudinal experiment spanned a nine-month long music-training period, during which 49 participants (university students taking part in a compulsory music course) sight-read and performed a series of simple melodies in three measurement sessions. Participants with no musical background were entitled as “novices”, whereas “amateurs” had had musical training prior to the experiment. The main issue of interest was the changes in the novices’ eye movements and performances across the measurements while the amateurs offered a point of reference for the assessment of the novices’ development. The experiment showed that the novices tended to sight-read in a more stepwise fashion than the amateurs, the latter group manifesting more back-and-forth eye movements. The novices’ skill development was reflected by the faster identification of note symbols involved in larger melodic intervals. Across the measurements, the novices also began to show sensitivity to the melodies’ metrical structure, which the amateurs demonstrated from the very beginning. The stimulus melodies consisted of quarter notes, making the effects of meter and larger melodic intervals distinguishable from effects caused by, say, different rhythmic patterns. Experiment II explored the eye movements of 40 experienced musicians (music education students and music performance students) during temporally controlled rehearsed reading. This cross-sectional experiment focused on the eye-movement effects of one-bar-long melodic alterations placed within a familiar melody. The synchronizing of the performance and eye-movement recordings enabled the investigation of the eye-hand span, i.e., the temporal gap between a performed note and the point of gaze. The eye-hand span was typically found to remain around one second. Music performance students demonstrated increased professing efficiency by their shorter average fixation durations as well as in the two examined eye-hand span measures: these participants used larger eye-hand spans more frequently and inspected more of the musical score during the performance of one metrical beat than students of music education. Although all participants produced performances almost indistinguishable in terms of their auditory characteristics, the altered bars indeed affected the reading of the score: the general effects of expertise in terms of the two eye- hand span measures, demonstrated by the music performance students, disappeared in the face of the melodic alterations. Experiment III was a longitudinal experiment designed to examine the differences between adult novice and amateur musicians’ silent reading of music notation, as well as the changes the 49 participants manifested during a nine-month long music course. From a methodological perspective, an opening to research on eye movements in music reading was the inclusion of a verbal protocol in the research design: after viewing the musical image, the readers were asked to describe what they had seen. A two-way categorization for verbal descriptions was developed in order to assess the quality of extracted musical information. More extensive musical background was related to shorter average fixation duration, more linear scanning of the musical image, and more sophisticated verbal descriptions of the music in question. No apparent effects of skill development were observed for the novice music readers alone, but all participants improved their verbal descriptions towards the last measurement. Apart from the background-related differences between groups of participants, combining verbal and eye-movement data in a cluster analysis identified three styles of silent reading. The finding demonstrated individual differences in how the freely defined silent-reading task was approached. This dissertation is among the first presentations of a series of experiments systematically addressing the visual processing of music notation in various types of music-reading tasks and focusing especially on the eye-movement indicators of developing music-reading skill. Overall, the experiments demonstrate that the music-reading processes are affected not only by “top-down” factors, such as musical background, but also by the “bottom-up” effects of specific features of music notation, such as pitch heights, metrical division, rhythmic patterns and unexpected melodic events. From a methodological perspective, the experiments emphasize the importance of systematic stimulus design, temporal control during performance tasks, and the development of complementary methods, for easing the interpretation of the eye-movement data. To conclude, this dissertation suggests that advances in comprehending the cognitive aspects of music reading, the nature of expertise in this musical task, and the development of educational tools can be attained through the systematic application of the eye-tracking methodology also in this specific domain.

Musiikillisen asiantuntijuuden vaikutus äänten havainto-oppimiseen

Miia Seppäsen psykologian väitöskirja Auditory perceptual learning in musicians and non-musicians - Event-related potential studies on rapid plasticity (Helsingin yliopisto 2013).

You get what you pay for : independent music and Canadian public policy

The aim of this MA thesis is to demonstrate how corporate concentration within the global music industry specifically affects the Canadian music industry's ability to compete for its own national audience as well as audiences worldwide. Federal public policies, regulatory regimes and subsidies are considered within the context of the structure of the global marketplace which is, in effect, an oligopoly controlled by four major corporations. Through an extensive literature review of political economy theory, Canadian public policies and music studies, as well as personal interviews conducted with Canadian musicians, entrepreneurs and public servants, I will situate my research within the body of political economy theory; present a detailed report of the structure of the global music industry; address the key players within the industry; describe the relationship between the major corporations and the independent companies operating in the industry; discuss how new technologies affect said relationships; consider the effectiveness of Canadian public policies in safeguarding the national music industry; and recommend steps that can be taken to remedy the shortcomings of Federal policies and regulatory regimes.

Dr. A. Leon Hatzan letters,1926, 1932-1940, n.d.

Alexander Leon Hatzan (1864-1941), a native of Belgium, was a self-described medical doctor, missionary, academic and some time herbalist. In 1918 he moved to Niagara Falls, first living on Clifton Avenue (now Zimmerman Ave.), later moving to the River Road home he shared with his wife Ada Beatrice Rolston (1882-1975). He was the author of three books and at least four known music scores. He was heavily involved in the promotion of his books and his music. The correspondence is chiefly in reply to gifts of books and/or music sent by Hatzan to the recipients or in reply to requests for speaking engagements. Hatzan died on October 7, 1941 while visiting Vancouver, BC.

Niagara Symphony Orchestra fonds, 1926, 1948-1998, n.d.

In 1948, The St. Catharines Civic Orchestra was founded by Jan Wolanek who was also the first conductor. Initially, this was a community orchestra and in 1963 its governing body assumed the name St. Catharines Symphony Association. In 1978 the name was again changed to The Niagara Symphony Association to reflect regional responsibilities. Wally Laughton was named Assistant Conductor in 1952/53. R.C. Clarke took over the orchestra for an interim period after Wolanek left in 1957. In 1958 Leonard Pearlman became the Music Director. It was under his direction that the Niagara Symphony Chorus came into existence in 1963. Milton Barnes succeeded Pearlman in 1964 and he was responsible for directing the symphony’s first opera production. He also made a concerted effort to attract younger people to symphonic music. In 1972 Leonard Atherton became the Music Director. He started the Cantata Choir and the Madrigal Singers. It was under his tenure that the orchestra became professional. When Atherton left in 1980, there were three seasons of guest conductors, the most notable of these conductors was Uri Mayer. In 1981 James Vincent Fusco was appointed as composer in residence and in 1983 Ermanno Florio became the Music Director. He retained this position until 1995 when Michael Reason took over. Daniel Swift was appointed as Music Director and Conductor in 1999 and the Niagara Symphony Orchestra became the orchestr in residence at Brock University. Laura Thomas was appointed as Associate Conductor 1n 2004. Daniel Swift’s resignation in 2008 began a search for a new Music Director. Bradley Thachuck was appointed as Music Director Designate and Principal Conductor in 2010. The orchestra is a fully professional, charitable institution with 52 members.The orchestra has also been led by Victor Feldbrill and Howard Cable. A junior symphony was first formed under Leonard Pearlman in 1960/61, but it wasn’t until 1965 that The St. Catharines Youth Orchestra was founded. The orchestra has consistently been an award winner in music festivals. The musicians range in age from 12 to 18 years. The highlight of the 1973-74 season was the orchestra’s participation in the first Canadian Festival of Youth Orchestras at The Banff School of Fine Arts. The St. Catharines Youth Orchestra has evolved from the St. Catharines School String and Brass Ensembles to a full scale symphony under the direction of conductor Paul van Dongen. In 1974 the Symphony House music program came into existence. It was 1976 when Richard Grymonpre was hired as the principal violinist of the St. Catharines Symphony Orchestra and conductor of the St. Catharines Youth Orchestra. Tak Ng Lai took over the position as conductor in 1978. Laura Thomas is currently the Music Director of The Niagara Youth Orchestra. Source: Niagara Symphony, Orchestra in Residence, Brock University website and notes from Niagara Symphony files