Miscellaneous Its all in your head: How attitude affects performance

[Dr G]

Is this really news? It apparently is now science.

Positive memories help musicians perform better on stage — Earth.com

For musicians on stage, the real battle often happens inside their own heads. Nerves, self-doubt, shaky hands - all of that can creep in just before the first note.

apple.news

 

[LostCircuits]

Is this really news? It apparently is now science.

Positive memories help musicians perform better on stage — Earth.com

For musicians on stage, the real battle often happens inside their own heads. Nerves, self-doubt, shaky hands - all of that can creep in just before the first note.

apple.news

I'd call it old news, it's the same thing that's been used in sports coaching for decades. Or coaching in general. It's good, though to get another piece of confirmation, even if it is almost trivial.

 

[Jimmymack]

It’s a pretty trivial article but I don’t know how widespread the knowledge is. I remember being advised to play with attitude while being warned that it isn’t the same thing as arrogance, which struck me as an important point, I’ve always remembered it. I’ve even said it to people and got some puzzled looks.

 

[cappers]

Agree in principle that positive thinking and attitude is beneficial in all walks of life.

I read somewhere online, so take spoonful of salt, that whilst playing to let go of all thought except that you're the best, a maestro, brilliant etc. and let your inner self propel you.

I just got the giggles There's enough to concentrate on without adding ego massaging mantras

 

[Jimmymack]

The brilliant, maestro bit fits into the arrogance section, so, bad advice I would say. It’s not the same as being confident and mantras are optional.

 

[Dr G]

I'd call it old news, it's the same thing that's been used in sports coaching for decades. Or coaching in general. It's good, though to get another piece of confirmation, even if it is almost trivial.

It makes me sad to think that this may have been the research unpinning a Ph.D. degree.

I notice that the test for the 36 professional musicians was playing twice through Ave Maria. How does one create anxiety over something like that? <sigh>

 

[PigSquealer]

Slow news day ? Blah article.

 

[Woodpad]

It makes me sad to think that this may have been the research unpinning a Ph.D. degree.

I notice that the test for the 36 professional musicians was playing twice through Ave Maria. How does one create anxiety over something like that? <sigh>

Religious music has a different performance approach compared to secular music. A choice which makes this paper extremely niche.

It’s a pretty trivial article but I don’t know how widespread the knowledge is. I remember being advised to play with attitude while being warned that it isn’t the same thing as arrogance, which struck me as an important point, I’ve always remembered it. I’ve even said it to people and got some puzzled looks.

I like music groups without arrogance.

 

[Dr G]

Religious music has a different performance approach compared to secular music. A choice which makes this paper extremely niche.

The author cites that it was chosen for its technical ease.

 

[Jimmymack]

Playing Ave Maria 36 times would certainly make me anxious. I think by the seventh time I would be getting fractious and by the eighth I'd be outa there.

I suppose one reason for this could be that in days gone by, at every wedding reception, you could expect uncle Billy to offer a rendition, after the meal and speeches and after several pints. This may be a local, even Northern English, thing but l live with the memory and it makes me anxious.

 

[JSL]

The article was definitely 'old news', but I do agree with the bottom line. Having a good & positive attitude, whether it comes from good memories or just feeling good, is certainly beneficial when on the bandstand. It's not clear just how rigorous the science method was in that study, but most of what was stated is pretty obvious.

 

[skeller047]

I have found that when I am thinking about how I sound to the other players, I don’t sound good. But if I look up and find someone in the audience who is looking in my direction, and focus on them, I get much more clarity.

Of course that’s not always possible - like if there’s reading involved. Or a conductor… But the occasional glance suffices in that case.

Our obligation should always be to the audience. Even in church 🙂. Maybe especially there, as some of the audience might be unseen, but not unfelt, as it were.

 

[LostCircuits]

FWIW, here is the link to the full article https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.12.628097v1.full

Also note that Ave Maria is not the Schubert piece but the one written by Charles Gounod in 1859 based on J.S. Bach’s Prelude No. 1 from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (BWV 846).

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gb6wKtCr0Y&t=5s

The article was definitely 'old news', but I do agree with the bottom line. Having a good & positive attitude, whether it comes from good memories or just feeling good, is certainly beneficial when on the bandstand. It's not clear just how rigorous the science method was in that study, but most of what was stated is pretty obvious.

There was definitely some work going into the evaluation of the results but It still falls into the category of "confirming the obvious"

But, and that appears really the gist of the study, instead of monitoring EEGs, specifically alpha or theta brainwaves, they were monitoring ECG or EKG and found a correlation of those measurements with the "objective" performance. In other words, the brain - body connection.

For me that is interesting because we (brainfingers.com) were often criticized that our EEG data had "contamination" from ANS signals.

My retort used to be that An isolated brain is about as smart as the jar it is in! Yes, we published all that stuff 20 years ago but despite the article being "old news" I personally am still pleased that somebody picked up the torch again.

 

[Woodpad]

My retort used to be that An isolated brain is about as smart as the jar it is in! Yes, we published all that stuff 20 years ago but despite the article being "old news" I personally am still pleased that somebody picked up the torch again.

Reminds me of a discussion on a Swiss study on if we can sleep learn. No we can't. But during sleeping the brain is active and it is hard to grasp the results of that action. Possibly we can learn something on brain activity from such studies.

I don't think this Japanese study will be productive for the general music scene but it might have some pedagogic use in Japan. Not enough to counter bushi influences though.

 

[jonf]

Playing Ave Maria 36 times would certainly make me anxious. I think by the seventh time I would be getting fractious and by the eighth I'd be outa there.

I suppose one reason for this could be that in days gone by, at every wedding reception, you could expect uncle Billy to offer a rendition, after the meal and speeches and after several pints. This may be a local, even Northern English, thing but l live with the memory and it makes me anxious.

I'd have been pretty irritable by the second playing.......