Performance Anxiety

[ajspiano]

Long post - but we need more long article type posts and less questions. Hoping to start a trend..

My partner is a professional dog trainer. Dogs are obviously a different animal to humans but if I've learnt anything from the situation it’s that in training for something that's to do with brain connections you have to address basic animal instincts and psychology first - and in quite a number of ways, our behavior is not that dissimilar from other animals.

Now, my dog is a bad ass. He can do things that people cant do - or perhaps that some people don't do . For example, if he makes a mess (chews something up), I can tell him to pick up after himself and he will politely pick up the fragments of his toy and put them in the bin. This was an assistance dog skill that he learnt as part of a course my partner did (pick up objects, put them in a certain place).

Dogs are not great rationalisers or self motivators, so you have to guide them through a range of learning stages and supervise 100% of their practice. In watching the progress of training my dog to do advanced skills I observed that there are several steps that are ABSOLUTELY COMPLETELY REQUIRED for success - and, that a lot of people do not do them at all, or at least miss the final one when it comes to the preparation/learning of a piece of music. I hypothosise that these phases can be applied to a humans learning as much as they can a dogs..

PHASE 1 – LEARNING

In this phase the objective is to learn the task, for a dog it involves communicating exactly what you want it to do, and rewarding it even when it fails. When learning the assistance skill, luke (my dog) was initially rewarded just for looking in the direction of the object.  For a music student this perhaps like the first look at a piece, we scan the score and analyse the form/modulations and look for anything we don’t understand. We then break up the piece into small sections that we can handle such as individual phases or in some cases just a few notes.

As a comparison for the idea of small sections, later in this phase for luke he had to learn to go to the bin to put the object in. He simply could not process the idea of the bin if he was holding an object. He first had to learn to put his head over the open bin without and object – and even this was a challenge that took some time.

Back to the music - once the piece is broken up and the individual sections notes learnt we then piece all the sections together, this is still learning phase – once this is complete its time to move on.

PHASE 2 - TRAINING

In this phase luke was expected to perform the entire skill with accuracy. For example, if he picked up the object and put it IN the bin, this was a success and he would be rewarded. But, he would often drop the object and it would fall outside the bin. To firm up the skill, he would only receive the reward if he then picked it up again and placed the object in the correct place.

For us pianists, this is all about musical intent I think. Once we’ve got the notes down its time to start perfecting the skills. Some people fail to do this which is why we see some performances that are flat, or technically flawed. Those performers didn’t focus and make sure the execution was exactly as its meant to be – they dropped the ball outside the bin so to speak, but thought it was close enough.

In this phase I personally address, physical motions in a very exact way, I decide exactly how I want to use the pedal, and how I want the dynamics. I record myself and listen to the piece to work out where I’m missing the bin – if you have a teacher they should be doing this with you too. Considerable time is spent in this phase because the following phase is initially going to cause problems. By the time you’re finished here you should be comfortable with the performance in yourself and feel like if you were to perform it that way in front of a crowd it would be acceptable and appreciated.

PHASE 3 – PROOFING

This is where the bulk of us fail. Once we complete ‘training’ we jump immediately to attempting to perform and we get extremely nervous, forget notes etc. etc.

Back to lukes experience for a moment – once he completed training he was able to perform his trick correctly every time where we were practicing in our living room. Once my partner was happy with that she took him into our kitchen, he failed. This is one kind of proofing, a new environment. After a few days he was able to perform both in our living room and our kitchen. My partner explained to me that this is still almost worthless. She took him outside into our yard, he failed again but then succeeded after a few days practice. The next story was that these were all locations that Luke is familiar with.

We began working with luke in parks and friends houses, after this he was expected to perform under distraction. Luke would then perform successfully with other dogs around, or with strangers calling him. He is now very focused and never fails at this ‘trick’.

I question how many piano students play their pieces on a different piano, or in a different place before having to perform. And of the ones that do, how many of them play on SEVERAL different pianos in SEVERAL different places before performing? Of those ones, how many play in front of SEVERAL different groups of people on several different pianos before their final recital?


...........................


I don’t mean to post this as the kind of post intended to be read and its advice necessarily followed, but I think that if you plan to develop as a pianist thinking about these kind of things helps. – I don’t get nervous when performing, even if I make an error. And these are the kind of things I’ve thought about and done, so maybe it makes a difference..  but then maybe I’m just a really chilled out person.

[costicina]

Great post, AJ!!!      
I've no experiences with dogs, only with cats, that are notoriously impossible to train: they do whatever they want, no matter how you try to teach them to behavie properly    ....
But I'll try to assume a canine nature training myself to do step by step what's needed to do in order to disciplinate and direct my instinct/impulses in the right direction...

Thank you for the suggestions!!!

Margherita

[commissiona]

Thanks, AJ!

I like this kind of post, too, where someone simply starts a post by sharing an experience that can certainly be helpful to many. 

I think this kind of practice/thinking could not only apply to the performing pianist, but also to developing keyboardists such as myself who have a long way to go before they can even think about really performing publicly (or if they even plan to do so in the first place).

For example, right now I have only one piece that I consider polished and ready to perform for others to listen, Scarlatti K. 443.  The notes have long been under my belt, and I'm for the most part satisfied with my piano interpretation of the piece and can execute it flawlessly. 

However, like I found out the other day, it's only up to my standards within my own practice environment.  I tried to play it for my wife and son, which would seem like only a minor change of scenery since it was done on the same instrument, same place, but with that little change I could hardly get all the way through the damn thing without stopping. 

I don't think it's nerves or anything like that because this is my immediate family, but that was certainly enough to really throw things off course. 

But that's good, and we'll have to do that more often as well as other things to 'proof' my competence and familiarization with a piece of music. 

[ajspiano]

However, like I found out the other day, it's only up to my standards within my own practice environment.  I tried to play it for my wife and son, which would seem like only a minor change of scenery since it was done on the same instrument, same place, but with that little change I could hardly get all the way through the damn thing without stopping. 

I don't think it's nerves or anything like that because this is my immediate family, but that was certainly enough to really throw things off course. 

This is a great example of the concept - the flubs have nothing to do with the stability of the piece. They are related to the brains inability to focus on the piece in an unfamiliar situation with distractions. The problem is not the music, its the environment.