Page 135 - How to Shine on Stage

Summary

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Music performance is one of the most demanding and complex activi-
ties, requiring a high level of physical and mental abilities, skills, and ex-
pertise from the performer. Successful musical performance is the result
of a prolonged process of musical education, during which performance
competence is developed and shaped with the support of teachers, as
well as parents and peers. We differentiate between factors indirectly in-
fluencing the success of musical performance, as a result of the music ed-
ucational process (e.g. musical abilities and talent, mental representation
abilities, personality traits, motivation, self-regulation through practice),
and factors directly impacting musical performance (such as audience
influence, physical readiness, emotional readiness, and the performer’s
mental readiness). Based on a review of research in the field of musical
performance success, it can be observed that in the last decade, research
focus has shifted from examining problematic aspects (primarily deal-
ing with performance anxiety) to exploring mechanisms for promoting
holistic well-being among musicians (flow, resilience, passion, life satis-
faction, self-efficacy, etc.). Two concepts often studied in relation to mu-
sical performance success and situated at two diametrically opposed
experiential poles are performance anxiety and flow. In the first chap-
ter of the monograph, we establish the theoretical foundations of the
psychological constructs of success and performance. We define musi-
cal performance as one of the most demanding forms of performance,
as it requires a conglomerate of various abilities, skills, personality traits,
and motivation from the performer. Musical performance is paradoxical
in that it combines numerous polarities into a whole: on the one hand, it
demands complete concentration, while on the other, the musician must
quiet mental control to enter a state of flow; on the one hand, it requires
intense emotional immersion that is transmitted to the audience through
performance, while on the other, it necessitates the regulation of these
emotions to a level where they remain under control throughout the per-
formance; on the one hand, motor automatization, on the other hand,
the ability to control specific movements; on the one hand, the abili-