Psychology of Music, the pending subject

Art, entertainment, profession, business… Music is a very significant part of our society. and, being a subject traditionally undervalued in our schools, we have not hesitated to build a very powerful formal education environment around this discipline.

Schools, academies, conservatories and others are destined to fill the void that music leaves in the education system and, depending on the student's aspirations, they can choose from a more casual or recreational training to a more regulated and professionally oriented one.

However, once we have reached a certain level of specialization, we find an increasingly demanding execution, which entails a growing number of hours of classes and rehearsals, and what started as a hobby or a pending subject at school, becomes a high-profile sport. performance. As such, may involve all those risks associated at the psychological level that we find in all sports.

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The demands of music training

On the one hand, a music student usually has to, by necessity, combine his musical training with his academic training and let's not kid ourselves: musical training is not a complement, but rather involves as much demand or more than a university degree (or much more, in the case of some careers), and you still have to hear that "you study music... and what else?".

And it is that, dedicating so much effort and time to music in a world that urges us to "not mislead" our "true" training, coupled with the tremendous demand and competitiveness of some centers, implies a very high risk for intrinsic motivation, that is, to be able to direct our behavior towards music simply because we like it, which has as As a consequence, many students drop out early, leaving a lot of talent behind, and many others continue to be able to develop another type of discomforts.

Manage stress and anxiety

In the first place, the requirement of a performance and dedication superior to what each one considers as "normal", can lead to the state of mind we know as stress. Stress is an adaptive response of the body to a situation of change in the environment or of maximum demand, but without proper management, it can last longer than the evolution had calculated, and bring with it certain psychological (anxiety disorders, depression) and physiological (indigestion, muscle tension, headaches, backaches, etc.).

One of the psychological consequences of stress is anxiety, characterized by involuntary thoughts such as regrets. (“I should have studied more”, “I made a mistake too bad”) or pessimistic expectations (“I am going to make a mistake in this part”, “I am going to stop”, “I want it to end as soon as possible”) that tend to be interrelated with physical reactions (tremors, sweating, tachycardia…).

The most ironic thing is that this state, in high doses, is very detrimental when it comes to achieving high performance when performing any task, especially if it is playing a piece in public when we are playing a title, but the most discouraging thing is that what we were previously passionate about has given way to those negative feelings.

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Progress in music psychology

It is this situation that has drawn the attention of psychologists to this environment, and although most of the work has consisted, at less in Spain, in investigating those optimal methods for teaching and learning music (constructive learning vs. executive), more and more centers are interested in the mental training of their young musicians, a variable that traditionally had been left to chance and had served as a kind of selection tautological nature in conservatories (“if you can't stand this, you're not good for music”).

Today more and more voices are being raised to say no, that these variables are capable of being trained. So, there are certain techniques aimed at maintaining intrinsic motivation, based on working with objectives and the perception of self-efficacy, techniques to combat anxiety, such as breathing and relaxation in the search for that optimum level of activation or techniques to manage that pressure that, yes, will always exist, but it is in our power to regulate it, and we can do it through techniques such as exposure or cognitive restructuring, all with the ultimate goal of optimizing the experience and performance of not only our musicians, but also our dancers, actors and all those members of the arts scenic

Finally, emphasize that Every day the importance of the work of the psychologist in the mental training of the musician becomes more noticeable.. In a world as competitive as music, the mental factor can make a difference in a professional's musical career.

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