Epidemiology of music performance anxiety

Abstract

The first part of this chapter addresses the following questions: How common is music performance anxiety? Does it occur with equal frequencies among male and female performers; adult, adolescent, and child musicians; classical and popular musicians; orchestral and choral musicians; professional and amateur musicians? The second part reviews methods of assessment of music performance anxiety. Analysis of the existing assessments highlighted the complexity of this undertaking, particularly in view of the fact that different forms of assessment measurements — physiological, subjective feelings of discomfort (the emotion or affect of anxiety), cognitive (worry, dread, and rumination), and overt behavioural (shaking, trembling, posture, muscle tension) — are not interchangeable. Many of the available music performance anxiety scales are adaptations of existing anxiety measures, assess symptoms only and have no theoretical basis. New measures — the Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory for adult musicians and the Music Performance Anxiety Inventory for Adolescents for adolescent musicians — have attempted to address shortcomings in existing measures by attending to relevant psychometric properties of robust tests and providing a theoretical rationale for the items.