Negative Emotions In Music Making: The Problem Of Performance Anxiety

Abstract The performance of music induces extraordinarily positive feelings in many players and singers. Participation in a successful and exciting performance often leads to feelings of euphoria, whether it be in a school concert, a piece sung by a village choir, or a public show in a prestigious concert hall. Here is the baritone Thomas Allen (interviewed in the Independent on Sunday in 1990) describing his feelings at the end of a performance of Don Giovanni in Japan: ‘I could have walked over the house tops I was so high’.When the producer came backstage to congratulate him, Allen picked him up and carried him across the stage, ‘Oh, I could have run up Mount Fuji!’ The same feelings of joy of creative music making are vividly expressed in a letter written by the 21-year-old Mozart to his father in November 1777. He was playing the organ during a Sunday service in the Court chapel in Mannheim in the presence of the ruler of the state.