30 Medical Problems of Performing Artists

The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of musi-cal performance anxiety (MPA) in marching artists. The marchingarts include high school and college marching bands, drum andbugle corps, and indoor color guard and percussion ensembles.Drawing on a sample of 780 world class drum and bugle corps per-formers, we examined the prevalence of somatic and cognitive symp-toms of MPA. We also examined differences in endorsement ofsymptoms by performing section (i.e., brass players, percussionists,and dancers/color guard) and gender. Results revealed a relativelylow prevalence of MPA symptoms as compared with prior studies ofadolescent and young adult performers. In addition, color guardperformers reported significantly greater magnitudes of somaticMPA symptoms than brass players, and female performers reportedgreater magnitudes of cognitive MPA symptoms than their malecounterparts. Practical recommendations are discussed. Med ProblPerform Art 2011; 26(1):30–34.

Musical performance anxiety (MPA) is a distressing anddisabling condition that affects performers of all ages.1

Salmon2 defined MPA as “the experience of persisting, dis-tressful apprehension about and/or actual impairment of,performance skills in a public context, to a degree unwar-ranted given the individual’s aptitude, training, and level ofpreparation.”2(p3) At least half of all musical performers,regardless of age, gender, and experience level, have beenfound to report problems associated with MPA3–5; however,the manifestation of MPA symptoms has been found to varydepending on performance setting.6

The symptoms of MPA can be categorized in terms ofsomatic and cognitive reactions to a perceived or real threat.When a person feels threatened, the body reacts . . . automat-ically. This reaction is often referred to as the “fight or flight”response and refers to what happens when the sympatheticbranch of a person’s autonomic nervous system is activated.Several somatic sensations result from this physiological acti-vation, including rapid heart rate, excessive sweating, short-ness of breath, reduction in saliva flow (i.e., dry mouth),nausea and vomiting, muscle tension and tremors, and faint-ing. In addition to somatic reactions, individuals who experi-

ence anxiety in social or performance settings (as in MPA) alsoexperience cognitive symptoms related to unrealistic thinkingabout performing, such as excessive worry about not living upto performance expectations and fearing that they will make amistake to ruin the performance.

The irony is that these MPA symptoms can indeed impactthe quality of one’s performance, resulting in the very expe-riences one is attempting to avoid, which in turn createsgreater anxiety about future performances. For example,“[h]igh arousal often influences the choice of tempo, whichtends to be faster in performance than during practice,adding technical difficulties.”7 Also, worry about making anerror divides one’s attention from the performance tasks athand, e.g., the performer may stop listening to themselves orattending to other performance cues.7

Musical performances do not always occur in a concert hall.Each year, hundreds of thousands of teens and young adultstake to football fields and gymnasium floors to participate inmarching music activities, including high school and collegemarching bands, drum and bugle corps, and indoor colorguard and percussion ensembles.8–10 Many of these units notonly perform as entertainment for sporting events and parades,but also perform in state, regional, national, and internationalcompetitions. These young performers face the excitement andpressure of performing in front of large audiences, as well ashaving their performances judged and critiqued by variousmusic educators and experts. It seems reasonable to assumethat such performance stress may have some negative conse-quences for these performers, such as experiences of MPA.

Current Study

To date, no study has formally investigated MPA within thecontext of the marching arts. To help begin to fill this void inthe literature, the current student focused on a population ofworld-class junior drum and bugle corps performers. Theinvestigation was designed to answer the following researchquestions:

1. What is the prevalence of MPA symptoms among a sample ofadolescent and young adult marching arts performers?

2. Are there section differences (brass, percussion, and color guard)and/or gender differences in the manifestation of reported MPAsymptoms (i.e., cognitive and somatic symptoms)?

METHODS

Participants

Archival data from 780 junior drum and bugle corps per-formers, representing six Drum Corps International (DCI)

An Investigation of Musical Performance Anxietyin the Marching Arts

Jacob J. Levy, PhD, Christopher M. Castille, MA, and Justina A. Farley, BA

Dr. Levy is an Assistant Professor of Psychology and Ms. Farley is a doctoralstudent in the Counseling Psychology Program, Department of Psychology,University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee; and Mr. Castille is a doctoralstudent in the Industrial and Organizational Psychology program, Depart-ment of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Louisiana Tech University,Ruston, LA.

Parts of this study were presented at the Medical Problems of PerformingArtists Symposium, Snowmass, CO, July 2010.

Address correspondence to: Dr. Jacob J. Levy, Department of Psychology,University of Tennessee, 215G Austin Peay Bldg, Knoxville, TN 37996,USA. Tel 865-974-4866, fax 865-974-3330. jlevy4@utk.edu.

March 2011 31

world-class drum and bugle corps, were used in the study.Participants consisted of 562 (72%) males and 218 (28%)females. The mean age of participants was 18.77 yrs (SD 1.59,range 15–21). The age and gender breakdown of the studysample was consistent with the membership of the partici-pating drum corps, with a slightly greater proportion ofmales (6% difference) and slightly younger in age (a half-yeardifference) than the average of all world-class drum and buglecorps participants.8

Procedure and Instrumentation

All data were originally collected as part of performanceenhancement programs within each corps and maintained ina secure data archive. All potential participants agreed toallow their non-identifying information to be archived forfuture research, and the company responsible for maintain-ing the archive granted permission to the authors to accessthe data. As an archival study, this study was approved by thefirst author’s Institutional Review Broad. Participants com-pleted (via paper and pencil administration) the instrumentdescribed below.

Performance Anxiety

Cox and Kenardy’s Performance Anxiety Questionnaire(PAQ)6 was used to assess both somatic and cognitive symp-toms of MPA. The measure instructs respondents to indicatehow often (Likert-type scale: 1 never, 2 infrequently, 3 some-times, 4 frequently, and 5 always) they experience 10 somaticsymptoms (e.g., sweaty palm, heart palpitations) and 10 cog-nitive symptoms (e.g., excessive worry and apprehensionabout performances) across three performance settings

(rehearsals, group public performance, solo public perform-ances). The PAQ demonstrated strong internal consistencywith the current sample (PAQ total score: Cronbach’s � =0.89; PAQ-Cognitive subscale, Cronbach’s � = 0.81; PAQ-Somatic subscale, Cronbach’s � = 0.83). These reliabilitycoefficients are nearly identical to previous studies utilizingthe PAQ.6,11

RESULTS

Prevalence of MPA Symptoms in Marching Artists

The participants’ mean PAQ score for all items across threeperformance settings was 2.36 (SD 0.46, range 1–5). Table 1provides the percentage the PAQ items endorsed as occurring“frequently” or “always” by participants (total and across sec-tions). Cognitive symptoms were endorsed as occurring mostfrequently. The two items with the highest percentage of “fre-quently” or “always” responses were: “I am overly critical of myperformance” (57% total sample) and “I worry about my per-formance” (56% total sample). With regard to somatic symp-toms, the two items with the highest percentage of “fre-quently” or “always” responses were: “I feel nervous” (14%total sample) and “I have sweaty palms” (14% total sample).

Analysis of Gender and Section Differences

Table 2 contains the means and SDs of the PAQ subscales(PAQ-Cognitive and PAQ-Somatic) by section and gender.One-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) wasconducted to determine the effect of two independent vari-ables (section and gender) and their interaction on twodependent performance anxiety variables (PAQ-Cognitive

TABLE 1. PAQ Items Endorsed “Frequently” or “Always” by Participants across Sections

PAQ Item Total % Brass % Guard % Percussion %

Over critical of my performance 57 56 52 62Worry about my performance 56 48 67 63Apprehensive about potential errors 17 14 19 17Worry about ability to perform 16 14 17 19Feel nervous 14 10 22 15Have sweaty palms 14 7 22 22Feel I will make a mistake and ruin the performance 12 13 10 10Lack confidence 11 12 9 11Muscles feel tense 8 10 9 9Tense in stomach 7 5 13 7Have a dry mouth 6 5 9 5Hard to concentrate 5 5 7 4Shake 5 5 6 5Feel need to urinate more often 5 4 9 3Do not feel in control of the situation 5 4 6 4Do not feel well prepared 4 4 2 2Become preoccupied with other things 3 4 2 2Experience palpitations 3 3 2 4Feel that I may be sick 2 3 1 1Feel that I may faint 2 2 1 2

n = 780; brass n = 419, color guard n = 172, percussion n = 189.

32 Medical Problems of Performing Artists

and PAQ-Somatic). Given the differences in sample sizeamong sections and gender, we conducted Levine’s Test ofEquality of Variance to assess homogeneity of variances.

Results revealed that there were no significant differencesin variance across sections or gender: PAQ-Somatic, F(5,774)= 1.29, p = 0.27; PAQ-Cognitive, F(5,774) = 0.39, p = 0.85—thus the succeeding analyses were conducted with equality ofvariances assumed. Significant main effects were found forsection [Wilk’s � = 0.96, F(4, 1546) = 7.58, p < 0.001] andgender [Wilk’s � = 0.99, F(2, 773) = 3.37, p = 0.03]. There wasnot a significant section by gender interaction effect [Wilk’s� = 0.99, F(4, 1546) = 1.73, p = 0.14].

Analyses of variances (ANOVA) on the dependent vari-ables were conducted as follow-up tests to the MANOVA.Using the Tukey Honestly Significant Difference (HSD)method to test for significant differences between groups,each ANOVA was tested at the 0.025 probability level. Withregard to gender, the ANOVA for PAQ-Cognitive was signifi-cant, F(1,774) = 6.54, p = 0.01; while the ANOVA for PAQ-Somatic was not, F(1, 774) = 1.86, p = 0.17. With regard to sec-tion, the ANOVA for PAQ-Somatic was significant, F(2, 774)= 6.21, p = 0.002; while the ANOVA for PAQ-Cognitive wasnot, F(2,774) = 0.70, p = 0.489.

Post hoc analyses to the univariate ANOVA for PAQ-Somatic by section were conducted using the Tukey HSDmethod for pairwise comparisons. Each pairwise comparisonwas tested at the 0.025 divided by 3 or 0.008 level. The colorguard reported significantly higher (p < 0.001) PAQ-Somaticscores than the brass section and nearly significantly higherscores than the percussion section (p = 0.010). Brass and per-cussion performers did not significantly differ on magnitudesof PAQ scores (p = 0.43).

DISCUSSION

Performance Context of Marching Arts

To date, the primary focus of MPA research has been on orches-tral or concert settings and has not directly examined the expe-riences of performers who participate in marching ensembles.For marching bands, drum and bugles corps, and indoor colorguard and percussion ensembles, the performance environ-ments are open fields, football fields, and gymnasium floors.These marching musicians perform at high velocities whileeither dancing or playing (perhaps both simultaneously) loud

and lush musical rhythms and chords in an attempt to excitethe thousands of viewers.

In terms of proximity, the instrumentalists—comprised ofbrass and woodwind players in marching bands (brass playersonly in drum and bugle corps) and percussionists—will benoticeably nearer to each other during the performance forthe purpose of keeping time, maintaining intonation, andproducing a unified sound, thus making any error seeminglyunnoticeable to even the most discriminating viewer/listener.In a much more drastic contrast, the dancers (commonlyreferred to as the “color guard”) are primarily visual perform-ers. These performers will dance, perform choreography, spinflags, or throw rifles, sabers, and other apparatuses into theair in time with the melodies and rhythms created by theinstrumental sections in order to provide a visual interpreta-tion of the program. The actions executed by these perform-ers attract more attention on an individual level than theirinstrumental counterparts because of the amount of visualmaterial (or bodywork) being performed at any givenmoment. Thus, the individuals in the color guard are themost exposed performers in the ensemble (with the exceptionof solo performers) with regards to synchronized executions.

As for the judgmental component of marching arts per-formances, there are varying degrees of difficulty in evaluatingperformances. For example, if an instrumentalist makes a per-formance error, he or she is inside a condensed form, andthus the error may not even be perceived by those performersmost proximal and even less so by the distal crowd. Though atiming error takes a trained ear to notice, only those mostproximal are likely to hear the error, unless the drummer isseen actively drumming out of time or out of sync with thosearound him or her. The proximity that the color guard per-formers share with regard to error perception and judgment isuniquely different from their musician counterparts. Becausetheir material is primarily visual in nature, errors such as notcatching (e.g., dropping) or not precisely catching a tossedobject can be noticed by even the most untrained pair of eyes,making any error produced seem more amplified than thoseerrors produced by the musical ensemble. As one may expect,the pressure these young performers face is considerable.

Drum Corps International member units typicallyrehearse 8 to 12 hours daily and compete in 20 to 35 com-petitions throughout the United States and Canada duringan 8-week summer tour. In general, rehearsals occur in 4-hour blocks. On days with a competition, units typically

TABLE 2. Means and Standard Deviations of PAQ Subscales by Section and Gender

Male No. Mean SD Female No. Mean SD

PAQ-Cognitive Brass 331 2.44 0.56 Brass 88 2.60 0.58Color guard 65 2.51 0.62 Color guard 107 2.47 0.53Percussion 166 2.43 0.57 Percussion 23 2.74 0.54

PAQ-Somatic Brass 331 1.77 0.53 Brass 88 1.89 0.55Color guard 65 2.03 0.63 Color guard 107 2.01 0.51Percussion 166 1.84 0.54 Percussion 23 1.97 0.50

Note: Range 1–5 (never-always experience symptoms)

rehearse for 8 hours (two rehearsal blocks), and on days with-out a competition, units will usually complete three rehearsalblocks. Rehearsal times may vary depending on traveldemands (i.e., travel time from rehearsal site to performancevenue, and from performance venue to next destination city).It is very rare for daily rehearsal time to be less than 6 hours,regardless of travel demands.

Competition among these groups is intense, often withjudges determining differences in placement by fractions of apoint. These performers are expected to perform at a highlevel, everyday. Thus, investigating their personal reactions toperformance stress (e.g., MPA) appears warranted and needed.

Prevalence of MPA in Marching Arts

The vast majority of marching artists are adolescents andyoung adults (with notable exceptions including militarybands and all-age or senior drum and bugles corps). Thefocus of the current investigation was on world-class juniordrum and bugle corps (performer ages 15–21 yrs). Withregard to prevalence of MPA symptoms, the mean PAQ scorefor the current sample was considerably lower than meansfrom other studies of adolescent musicians11,12 and similar tothe “low trait anxiety sample” in Cox and Kendardy’s6 nor-mative sample. Of particular note are the differences inendorsement of somatic symptoms. For example, in theirstudy of gifted adolescent music students, Fehm andSchmidt11 found 78% of their sample reported feeling nerv-ous “frequently” or “always” and 57% of their samplereported experiencing sweaty palms “frequently” or “always.”While nervousness and sweaty palms were also the most fre-quently endorsed somatic symptoms in our sample, only 14%of the total sample (22% of the color guard) reported experi-encing these symptoms “frequently” or “always.”

With regard to prevalence of cognitive symptoms, partici-pants in our sample were more consistent with previousresearch findings.5,13 For example, over half of our partici-pants endorsed being excessively worried and self-critical oftheir performances. In addition, female performers reportedsignificantly greater experiences with cognitive symptoms ofMPA than their male counterparts; however, no significantgender difference was found with regard to experiences withsomatic symptoms of MPA. Interestingly, our mixed findingsare consistent with previous research on gender differences,where some investigators have found females to have a higherprevalence of MPA,5 while others have found no difference.11

The overall presence of MPA in marching artists beinglower than in other studies of adolescent musicians may be afunction of the personality characteristics of performersattracted to this setting. Previous research suggests thatorchestral musicians tend be introverted,14 a personality traitoften linked to MPA.15 Kemp14 posited that introversion wasbeneficial to musicians due to the long hours of solitary prac-tice needed to become successful. In stark contrast to therehearsal environment describe by Kemp, marching musi-cians, and drum and bugle corps performers in particular,rehearse long hours in a group setting, in addition to travel-

ing and living with well over 200 people while on tour. Levyand colleagues16 found drum corps participants tend to bequite extroverted, and extraversion and low MPA were signif-icant personality predictors of satisfaction with drum corpsparticipation.17 Future research is needed to examine if thesefindings are consistent with other large ensembles and tour-ing performing artists (e.g., Broadway touring companies,Cirque du Soleil, etc.).

Section Difference in the Manifestation of MPA Symptoms

For color guard performers, like dancers, their bodies aretheir instruments. It is possible that color guard performersare more aware of their bodily reactions than musicians. Pre-vious research suggests that compared to musicians, dancerstend to be more anxious and hypochondriacal.18 Comparedwith their musician counterparts (especially brass perform-ers), color guard performers in our sample reported a higherfrequency of somatic symptoms of MPA. Of particular notewere the differences in reports of hand sweating and stomachtension. The bulk of color guard performers manipulate andtoss various apparatuses during the course of their perform-ance, thus having excessively sweaty hands may have detri-mental effects on the quality of their performance (i.e., maylead to more drops).

Practical Recommendations

Based on the results of this study, we offer several recom-mendations as they relate to addressing MPA symptomswithin the marching arts. While the prevalence of MPA maybe less in the marching arts than in other performance set-tings, over half of the performers did express excessive worryand self-criticism related to their performances, and someperformers did express significant distress related to MPAsymptoms. As such, we recommend assessing MPA in allmarching artists. There are several brief, well validated meas-ures of adolescent and young adult MPA.1,6,19 Performersreporting greater magnitudes of MPA symptoms can be pro-vided with a more in-depth evaluation by the unit’s treatingtherapist or physician or referred for a more thorough assess-ment and therapy to an external health service provider.

For the performing unit, as a whole, it appears importantto provide education and training on cognitive restructuringstrategies (with the aim of preventing the progression of neg-ative thinking to a dysfunction level). One such strategy isteaching performers to identify patterns of negative and lim-ited thinking (e.g., polarized thinking, overgeneralization,etc.) with alternative and more realistic thinking (i.e., positiveself-talk).20 Another popular cognitive-behavioral strategy isstress inoculation training in which the performer can imag-ine, refine, anticipate, and practice the steps necessary for asuccessful performance.21 These strategies can be effectivelytaught in a small group setting and may help to reduce thetwo most common MPA issues for marching artists, excessiveworry and being overly critical.

March 2011 33

34 Medical Problems of Performing Artists

Because the color guard, as a section, reported a higher fre-quency of somatic symptoms of MPA (most notably, sweatyhands and stomach tension), it is recommended that, in addi-tion to the cognitive strategies described above, these per-formers also be taught behavioral strategies to increase periph-eral blood flow and reduce muscle tension. Recent researchhas found biofeedback training (i.e., skin conductance train-ing) along with respiration training (i.e., training respirationcycles to 8–10/min) to reduce somatic reactions (such as exces-sive sweating and muscle tension) of anxiety.22 As it relates toperformance anxiety in dancers, there is some evidence thatbiofeedback training may reduce MPA symptoms23 and mayalso improve the quality of dancers’ performances.24 Addi-tional research is needed to examine such interventions in thecontext of the marching arts.

Limitations

It should be noted the results of this investigation may beunique to drum and bugle corps performers and may notnecessarily generalize to other marching artists. Participa-tion in world-class drum and bugle corps is voluntary andrequires extensive travel and intensive rehearsal schedulesdifferent from other marching arts (e.g., high school andcollege marching band). It is possible that the personal char-acteristics, including prevalence of MPA symptoms, ofdrum and bugle corps performers may be different fromthose marching artists who choose not to participate in thiscontext. Replication and extension of this investigationwith other marching arts are needed. In addition, measure-ment of MPA symptoms was limited to performer self-report. Some symptoms may be beyond awareness, mini-malized, or exaggerated by respondents. Future researchersmay wish to assess physiological indicators of MPA, such ascortisol level, blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension (viaEMG), and brain waves (via EEG), in addition to subjectivemeasures of MPA.

CONCLUSIONS

The present study sought to expand the literature of MPA inadolescent and young adult performing artists by focusing ona performance context not previously investigated, the march-ing arts. Overall, the marching artists in our study reported alower magnitude of somatic MPA symptoms compared withprevious investigations of adolescent and young adult per-formers; however, over half of our participants reportedbeing overly critical of their performances and worryingabout their performances. Similar to previous research,13 cog-nitive symptoms of MPA were more frequently endorsed (ascompared to somatic complaints), and female participantsreported greater magnitudes of cognitive symptoms of MPAthan their male counterparts. When we examined differ-ences in endorsement of MPA symptoms by section, colorguard performers significantly endorsed a greater frequencyof somatic symptoms than brass musicians, especially as they

relate to experiencing hand sweating, dry mouth, and gas-trointestinal complaints.

Compared with the treatment of other anxiety disorders,there have been relatively few treatment outcome studies forMPA. It is hoped the results of this study will spark interestin conducting intervention and outcome studies of MPAwithin the marching arts. Future researchers may wish toexplore the relative benefits of cognitive, behavioral, andcombined cognitive and behavioral strategies across the vari-ous performance sections of marching artists.

REFERENCES

1. Osborne MS, Kenny DT: Development and validation of a music per-formance anxiety inventory for gifted adolescent musicians. J AnxietyDisord 2005; 19:725–751.

2. Salmon PG: A psychological perspective on musical performance anx-iety: a review of the literature. Med Probl Perform Art 1990; 5(1):2–11.

3. Ryan C: Exploring musical performance anxiety in children. MedProbl Perform Art 1998; 13(3):83–88.

4. Shoup D: Survey of performance-related problems among high schooland junior high school musicians. Med Probl Perform Art 1995;10(3):100–105.

5. Wesner RB, Noyes R, Davis TL: The occurrence of performance anxi-ety among musicians. J Affect Disord 1990; 18:177–185.

6. Cox WJ, Kenardy J: Performance anxiety, social phobia, and settingeffects in instrumental music students. J Anxiety Disord 1993;7:49–60.

7. Lehmann AC, Sloboda JA, Woody RH: Psychology for Musicians:Understanding and Acquiring the Skills. New York: Oxford; 2007.

8. Drum Corps International: Introduction: showcasing the best of thebest [website]. Indianapolis, IN: DCI; (n.d.). Available at:http://www.dci.org/about; accessed Oct 6, 2010.

9. Music for All: What we do [website]. Indianapolis, IN: MFA; (n.d.).Available at: http://www.musicforall.org/site/what-we-do; accessedOct 6, 2010.

10. Winter Guard International: What is WGI? [website]. Dayton, OH:WGI; (n.d.). Available at: http://www.wgi.org/contents/What-is-WGI.html; accessed Oct 6, 2010.

11. Fehm L, Schmidt K: Performance anxiety in gifted musicians. J Anxi-ety Disord 2006, 20:98–109.

12. Hille C: Performance anxiety in music students [unpublished]. Dresden:Technische Universität Dresden; 2002.

13. Liston M, Frost AAM, Mohr PB: The prediction of musical perform-ance anxiety. Med Probl Perform Art 2003; 18:120–125.

14. Kemp AE: The Musical Temperament. New York: Oxford; 1996.15. Langendörfer F, Hodapp V, Kreutz G, Bongard S: Personality and per-

formance anxiety among professional orchestra musicians. J IndividDiff 2006; 27:162–171.

16. Levy JJ, Lounsbury JW, Kent KN: Big five personality traits and march-ing music injuries. Med Probl Perform Art 2009; 24:135–140.

17. Levy JJ, Lounsbury JW: Big Five personality traits and performanceanxiety in relation to marching arts satisfaction. Work (in press).

18. Merchant-Haycox SE, Wilson GD: Personality and stress in performingartists. Person Individ Diff 1992; 13:1061–1068.

19. Kenny DT, Davis P, Oates J: Music performance anxiety and occupa-tional stress amongst opera chorus artists and their relationship withstate and trait anxiety and perfectionism. J Anxiety Disord 2004;18:757–777.

20. Beck A, Emery G, Greenberg R: Anxiety Disorders and Phobias: ACognitive Perspective. New York: Basic Books; 2005.

21. Meichenbaum D: Stress Inoculation Training. Elmsford, NY: Perga-mon; 1985.

22. Pastor MC, Menéndez FJ, Sanz MT, Abad EV: The influence of respi-ration on biofeedback techniques. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback2008; 33:49–54.

23. Singer K: The effect of neurofeedback on performance anxiety indancers. J Dance Med Sci 2004: 8:78–81.

24. Raymond J, Sajid I, Parkinson LA, Gruzelier JH: Biofeedback anddance performance: a preliminary investigation. Appl PsychophysiolBiofeedback 2005; 30:65–73.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.