Who Is Judging Whom on Stage?

Takeaways From a Four-Question Survey

Yesterday’s player pianos were able to execute note-perfect performances. Yet, they lacked the engineering needed for expressive nuance. Fast forward to today’s machines. Robot fingers can now be fine-tuned with respect to the velocity, angle and weight of each key hit. Soon, one will be able train them to imitate the phrasing, articulation and even the timing of great performers.

However, although they may be able to mimic some aspects of human musicianship, machines will never have feelings of their own to express or the ability to creatively interpret a composition.

The Human Element

Please take a moment to marvel at the uniquely human skills involved in a moving musical performance. The pianist is executing the tasks required by the musical score and adding nuance in tone, dynamics and rhythm. This allows them to communicate with their listeners. This is certainly something to celebrate – a special niche of experience that will always be reserved for humans.

Performance for an Audience is Special

Here’s where the results of a recent survey with 180 (live) musicians comes in. Pianists were asked about their focus and the situations in which they perform. Participants were also asked about the audience’s ability to judge their playing. Not even the most complex programming will never enable robots to interpret listeners’ reactions. Nor do they have the capacity to feel delight after a successful performance.

Positive experiences were found in 90% of the 40 professional musicians who participated in the survey. They reported either an “emotional connection to the audience” and / or “better-than-expected outcomes.” The pianists who felt that their performance had been a success were also less self-conscious, less concentrated on accuracy and had fewer concerns about memory, leaving plenty of energy free for interpretation.

This begs the question: Why do many pianists at all levels avoid playing for others, robbing themselves of the chance to enjoy communicating through music?

Positive Performance Experiences

Instead of basking in their unique ability to share music with others, many pianists are plagued by both self-criticism and imagined judgements of others. Indeed, a whopping 70% of the 140 non-professionals who participated reported some form of disappointment in their performances, evaluative self-consciousness and / or concern about mistakes and audience scrutiny.

When imagining playing for “a good friend” – not a jury at a competition, or a recital in front of a paying audience – professionals were significantly less focused on the accuracy of notes, a main concern for non-professionals. An even stronger difference between the groups was their respective concern with the audience: almost all of the professionals compared to just over half of the non-professionals said they were interested in the “impact of their interpretation.”

Minor differences between the groups could also be found with the lay pianists placing slightly more emphasis on technical prowess and more concern with their appearance and mannerisms.

The Secret Sauce of Successful Performance

Those who perform more, enjoy the experience more. That may be true, but please don’t conclude from your own performance history as well as these survey results that “some pianists have it and I don’t.” That is simply not the case. Anyone can learn to use their expressive musicianship to become a better performer.

Decades of scientific study on attention in education, sports and the arts has over and over again provided proof that a change in focus improves the performance results. With respect to musicians, performance science research has shown that an “external” focus of attention – attending to musical expression and playing to the audience – is more conducive to music-making than an “internal” focus, the monitoring of correct notes and proper finger movements.

When comparing multiple takes of the same piece, the musicians themselves as well the “blind” jurors gave higher ratings to run-throughs in which musical expression was front and centre, rather than virtuosity or mistake-avoidance. The short survey discussed above provides further support of these results. It’s detrimental to try to control one’s playing; it’s beneficial to focus on making music.

Dispelling the Ghost of Performances Past

Humans and machines both learn from past experiences. However, musicians store feedback in memory that is the product of interpretation and doesn’t always reflect “hard facts.” The human brain can’t be (re-)programmed to react only to reality and truth-based, constructive criticism. Each will continue to compare our own evaluation to what we believe is the audience’s reaction to our playing. That is, unless we rethink the role of perception in our performance memories.

The fear of mistakes or criticism may have caused some to avoid performing altogether. Others were so caught up in worries about wrong notes or others’ opinions, that they were too distracted to enjoy the experience. These are the mistakes the professional musicians in the survey avoided. Instead, they minimised their evaluation-centred self-monitoring and were less concerned with audience judgement.

Simply put, successful musicians have a mindset centred on communication. For each of us, from beginner to professional, concentrating on expression is an ingredient of positive performance outcomes. Yes, it’s challenging to share your music with others, but the rewards cannot be understated. It’s time to grab this opportunity to revel in a uniquely human form of interaction!

– Adina Mornell