Whether it’s hitting that high note in an audition, nailing that exposed entrance in orchestra, playing in a master class, or making an impossible trashketball shot to get your class an A in organic chemistry , we all know from experience that it’s a lot harder to play like yourself when the pressure kicks in and there’s something at stake.
Fortunately, we know from studies in this area that the ability to perform well under pressure and reduce that gap between practice and performance is a skill (e.g. here and here). And that we can get better at performing under pressure if we practice performing under pressure.
But that’s much easier said than done, because it’s not like there’s an instant “pressure” button we can push to make our hands go cold and stiff, get our heart pounding, and jumpstart the racing self-critical thoughts.
So…is there any research in this area? When it comes to simulating the feeling of pressure in advance of a real audition or performance, what works best?
What do elite coaches say?
A team of researchers (Stoker et al., 2016) interviewed 11 Olympic/International-level coaches, representing a range of sports1, to find out how they integrated “pressure training” into their athletes’ preparation for competition.
There were differences among the coaches, but nevertheless, a few themes emerged. Specifically, two main strategies, each with three key elements.
Strategy #1: Manipulate the training demands
The coaches noted that competitions are usually more demanding – both mentally and physically – than anything an athlete would normally encounter in training. So one way of increasing pressure is to manipulate the difficulty of a training session.
They reported doing this in three ways:
Way #1: Task
This involves tweaking the drill, exercise, or skill itself to make things more challenging.
In music, this would be like playing with a pianist who’s sight-reading the piano part, which might make it more challenging for you to focus on playing the way you want. Or using a subpar reed. Or on a piano with a really light or heavy touch. Or having to play faster or softer than you will on stage.
Way #2: Performer
Another way to increase the demands of training is to manipulate your physical or psychological state.
Like doing a run-through at 4am when you’re barely awake. Or right after eating a plate of painfully spicy wings.
Way #3: Environment
The third strategy involves changing your surroundings.
Like playing in a really dry unflattering acoustical environment. Or in a cold, hot, or poorly lit space.
Strategy #2: Manipulate the consequences
The coaches’ other main method for creating pressure was to use reward/punishment or positive and negative consequences, based on performance. They acknowledged that this might sound kind of harsh, but as one coach mentioned, this is an unavoidable part of competition anyhow.
Here too, there were three main ways that coaches created pressure:
Way #1: Forfeits
This is where you lose something you want, or must do something you don’t want to, if you fail to meet a certain level of performance. Like sprints if you miss a shot. This is pretty straightforward – but the coaches recommended being very cautious, as it has the potential to backfire (as you can probably imagine).
Way #2: Reward
This strategy sounds a little more appealing, in that it involves winning something positive or desirable if you perform well.
Like being able to move on to the next page of a new piece you’re learning. Or being selected to perform in a master class for a visiting guest artist.
Way #3: Judgment
A third strategy involves performing in the presence of someone who is evaluating your performance.
This would be like playing for peers and teachers, and other musicians we look up to. Or strangers or family members. This would also include studio classes, mock auditions, practice performances, self-recording, and random drop-in performances for a friend in the practice room a few doors down.
These all sound like they could be useful – but how helpful are they really?
Which ones actually prepare us best for the pressure of a real audition or performance?
Which works best? Demands or consequences?
To find out, a couple of the researchers (Stoker et al., 2017) teamed up with a few others to conduct a study of elite international-level Netball players.
They put 15 athletes through a throwing accuracy drill2, in different conditions.
In the DEMANDS condition, the athletes had to throw at targets in a randomized order, release the ball within 3 seconds, and hit the smaller 6×6 targets (task). They also wore goggles that blocked out vision in one of their eyes (performer), and had to deal with a distractingly loud beeping sound (environment).
In the CONSEQUENCES condition, the athletes had to perform the drill in front of 2-3 of their peers, as well as their head coach, who was evaluating them on their ability to handle pressure and stay focused on the task. Their performance was also videotaped, so that a well-known national coach could evaluate it at a later time (judgment).
Furthermore, whomever got the lowest scorer had to do a 1-minute presentation (perform a comedy sketch, talk about who they admired most on the team and why, talk about why their skills could make them the best in the world, or count backwards from 1013 by 17’s), on camera, which was uploaded to a popular social media site, and stayed there for 2 weeks. In addition, they had to select one of their teammates who would also have to complete one of these four tasks (forfeits).
The winner, on the other hand, received £50, and immunity from the embarrassing video task (reward).
So what was more effective? Demands or consequences?
Based on self-reported measures of pressure, anxiety, confidence, and heart rate, the researchers found that facing consequences seemed to more consistently create the feeling of pressure among the athletes.
So when designing a pressure training program for yourself (or a student), being creative about consequences seems to be the way to go!
Takeaways
It’s important to note that we don’t all experience the same amount of pressure from the same things. A situation that feels like pressure for one person, may feel totally stress-free for another. So if you’re teaching, it may help to ask a student for their ideas in creating a list of meaningful stressors. That’s actually what the researchers did in coming up with their creative stressors. The creative forfeits above were the result of some collaborative brainstorming between the researchers, athletes, and coaches.
It’s also important to acknowledge that there are some things you just can’t simulate or replicate. Even if you have access to an audition or performance simulator, like the one Aaron Williamon and his colleagues developed at the Royal College of Music (described in Aaron’s podcast episode here). But as some of the coaches in the first study suggested, this is actually ok! Because the goal isn’t to practice for 100% of all possible scenarios in as realistic a way as possible. But rather, to create an environment where you can practice “pressure management.”
The goal of pressure management being to identify, test out, and develop a set of skills that you can use when you find yourself in a real pressure situation, instead of being caught off guard and having to figure things out on the fly.
And whether you manipulate consequences or demands, don’t forget to incorporate some element of fun into pressure training. After all, the objective of pressure training isn’t to evaluate you, the individual. It’s all about putting your pressure management skills to the test, to see if they’re up to the challenge or need a little more work (as in this article).
A book – and how you could shape it
This is one of the posts I plan to draw on for a book I’m considering. One aimed at addressing those oh-so-frustrating “but it sounded better at home” moments, with research-based guidance on how we can shrink the gap between how we sound in the practice room and how we sound on stage. The idea is short, focused chapters, each addressing a specific frustration, with concrete action steps.
The community is central to this project, as each chapter will close with real-world examples from students, teachers, and professional musicians – showing how the principle plays out in actual practice, performance, or teaching.
If you’ve applied any concepts from this post to your own practicing, performing, or teaching, and found them helpful, I’d love to hear your story. Like, how have you created pressure for yourself? For your students? What are the little “pro tips” related to this that you’ve discovered over the years? 😁
A short note is totally fine! Because if your story seems like a good fit, I’d love to set up a short conversation to hear more.
👉 Click here to email me your story
📚 Click here to follow the project
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References
Stoker, M., Lindsay, P., Butt, J., Bawden, M., W. Maynard, I. (2016). Elite coaches’ experiences of creating pressure training environments. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 47(3), 262-281. doi:10.7352/IJSP.2016.47.262
Stoker, M., Maynard, I., Butt, J., Hays, K. F., Lindsay, P., & Norenberg, D. A. (2017). The Effect of Manipulating Training Demands and Consequences on Experiences of Pressure in Elite Netball. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 29(4), 434–448. https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2017.1298166
Reading this again, I just realized that I did the first strategy the third way, back when I was starting out on guitar. I realized that if I did not learn to mute the strings I wasn’t using properly, they’d ring out and cause all kinds of noise that would screw up my tone.
So I contravened the rules of good electric guitar tone because I wasn’t after a good tone at all: I turned all my EQs all the way up, cranked the gain as far as it would go, and switched to distortion because I was after a tone that would amplify all my mistakes. The higher you have the gain turned up, the more sensitive your tone is to anything you do wrong, as your mistakes become louder and clearer.
That’s exactly what I was after, and the way it taught me to play is the way I’ve been playing ever since without thinking about it so much.
Another way to practice performing under pressure is if you use the app “tonic.” It’s a social practice app where you can livestream your prctice to other musicians who can give you feedback from all over the world. Ray Chen created it
Oh, cool, that sounds terrific – thanks, Larina!
Really appreciated this synopsis. It elegantly captures and categorizes training I’ve been doing for a long time but didn’t have clear language to describe. Love the consequences from the netball study too!! Gonna use that in my coaching!
When I was in college, some (cough, cough) 50 years ago, I remember distinctly that my first bouts with stage fright occurred not when I was performing before an audience, and not even as much when I was doing juries, but for sure when I was playing in front of my peers. I figured at the time that is had to be some problem with my ego. I was first chair in all-city and all-state high school orchestras, and so I had the “reputation” to live up to. It seems pretty silly 50 years later, but my youthful ego seemed to not want to suffer an injury by not playing well in front of my peers. You know, we were all at this good music school for a reason, and so my adolescent mind was busy comparing myself to my peers. I expected that my teachers and professors would expect me to make mistakes, but I was terrified of the kids my age judging me. In retrospect, I think it was because I had built a “rep” through high school, and as I passed each level, I placed more pressure on myself to be better than I was the year before. So, for a few years there, I was really way, way too hard on myself and ended up placing unrealistic pressure on how I thought I should perform each time I played. Therefore, I would do better in juries than I would in playing something with the orchestra, both during the first reading and then during the concert. I remember being terrified to play something in front of my fellow orchestra members, but feeling confident playing the very same thing in front of an audience of mainly non-musicians, or an audience of faculty whom I knew were much better than I. When playing a concert, it wasn’t the audience that scared me to death; it was my fellow orchestra members. Psychology is interesting, isn’t it?