Practice and performance management strategies of emerging professional musicians in preparation for orchestra auditions

Orchestra auditions form a critical career challenge for many aspiring classical musicians. Hence, emerging professional musicians—defined as promising musicians entering the professional circuit without having yet established full-time employment—require effective practice and performance strategies to manage the demands of auditions. The purpose of this collective case study was to gain an in-depth and contextualized understanding of such practice and performance management strategies in relation to mock orchestra auditions. Data were collected using an intensive qualitative approach, combining semi-structured interviews with regular structured monitoring interviews, with eight musicians. Content analysis revealed that participants, on average, engaged in 33 hr of music-related activities per week, during which they adopted self-regulating strategies (i.e., strategic goal setting, structuring practice, monitoring practice, and reflecting on progress) to a varying degree. Furthermore, participants used different performance management strategies to cope with the pressure of auditions (i.e., practicing under pressure, imagery, relaxation, cognitive reframing, routines, attentional control, and substance use). Overall, the data suggest that the emerging musicians possessed several different practice and performance strategies but showed great variation in the use of such strategies and had a preference for long practice hours. Potential implications for music education organizations aiming to prepare students for auditions are discussed.

Mental toughness and performance strategies of martial artists in practice and competition

This study’s objective was to analyze the relationship between mental toughness and martial artists’ performance strategies. Two hundred athletes (male: 105, female: 95) with an age range of 18-36 years (mean:25.12, s=4.96) who competed at university to the national standard of martial arts participated in this study. Participants answered mental toughness questionnaires and performance strategies inventory. The Pearson correlation results showed a positive and significant relationship between mental toughness and automaticity, goal-setting, imagery, self-talk, and emotional control, and a negative and significant relationship between mental toughness and attentional control in practice. Furthermore, there is a positive and significant relationship between mental toughness and activation, relaxation, self-talk, imagery, goal-setting, and emotional control in the competition. The multiple linear regression analysis results showed that goal-setting and imagery in practice and competition, self-talk in practice, and relaxation in the competition could predict mental toughness. In analyzing the subscales of mental toughness, it was concluded that tough emotions could be loaded on eight subscales of performance strategies. In the Independent-Sample T-Test, the significant differences related to gender were that men reported higher levels of self-talk (t=3.24, p<0.001), automaticity (t=2.76, p<0.006), goal-setting (t=2.63, p<0.009), imagery (t=2.18, p<0.03) and relaxation (t=2.17, p<0.03) than women.

Keep it “real”: the co-construction of authentic performance and audience connection in poetry slam competitions

With the poetry slam competition – a live, competitive spoken word poetry reading – as context for this project, the study explores the concepts of authenticity and audience connection as they relate to message production and meaning-making processes in the field of professional communication. This project uses a symbolic interactionist perspective and Goffman’s (1959) theory of dramaturgy to investigate the poet-audience relationship and discover how a display of authentic performance works to achieve the goal of audience connection. The researcher interviewed six slam poets from the Greater Toronto and Southwestern Ontario area about their experiences in the poetry slam world. Results from the interviews reveal that authenticity is co-constructed between poet and audience, involving a coalescence of private preparation strategies and onstage performance strategies that help craft a sense of credibility and honesty from the poet that, in turn, contribute to achieving successful audience connection by the slam poet as performer.

Keep it “real”: the co-construction of authentic performance and audience connection in poetry slam competitions

With the poetry slam competition – a live, competitive spoken word poetry reading – as context for this project, the study explores the concepts of authenticity and audience connection as they relate to message production and meaning-making processes in the field of professional communication. This project uses a symbolic interactionist perspective and Goffman’s (1959) theory of dramaturgy to investigate the poet-audience relationship and discover how a display of authentic performance works to achieve the goal of audience connection. The researcher interviewed six slam poets from the Greater Toronto and Southwestern Ontario area about their experiences in the poetry slam world. Results from the interviews reveal that authenticity is co-constructed between poet and audience, involving a coalescence of private preparation strategies and onstage performance strategies that help craft a sense of credibility and honesty from the poet that, in turn, contribute to achieving successful audience connection by the slam poet as performer.