Música no palco: ansiedade de performance musical em estudantes de música em Belém do Pará

Abstract

Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) is recognized as an anxiety disorder classifiable as a variant of social phobia according to the DSM-IV (APA, 1994). It is characterized by physical, cognitive and behavioral manifestations linked to performance that can impact musicians of all ages and levels. Few studies have investigated MPA in Brazilian music students and none of them were carried out in Northern Brazil. The present study investigated the occurrence of MPA among students from the secondary level music schools Carlos Gomes State Institute (IECG) and Music School of the Federal University of Pará (EMUFPA), and from the tertiary level Bachelor in Music Course of the State of Pará University/Carlos Gomes Foundation, all situated in Belém. The data was collected using the K-MPAI scale properly validated to Portuguese, which is composed by 40 questions giving a maximum score of 240. Higher scores correspond to higher anxiety level. A total of 128 students, 89 males and 39 females, age 18-47 years, were included in the final sample. An additional survey investigated the most frequent manifestations associated with performance anxiety and other questions related to local opportunities for public performances for musicians. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS. The results showed that the minimum score in the K-MPAI was 26 and the maximum was 208. Females had significantly higher mean score (124.4±33.8) than males (98.5+32.3) and there were no differences in the K-MPAI mean scores when comparing different classes of instruments (woods, metals, strings, guitar, singing, piano and percussion) or age brackets (<20, 21-30, 31-40, >40 years). Comparison between students from the three different music courses showed that the mean KMPAI score of students from EMUFPA was lower than those from the IECG, indicating that the latter group might presents more anxiety problems. The cognitive manifestation most frequently cited (by 49.2% of the students) was “the concern of what people are thinking about me”. The large majority of students (96.1%) expressed the desire to give more public performances; they (86%) also think that this practice helps to decrease their anxiety. This is the first study about the theme carried out locally. The survey showed that many students from music schools in Belém suffer from considerable anxiety associated with music performance, and that females tend to be more anxious than males. The causes underlying their anxiety need to be investigated and the results provide initial data for the development of new teaching methodologies, to encourage the discussion about the problem and to stimulate the search for effective measures that could minimize the manifestations of anxiety in music students.