A few years ago I wondered about a link between childhood trauma and performance anxiety in musicians. I started doing some research and talking to other professional musicians about their experiences. Interestingly, the world of classical music has taken a lot of information from sports psychology and adapted it to training and performing. However, you can do all of the adversity training you want, but if something triggers you, before you know it you are in a trauma response.
A trauma response is different than “nerves.” People who are undergoing a trauma response while playing will say things like “Suddenly it’s like a switch flipped, and I could barely play”, or “I was totally out of my body”, or a seasoned performer may say “I’ve been playing and performing too long to still have these issues! What’s going on?”
Here are some questions I had and have been learning about:
When is anxiety “nerves”, and when is it a trauma response?
What is happening in the brain when I am in a trauma response?
How does the orchestra and music school culture contribute?
Can I heal past trauma?
These are questions that I have been researching over the last couple of years. When I was in music school in the late ‘80’s and ‘90’s, playing injuries were not talked about. If someone had tendonitis or carpal tunnel, they must be doing something wrong. People avoid talking about it. Fortunately, that topic has become normalized, and no one would be surprised to find musician health workshops offered at summer music programs and colleges. The area of trauma is currently where playing injuries used to be: no one is talking about the role of trauma in the musician and how it relates to performance anxiety.
Follow me on my journey as I dig into this topic. I’ll be honored to have you along.