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Music performance anxiety (MPA) affects many individuals regardless of age, gender, experience, and hours of practice. In order to better understand the epidemiology of MPA, a review of the literature was done. Sixteen articles, meeting EBM criteria, were identified and analyzed. Children rarely suffer from MPA, while adolescents show symptoms similar to adults. Females are generally more affected than males. There is no relation between professional experience and performance anxiety. Great musicians such as Pau Casals and Enrico Caruso suffered from MPA. Nevertheless, students affected by MPA may decide not to become professional musicians because of their inability to cope with the devastating effects of performance anxiety. Solo performances showed higher MPA scores than ensemble performances. Despite these conclusions, long-term cohort studies with larger, homogeneous groups of subjects would be desirable, according to the evidence-based medicine criteria. Med Probl Perform Art 2011; 26(2):102-105.
Music performance anxiety (MPA) is the experience of marked and persistent anxious apprehension related to musical performance that has arisen through specific anxiety- conditioning experiences and which is manifested through combinations of affective, cognitive, somatic, and behavioral symptoms. It affects musicians for their entire lives and is at least partially independent of years of training, practice, and level of musical accomplishment. It may or may not impair the quality of the musical performance.1
Very young children rarely experience performance anxiety; on the contrary, they usually love to perform. Therefore, a transition takes place between childhood and adolescence2 and adulthood for those suffering from MPA. This transition is due to a combination of factors: innate temperament, increasing cognitive capacity and self-reflective function, type of parenting and other interpersonal experiences, perception and interpretation of surroundings, technical skill and mastery, and specific performance experiences that may have positive or negative outcomes. Furthermore, it has been proved that the capacity for self-evaluation (self-criticism) emerges in middle to late adolescence.3
In order to better understand the epidemiology of MPA, a review of the literature was done. Studies were analyzed following the criteria for evidence-based medicine (EBM).22 EBM categorizes different types of clinical evidence and ranks them according to the strength of their freedom from the various biases that affect medical research. Systems to stratify evidence by quality have been developed. According to epidemiologic investigations, in...