Doktor X

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Movement for (Performance) Anxiety

Photo credit: Rachel McCarthy

Every morning, I start my day with some movement and breathwork. I have a routine that provides a sense of grounding and stability. I also use a little excerpt from the same routine backstage to centre and calm myself before I play for people. This is part of my “toolkit” – a concept I unpick in my online performance anxiety classes.

Why movement? Some of the symptoms of performance and generalised anxiety include diverted circulation of blood flow away from extremities, resulting in cold limbs. Doing a warm-up routine that includes gentle “shaking” and joint rotations encourages blood flow to those cold fingers. At the same time, movement takes us out of habitual and obsessive worrying, which is otherwise difficult to manage through “reasoning” with oneself – instead, we can access the mind through the body. For me, bringing attention to movement can be an effective way to do shift my energy levels and attention. Here is one possible set of movements to try as a warm-up routine or on a break, then eventually implement before performing:

Movement combined with the breath elicits the parasympathetic nervous system response (“Rest and Digest”) by massaging and stretching our vagus nerve, the communication highway between the body and the brain. It can also help to release physical and mental tension, detox us from stress hormones, tone and condition the muscles and the heart and keep our joints healthy. From traditional perspectives, movement keeps stagnant energy circulating (the “Chi” or “Prana”), which ultimately affects our health. Stimulating areas in the body believed to contain energy channels (nadis or meridians) helps with energy circulation. We can access these energetic qualities through approaches including acupuncture, Tai Chi, Qi Gong and Yin Yoga. Here are a few ideas for movement combined with the breath to calm down:

Or try this very short routine:

Yin Yoga is an approach which has been invaluable and extremely beneficial for my own anxiety levels, providing a calming “yin” counterpart to my hectic and busy “yang” life. In Yin Yoga, we remain in each pose for a while (3-5 minutes) within our natural range of motion, gently working deep layers of tissue in our bodies. I was fortunate to be able to attend intensive teacher trainings in Yin Yoga with Sarah Powers. My own regular Yin practice provides wonderful support for managing performance anxiety from a holistic perspective.

Other benefits of Yin include joint stability, organ health, better connection with our bodies, feelings and thoughts. Over time, this practice enables our joints to become more pliant within their natural ranges of motion. As a result, we can remain still longer, which improves stamina, focus and concentration for musical performance. Our fluidity of natural movement and coordination are enhanced. This introspective work also helps come to terms with uncomfortable or even disturbing feelings by allowing them to come and go without judgement – this way, we can use the practice to build resilience and condition ourselves to acknowledge challenging thoughts and sensations without fighting them, then move on with the task at hand: making music.

Nourish and Protect: Autumn Yin Yoga for Organ Health starts on Thursday 14 October. More information is here. You can also try an introductory yin yoga session below.

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Performance Anxiety and the Breath

photo by Rachel McCarthy

If you attended any of my online courses on performance anxiety or breathwork, you will know that I talk a lot about breathing. On a cognitive level, we are all aware of the importance of the breath – this is what keeps us alive! However, for many of us healthy breathing remains a complete mystery. We are often oblivious to the mechanisms built into our bodies that can be used for anxiety management.

The idea of breathing in performance did not come naturally to me as a pianist. In fact, I used to routinely hold my breath while playing without realising that this was happening (an affliction that many keyboard players suffer from). I became envious of singers and other “breath” musicians, who have such an intimate and obvious connection with their body and their instrument. However, all musicians must develop an understanding of breathing in music in order to make sense of phrasing and the shape of what we perform.

In terms of tackling performance anxiety, our breath can be a very powerful ally. Anxiety is part of what makes us alive and human – our hard-wired reaction to real or perceived threat. While physiological performance anxiety symptoms vary, there are several that many of us have in common. In addition to shaky limbs and churning bellies, our breathing can become rapid and shallow, uneven and laboured as we use more of the upper chest to gulp in air. This is part of the sympathetic response of our autonomic nervous system “speeding up” to get ready for action if we choose to fight or run away from a challenging situation (“Fight, Flight or Freeze”). Once we are out of danger, the parasympathetic nervous system can take over, assuming we are not in a chronic state of stress (“Rest and Digest”). Our breathing returns to a slower rate with deeper abdominal breaths.

Breath is intimately linked with stress. In fact, the advice to ‘take a deep breath’ is not always appropriate in challenging situations. Over-breathing can exacerbate the fight-or-flight reaction. We can also use our breathing to calm down and balance the two branches of our nervous system. The more energising inhale is associated with the sympathetic nervous system (speeding up the heart rate), while the calming and cooling exhale activates the parasympathetic response (slowing down the heart rate). Practicing yoga pranayama breathwork techniques such as equal wave breath can be very helpful as we inhale and exhale through the nose, encouraging calming abdominal breathing (breathing through the mouth can lead to chest breathing, associated with fight-or-flight).

Try this calming breathing technique before you play or sing on your own to bring you into the moment and connect with the body. Once you are comfortable with it, you can also use this exercise before you perform in front of others. Consider experimenting with equal wave when the heart rate is slightly elevated, such as on a gentle walk or during a mindful yoga practice. Learning to deliberately slow down the breath when we are tempted to speed up can help calm down some of the symptoms of performance anxiety.

If you would like to try something even more soothing, for example to wind down after a performance when getting ready for bed, elongating the exhale can be beneficial. This ancient yogic practice is called the humming breath. 

Other benefits of breathwork include reducing inflammation, increasing melatonin production (for sleep) and strengthening the lungs and our immune defence. Remember to be mindful and listen to the body when doing any breathing exercises, stopping if something doesn’t feel right. Please consult your healthcare professional if you have concerns or existing conditions that can be affected.

Catching Our Breath: Calm, Balance and Strength will run on three consecutive Thursday lunchtimes in October. More information here, other class details here.

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Performance Anxiety: Top Ten Resources

Photo by Cath DuPuy for Daylight Music

Searching for resources on performance anxiety can be overwhelming. Where do we start? For me, the most helpful resources are often unexpected finds that take a holistic approach and look at the wider context for stress and anxiety in our lives. Here are some suggestions that might work for you.

1. Benson, Herbert. The Relaxation Response

This is a classic text on eliciting the so-called “relaxation response”, or our parasympathetic nervous system to return the body to equilibrium following the “fight-or-flight” sympathetic response; well worth a read with some surprising suggestions and conclusions. Benson borrows heavily from traditional mantra-based meditation practices such as TM. You can explore more through this link for a UK-based charity that teaches this approach in an accessible way with means-tested course fees: https://www.meditationtrust.com/

2. Fehmi, Les. The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Body and Mind

Fehmi’s book is ground-breaking and entirely underexplored, featuring visualisation of spatial awareness and distance on different planes within the body to elicit alpha brain waves (and, you’ve guessed it, the “relaxation response”). His approach is remarkably effective and the book includes audio guidance. The only downside is you have to commit to practice regularly to reap results – but this is true of anything worthwhile! See below for an Alexander Technique exercise that incorporates Fehmi’s work.

3. Alexander, F.M. The Use of the Self

It is often said that in order to truly benefit from Alexander Technique, we have to work with a teacher and experience it with expert guidance. I agree, although reading about the Technique can also be illuminating and even bring about “penny-dropping” moments for reactivity, self-criticism habits and the resulting performance anxiety. This is a wonderful text from the creator of the Technique. If you would like a musician’s perspective, Pedro de Alcantara has a book and a whole page of resources here. For a more practical experience, please see this wonderful free resource by Penny O’Connor, Alexander Technique teacher extraordinaire (with private sessions available online via Zoom). Penny incorporates Fehmi’s spatial awareness exercises into a traditional Alexandrian semi-supine position with audio guidance here.

4. Pang, Alex S. K. The Distraction Addiction: Getting the Information You Need and the Communication You Want, Without Enraging Your Family, Annoying Your Colleagues, and Destroying Your Soul

Have you ever considered exploring the roles digital connectivity and devices play in general stress and anxiety levels as well as how our brains become wired to respond to stimuli and perceived threat? What about the impact on our concentration and creativity? We have the power to choose how we respond to constant demands and notifications and find ways to modulate our addictive adrenaline spikes every time we get a “like”. Alex S. K. Pang is one of my favourite authors. His now classic book literally changed my life and taught me to take back control. Along similar lines, Cal Newport is one of the leading authorities on digital detox with numerous resources available: https://www.calnewport.com/

5. Williams, Mark and Danny Penman. Mindfulness: a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world

We hear a lot about the benefits of mindfulness meditation on reducing anxiety. This is an easy and practical book that comes with audio guidance, also available for free online. If you would prefer something more hefty, Jon Kabat-Zinn’s “Full Catastrophe Living” is a standard text that is beautifully-written and illuminating (be warned, though: this is a VERY thick book). 

6. Brach, Tara. Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha

While the concept of mindfulness is fashionable, it is in fact of course but a Western adaptation of ancient teachings. Tara Brach is one of the most important teachers and authors bringing Buddhist ideas to a wider audience. This book is a great support, offering hope and guidance in befriending what befalls us.

7. Sapolsky, Robert M. Why Zebras don’t get Ulcers

If you like your facts, this is another hefty but enlightening and entertaining read, wonderfully written and laced with a dose of (dark) humour. Sapolsky explains the science behind the body’s stress response.

8. Farhi, Donna. The breathing book: good health and vitality through essential breath work

Breathwork is a very useful resource in working with generalised and situation-specific anxiety such as performance anxiety. There are many good texts available. This one is an oldie but a goodie – Donna Farhi is a yoga teacher and incorporates movement-based exercises and enquiries into her book. I would generally advocate strongly for establishing routines in your daily life that combine slow and mindful movement with calming breathing, such as Qi Gong or Hatha / Yin yoga.

9. The Bulletproof Musician

For a more musician-specific resource, Julliard performance coach Noa Kageyama offers fascinating insights and practical tips in his blog: https://bulletproofmusician.com/blog/

10. Beyond Stagefright courses

More resources for musicians: Charlotte Tomlinson offers online courses and shares illuminating video interviews with leading professional performers about their experience. There is also an online course available courtesy of pianist Luciane Cardassi here.

I hope these were helpful – feel free to reach out with feedback or suggestions. We will explore a number of approaches in my real-time 5-week online course on performance anxiety: more information here!

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Performance Anxiety and Self-Sabotage: Five Tips for Working with our Inner Critic

Image credit: Xenia Pestova Bennett by Nick Harrison

Performance anxiety is a universal experience, a survival mechanism that is hard-wired. Symptoms vary, but many of us get shaky limbs, blurry vision, dry mouth, shallow fast breathing, rapid heart rate, sweaty and cold hands. Personally, I get both sweaty palms AND cold fingers – the worst possible combination for a pianist! Even talking about these symptoms can make some of us experience them. This is our sympathetic nervous system kicking into action and responding to perceived as well as real danger (the so-called “fight-or-flight”). To make matters worse, many of us can exaggerate the sympathetic response and literally sabotage ourselves with negative thoughts before, during and after playing for others, spinning into uncontrollable worry-loops instead of activating the parasympathetic “rest-and-digest” response to return to equilibrium.

While resources to help musicians and other performers are increasingly available, it can still be difficult to find clear guidance on what to do before, during and after a performance, particularly if you are a non-professional without access to an educational institution or an established support network. Below is a selection of my personal favourites that might help.

1. Developing a toolkit of routines (before performing):

At times, our negative self-talk can be difficult to access and rationalise through simply thinking or analysing. This can be especially difficult when we are nervous, waiting to go on stage to perform. It can be helpful to bypass the worry-loops of the mind by approaching them through the body and doing something different, perhaps something physical that makes us move and also helps release tension and cultivate relaxation. What can we do? There is an enormous variety of approaches at our disposal, so it is important to compile a personal toolkit of helpful routines that you can do regularly BEFORE getting to a challenging situation. Choose something to implement every time you get ready to practise at home and be able to call on these tools before playing for others. Familiarising yourself with a series of possible interventions can help bring a sense of normalcy to an otherwise stressful situation. Simple movement-based sequences and stretches, particularly synchronised with breathing, are extremely helpful for calming the mind. While breathwork alone can also be very beneficial, the advice to simply “take a deep breath” can be inappropriate and misguided. Over-breathing and breathing into the chest are in fact associated with triggering our sympathetic nervous system. Instead, choose exercises that elongate the breath and lengthen the exhale while breathing through the nose to encourage abdominal rather than chest breathing and activate the parasympathetic response. Breathwork combined with slow movement can provide a gentle entry point (Qi Gong, Tai Chi, gentle Hatha yoga or Yin Yoga). 

Exercise: stand (or sit) with the weight equally distributed between the feet (or sitting bones). Shake all tension out from the shoulder down the arms and into the fingertips, shifting your weight side to side. Soften the elbows and cup your hands with the palms facing up. Bring them to about chest height as you inhale slowly, combining breath with movement. Turn the palms to face the floor and exhale down to your waist; repeat about ten times.

2. Cultivating non-reactivity (before, during and after performing):

I have several students who describe their performance in negative terms after they play in a lesson or workshop. Does that sound familiar? Some of us are programmed this way: conditioned from childhood to focus on what needs to be improved, yet forgetting to acknowledge what is already good. This is particularly detrimental during performance and can make us lose focus and make more mistakes. The first step is to notice and recognise our negative thoughts. We can learn a lot from introspective approaches to non-reactivity in mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness practices also have strong connections to the Alexander Technique principle “inhibit and direct”. We begin by learning to notice the impulse first, without trying to change it. Start by trying to simply notice every time you criticise yourself, then don’t criticise yourself for criticising! Just notice, take a pause. Sometimes, this pause is already enough to begin shifting the pattern and rewiring old neural networks.

Exercise: take a mental pause and notice the next time you have a tendency to criticise yourself. You have a choice to continue, or shift: decide.

3. Learning to shift our focus of attention (before and during the performance):

I’ve written about looking backwards to what went wrong and what we can fix when we practise. When we perform, we must look forwards to what is coming. This is the time to implement our non-reactivity. It doesn’t come naturally and it’s not enough to decide to do this. Like anything else, we have to practice. In practical terms, we can work to literally widen focus of awareness. Often, when we are experiencing fight-or-flight, we tense up and our field of vision can literally narrow down. Work to consciously expand this and notice your peripheral vision as well as whatever else is going on. This will help reading if you are playing off the score and improve your technical accuracy as you will learn to release more and more of the unnecessary tension. Try the “Four Foundations of Mindfulness”: what are the physical sensations (touching), thoughts (knowing), feelings (being), sounds in the space (listening)? Developing a formal meditation routine can be very helpful here (mindfulness meditation also allegedly shrinks the amygdala, the part of our brain associated with fear and anxiety).

Exercise: sitting comfortably, start with a mini-body scan, metaphorically melting your attention down from the top of the head through the face, torso, arms and legs and releasing any tension you are aware of. Notice the four foundations of mindfulness: “touching” (sensations), “knowing” (thoughts), “being” (feelings), “listening” (sounds). Remind yourself of your motivation for performing music – why do you do this? I do this short grounding exercise every time before I make any sound at the piano, whether by myself or in public.

4. Working with rewards (during and after the performance):

Negative expression to others has a tremendous impact on how we programme ourselves. Some of us are conditioned to be “modest”. Forget modesty. When people congratulate you, don’t make a sour face. This is very off-putting and can colour their impression of the performance retrospectively (I learned this after coming to congratulate a respected professor after a recital backstage. They created a terrible impression when they started listing everything that went wrong!). Who cares if you feel you messed up somewhere? Be sure to congratulate and reward yourself immediately and do something to relax to cultivate being able to enjoy the experience of performing. Resent research in neuroscience points to neuroplasticity. It is possible to literally rewire our brains through encouraging ourselves with small rewards. Instead of hoping for major dopamine hits by expecting total perfection from ourselves and exuberant praise and standing ovations from others when we perform, we can acknowledge and celebrate tiny achievements and the completion of little stepwise goals we set for ourselves with special treats. Take a moment right now to think of a positive reward mechanism that you can set up to pamper yourself!

Exercise: smile and say “thank you” the next time someone pays you a compliment!

5. Establishing safe spaces: exposure therapy

Exposure therapy can be helpful, but it is important to practice this in safe settings, building up slowly and being patient with yourself. It might take a series of performances of the same repertoire for you to start noticing results. What can you plan for yourself right now to perform in stress-free environments? Why not arrange several Zoom or Skype recitals? Choose one or two pieces and “tour” them, playing for multiple friends online. Practice your grounding routine, non-reactivity and shifting your focus and make sure to prepare a treat for afterwards. You will start seeing results after five or six performances, feeling more relaxed, able to perform more accurately and more expressively. This will help you build confidence and enjoy playing for others.

Exercise: arrange a series of Zoom or Skype recitals for yourself right now!

I hope you found these suggestions helpful. While they are simple, they are not necessarily “easy” and will take some practice before they begin to feel more natural. I would encourage you to commit to trying these for at least a month and really give them a go before deciding if they are for you or not. We will explore more approaches in greater detail in my online performance anxiety course starting this September: you can find more information here. As with any toolkit, the approaches that resonate with you might be very personal and different from what feels appropriate for me or someone else. I would be very happy to hear from you with any feedback or suggestions if you’d like to reach out!

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“Why don’t you just play the tunes I know and like?” On programming, criticism and internet trolls

In their fantastic podcast on responding to criticism, The Minimalists Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus compare internet trolls to seagulls who fly in, crap all over you, and fly out again without engaging in background research or consideration of the outcomes of their actions. While this is a comforting analogy, it can still be extremely disconcerting to receive unsolicited expressions of “disappointment” from audience members after a concert that we’ve put a lot of work into preparing, and poured our heart and soul into delivering.

Here are two comments which I received recently following two different recitals featuring a mix of classical and contemporary piano repertoire, on separate occasions. In both cases, the authors chose not to engage in face-to-face discussion, but instead felt compelled to share their displeasure in other ways.

Exhibit A, courtesy of one of the volunteer concert planning committee members who actually selected my programme for this concert:

Exhibit B, courtesy of an audience member after a free concert which also included free drinks for the audience:

Following the consumption of some beer and engagement in calm contemplation over these comments, I came to realise that the more I continue to challenge programming conventions, the more unsolicited commentary I am likely to receive. So, here is my reply:

Thank you for coming to hear me play. Please be assured that I care deeply about the music I choose to perform. Enormous amounts of work and struggle go into preparing each and every concert behind the scenes, which the audience are (hopefully and mercifully) not aware of.

I hope that hearing contemporary works alongside more “standard” (but by no means “simple”) repertoire gave you a different angle and a new appreciation of these older pieces, or perhaps opened your ears to new sounds. Either way, it’s great that this experience is sparking and encouraging debate for you (although it might be an idea to reconsider how you share these feelings!).

I firmly believe that it is our duty as performers and promoters to work hard to attract new audiences beyond the unfortunately often rather conservative classical music world. Part of this mandate should be to support and feature the music of our time, to which we all have an obligation. It is also healthy for our growth and development to break out of niche programming, and embrace music of different periods and styles.

Obviously, I do not believe that it is necessary to have some sort of specialist training in order to appreciate and engage with music on at least some level – otherwise, I would not bother going out of my way to put on recitals: I would just perform at academic conferences. In my opinion, all you need is probably at least one functioning ear (or maybe not even that, you can feel vibrations through other parts of your body). It is definitely true that at times, a new work may use unfamiliar language and require repeated listening to be understood or appreciated – but you can think of it as looking at a piece of art from different angles. In fact, reluctance to embrace new music was always the case, as demonstrated by Slonimsky’s famous collected critiques of works by celebrated composers of the past by their contemporaries in the amusing “Lexicon of Musical Invective”. I recommend that you try to find a copy and check it out.

Lastly, artistic experiences are not supposed to always be “comfortable”. As a performing musician, my mission is to present repertoire that may not appear to be immediately cozy and fluffy, and a lot of the time, it is not supposed to be. It’s OK to feel uncomfortable. The experience should encourage engagement and dialogue, open conversations and ask questions. What are the contrasts and connections we can find between the music of the present and the past? How can we learn to be open to something that is new, different, challenging? How can we understand and embrace otherness?

These questions are more important than ever in today's society, and we have so much to learn through sharing music that may not otherwise be given a voice to speak. Playing with and challenging concepts and assumptions enable us to engage with something universal that makes us fundamentally human.

I would like to thank my composer husband Ed Bennett for support and inspiration on writing this post.

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Dr. X at Chateau Laurier - image by Veronika von Volkova

I think we are long overdue for a portrait of my incredible friend, Dr. X, so here she is being gorgeous at Chateau Laurier.

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CALL FOR PROPOSALS: toy piano composition workshop and concert with Xenia Pestova

During this workshop we will examine the toy piano as a fully-fledged concert instrument, learning about the instrument’s place in history, mechanics of the action, tone production possibilities and existing repertoire. You will have the opportunity to experiment with the instrument, try out ideas and get feedback on sketches. Participants will then develop short pieces for toy piano (5 minutes, with or without electronics), which will be premiered by Xenia Pestova as part of the “Non-Piano” project at IKLECTIK Art Lab in London. This concert will feature different keyboard instruments with the new toy piano pieces performed alongside music by Ed Bennett, Helga Arias Parra, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay and others.

Dates: 

Workshop – Saturday 4 February 2017, 2-5pm

Concert – Saturday 18 March 2017, 8pm (Rehearsals from 4pm)

Venue: 

IKLECTIK Art Lab, 20 Carlisle Lane, London SE1 7LG

(Tube: Waterloo Station / Elephant and Castle)

http://iklectikartlab.com

Fee: 

£15 (to offset venue hire costs)

About Xenia: 

Pianist Xenia Pestova’s performances and recordings have earned her a reputation as a leading interpreter of uncompromising repertoire of her generation. Xenia’s commitment and dedication to promoting music by living composers led her to commission dozens of new works and collaborate with major innovators in contemporary music. Her widely acclaimed recordings of core piano duo works of the Twentieth Century by John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen are available on four CDs for Naxos Records. Her evocative solo debut of premiere recordings for piano and toy piano with electronics on the Innova label titled “Shadow Piano” was described as a “terrific album of dark, probing music” by the Chicago Reader. She is the Director of Performance at the University of Nottingham. www.xeniapestova.com

Apply: 

Please send links to recordings of two of your existing pieces (any instrumentation) to admin[at]xeniapestova.com by January 6, 2017. Due to the limited number of places available we may need to restrict numbers. Participants will be announced in mid-January 2017.

Testimonials:

“An absolutely invaluable experience in understanding the toy piano in its many variations and how to compose for it. It's so easy to mistake the toy piano for just a smaller piano because you rarely get to see and experience one - this workshop really opened my eyes to the best ways to approach idiomatically composing for one.”

-       Yfat Soul Zisso, previous workshop participant

“The toy piano workshops led by Xenia Pestova were insightful and intriguing, I not only learnt how to write for Toy Piano, but also learnt how diverse the Toy Piano as an instrument is, despite the limitation in pitches.”

-       Patrick Ellis, previous workshop participant

“If you had begun to compose for the toy piano without sitting down to play one, then you have erred. If you had intended to use the toy piano as a diminutive version of a normal piano, then you've sold your music short. It would be far safer to assume that this instrument is unlike any other you are familiar with. As such, it requires the time to get to know its quirks and nuances, to establish what really interests you about it, and to embrace what might at first seem like extraneous, unwanted sounds as an integral part of its character. Herein lies the real voice of a quite unusual and individual instrument.”

-       Lee Westwood, individual session participant

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Into the Sea...

My last solo programme involved scraping and hitting inside the piano with credit cards, mallets and a metal percussion triangle while wearing a lab coat.

Bashing the piano in “Astraglossa” by Helga Arias Parra, photo by Ed Bennett

Like a prodigal daughter, I now turn homewards towards the more traditional setting of playing on the keyboard. Well, mostly - and no better place to do this than at the beautiful Curtis auditorium of the all-Steinway Cork School of Music in Ireland.

My next project, “Into the Sea of Waking Dreams”, is devised for the Cork Orchestral Society, and places salient piano works of the early and mid- Twentieth century next to contemporary Irish compositions.

I look forward to the ravishing resonances of Debussy (“Reflets dans l’eau” from book 1 of “Images”) and Ravel (“Une barque sur l’Ocean” from “Miroirs”), and nostalgic bell-like calls of Messiaen’s blue rock thrush darting over the waves (“Le Merle bleu”, one of my favourite movements from the “Catalogue d’oiseaux”). Berio’s evocative and understated “Wasserklavier” (“Six encores”) gently glides along in half-remembered fragments, and the Irish premiere of “Into the Sea of Waking Dreams” by Ailís Ní Ríain has the pianist speak dark and mysterious texts while playing this stunning piece.

In the second half, I will revisit the wonderful PRS commission of “Out of Nowhere” by Ed Bennett. Loosely “channelling” a beautiful traditional air allegedly first heard coming from the sea off the Blasket Islands, this epic work for piano and electronics frames a delicate study in extended techniques in the middle with two rhythmically-relentless outer movements.

Performing “Out of Nowhere” with Ed, photo Bangor New Music Festival

Into the Sea of Waking Dreams, Cork School of Music, 8 pm, 15 September 2016.

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An updated “quick and dirty survey of man/woman ratios in UK academic music departments”

Below is an updated version of a survey I first carried out back in 2013. I removed one or two mixed arts departments for the sake of simplicity, and introduced a few others that I left out last time. This is not a comprehensive listing, and I invite interested parties to undertake more thorough research.

Given that universities often helpfully list academic staff in decreasing hierarchical order of importance on their websites rather than alphabetically (thus also sending out an interesting message about who is the “most important”), doing this quick count-up allows us to easily summarise the level of seniority as well. Out of 31 institutions surveyed, a whopping 100 professors listed are male, and only 19 are female. 

It is interesting to compare this survey to the 2013 numbers. It might be worth considering whether departments with female leadership are more likely to hire female colleagues, while predominantly-male departments can (presumably, unconsciously) “lose” a number of female colleagues and replace them with male colleagues. The numbers speak for themselves.

Looking at these figures, we can conclude that women in UK academic music departments are by far a minority, and at the moment do not appear to stand very high chances of progression to a very senior level. We have to ask whether any specific studies are being carried out to investigate this complex issue further. It would be interesting to compare this to the ratios in other disciplines. For example, given that student evaluations impact the likelihood of promotion, could it be that these are prone to strong unconscious bias from both female and male students in the UK as well as in France and the USA, as recent studies such as these clearly show?

Institutions should now be taking very concrete steps to determine why this is happening, and to ensure that the balance is redressed urgently.

Aberdeen: 8 men 2 women (3 professors, all male)

Bangor: 11 men 3 women (2 professors, both male, NB 1 reader female)

Birmingham: 13 men 4 women (2 professors, both male)

Bristol: 12 men 6 women (2 professors, 1 male, 1 female)

Brunel: 8 men 2 women (2 professors, both male)

Cambridge: 14 men 4 women (7 professors, 5 male, 2 female)

Cardiff: 17 men 7 women (3 professors, all male)

City: 7 men 1 woman (1 professor, male)

De Montfort: 10 men 0 women (3 professors, all male)

Durham: 13 men 2 women (6 professors, all male)

Edinburgh: 23 men 7 women (3 professors, all male)

Falmouth: 7 men 3 women

Glasgow: 10 men 3 women (3 professors, all male)

Goldsmiths: 20 men 8 women (4 professors, all male)

Huddersfield: 16 men 7 women (9 professors, 7 male, 2 female)

Hull: 13 men 3 women (2 professors, both male)

Keele: 10 men 2 women (5 professors, 4 male, 1 female)

King’s College London: 10 men 8 women (8 professors, 5 male, 3 female)

Leeds: 25 men 9 women (5 professors, all male)

Liverpool: 14 men 3 women (2 professors, 1 male, 1 female)

Liverpool Hope: 9 men 3 women (3 professors, all male)

Manchester: 11 men 5 women (7 professors, 6 male, 1 female)

Newcastle: 15 men 6 women (3 professors, all male)

Nottingham: 9 men 4 women (2 professors, both male, NB 1 associate professor female)

Oxford: 15 men 5 women (10 professors, 7 male, 3 female)

Queen’s Belfast Sonic Arts Research Centre: 10 men 2 women (3 professors, all male)

Sheffield: 10 men 9 women (3 professors, 2 female, 1 male)

Southampton: 17 men 11 women (8 professors, 6 male, 2 female)

Sussex: 7 men 2 women (4 professors, 3 male, 1 female)

Wolverhampton: 8 men 6 women

York: 17 men 3 women (4 professors, all male)

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The Lesser-Spotted Female Composers

Photo of composer and performer Lauren Sarah Hayes

I’m currently working on a programme of UK-based composers who, well, happen to be women. I’ve had a few mixed reactions to this: some enthusiastic, others less so. I personally think that the September event organised by Centre Stage Leeds is a great initiative. However, I also believe that in an ideal world, we should be able to have men and women represented in every concert that features a variety of composers rather than reserve women for special occasions.

Obviously, I would be lying if I said that I always did this: in fact, it was only relatively recently that I even started thinking about making sure that women composers are featured in my concerts. Not surprising, though, and certainly not unusual: all through my studies it was always just “normal” to play music by lads. I don’t think we ever really questioned the fact that all the Baroque, Classical and Romantic composers we knew just happened to be guys (OK, we knew about Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn, and I learned about Sofia Gubaidulina and Galina Ustvolskaya from one of my more “radical” teachers, but these ladies floated somewhere on the periphery). It was only when I started university in New Zealand with the much-feared and respected Judith Clark, who forced all her students to play contemporary music and music by New Zealand composers (including, for example, Jenny McLeod), that I became aware of other successful women composers. However, never during my career as a budding pianist did I have to include works by women in my programmes: not as part of repertoire in several universities and conservatoires in Europe and North America where I studied subsequently, nor in any piano competitions.

Having said this, the recent initiative to push for female representation on the UK school A-level syllabus still comes as a surprising revelation – surprising because not even one composer is featured out of 63, not even the “big girls” Clara, Fanny, Hildegard, Sofia, Galina... Never mind successful UK-based living composers such as Charlotte Bray, Elena Firsova, Helen Grime, Emily Hall, Joanne Lee, Anna Meredith, Dobrinka Tabakova, Errollyn Wallen, Judith Weir and more (this list is by no means extensive and totally random - plus see below). This is certainly only a part of a more complicated issue, which becomes apparent as soon as we start to scratch around. Anecdotal evidence suggests that conservatoire composition students in the UK are predominantly male (and so are their lecturers: interesting). You may also remember my more general survey on the percentage of women academics in UK university music departments that shows much lower representation in music across the board (and I would warmly encourage anyone interested to make an updated version): these issues of gender and equality (or rather, lack thereof) in music in higher education are investigated further in the excellent and disheartening report from NAMHE, which is a must-read.

In the mean time, what can we do as performers, educators and concert organisers? For starters, let’s explore more music by women composers together. If you are interested, here is my selection of a few UK-based composers (some established, others emerging) and their works, which I will be representing in my next concert. Perhaps you’d like to include some of them in your teaching, research, performance and programming. I hope you enjoy their music. Oh, and come to the gig.

Patricia Alessandrini: Étude d’après Scarlatti

OK, I lie: I can’t play this piece because the venue doesn’t have a grand piano, and it’s all about extended techniques inside the instrument, but I would have loved to. Patricia is an international jet-setter, to be seen in London and Paris, and basically constantly travels all over the world with exciting projects. She often works with technology, too. This is a gorgeous and delicate gem of a piece referencing Scarlatti’s Sonata K10, and goes wonderfully paired with it: Scarlatti through the prism of Alessandrini.

Lauren Sarah Hayes: Patience (for toy piano and Korg littleBits)

Lauren is super interesting. She is a composer, improvisor and educator, and is extremely tech-savvy performing gritty and exciting solo sets. I really love her works for piano and hybrid electronics. We play together in fluxtrio with Franziska Schroeder and I find it really inspiring working with her. In this piece, I make weird and wonderful electronic noises with what looks like a LEGO set.

Daria Kwiatkowska: Spin from Kaleidoscope and *** (after Brin) for piano

Daria is a very interesting composer, originally from Poland, now based in Birmingham. Her works are quirky, colourful and pianistic, and I really enjoy playing them. She will be writing a piano concerto for me soon, which I’m really excited about.

Deirdre McKay: The Moon for piano solo

Deirdre is a Northern-Irish composer. I’ve only played two of her pieces so far, but really enjoy them. Her writing for piano is very atmospheric and creates beautiful resonances, and I’m looking forward to exploring more of her music.

Katharine Norman: Fuga interna (begin) for piano and fixed media

I love this piece by Katharine: I’ve performed it countless times and recorded it (I am finally working on some of her other piano pieces, too!). The text is about her mother teaching her to play the piano and later becoming ill. It was written at a time when my mother was dying, so has special emotional significance for me.

Steph Power: Fool’s Gold for toy piano

You might be familiar with Steph’s work as the respected music journalist as well as a composer: she writes highly intelligent and insightful articles and reviews for fancy publications such as the Wales Arts Review and Tempo. I’m really happy to finally play her music.

Lauren Redhead: boxmusic for toy piano (premiere)

Lauren is a composer, performer, educator, academic researcher, blogger - she does so many different things and is a very familiar presence on Twitter. She is very active organising events and conferences and starting discussions. This is a short and clever little piece, and I’m delighted she wrote it especially for my concert.

Arlene Sierra: Birds and Insects, book 1 and book 2, selections (including premiere of “Painted Bunting”) for piano

Arlene has been very supportive of my work for years - and has advised me and mentored me when I was applying for my first UK academic post. Her “birdsong” writing is wonderfully inventive and treats the piano in an elegant way. I performed another birdsong work of hers last year and recorded it with Sarah Nicolls and Kathleen Supove: you can listen to Urban Birds here.

Angela Slater: We’re All Mad Here for toy piano (premiere)

Angela is a PhD candidate at the University of Nottingham, where I currently teach. I was immediately interested in her insightful and eloquent way of talking about music. She wrote this piece at my request, and I am really looking forward to playing it. The title is a reference to Lewis Caroll.

Yfat Soul Zisso: Recollection for toy piano (premiere)

Soul is a performer as well as a composer, and can be seen enthusiastically and tirelessly attending every contemporary music concert within a something like 130-mile radius of Birmingham. I got to know Soul during my research leave in Birmingham last year, where she was a student at the Conservatoire. This cute yet creepy little piece is also brand new, and explores a childhood recollection that goes wrong.

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Some Thoughts on the Toy Piano

(Image credit: Xenia Pestova by Nick Hyatt)

The toy piano is fast becoming a concert instrument in its own right, with its own (growing) body of repertoire that has moved well beyond Cage’s “Suite” or “Music for Amplified Toy Pianos”, as well as some dedicated performers. This funny-looking little instrument can provide a respite from the big piano, break the ice with the audience and allow pianists to perform in locations that would otherwise be inaccessible.

The pianos I use tend to be the full range Schoenhut models, three octaves, 37 keys. The lowest note is F below middle C. Depending on the texture of the piece, it might be more convenient to notate one octave lower, so that you can use the bass clef. Toy pianos can be played while kneeling on a cushion (painful after a while and hard on the knees!), sitting down on the tiny little bench that comes with the instrument (hard on the back), or by dismantling the legs and placing them on a small table, which allows for the use of a regular piano bench (and potentially easy access to trigger pedals if using electronics).

The important thing to remember is that the toy piano is NOT just a “small piano” – the sound and action are completely different. Instead of strings, plastic hammers strike metal rods, making that characteristic percussive sound with no control of the resulting resonance through the plywood body as there are no dampers. The tones simply resonate for a few seconds, depending how hard the rods are struck. The tuning is unstable, varying greatly from instrument to instrument, and very rich in all sorts of strange partials and at times even unpredictable false bass “sub-harmonics” when the frame vibrates. Nobody really bothers tuning toy pianos after the sale as that involves filing or soldering metal (although you can request replacement rods from Schoenhut if yours happen to be really out).

From the performance perspective, the action is very different as well, and can be difficult to work with. Not only are the keys smaller (and plastic!), which means different fingerings and hand distribution from the “grown-up” piano, but there are also very limited repetition possibilities and a narrow dynamic range. It is worth keeping in mind that the width of the keys on the Schoenhut models is almost the same as on a regular piano, despite being shorter, which means that the comfortable range remains the same. The keys might respond unevenly and are clunky, producing loud clicks (which can be used in a piece!). All of this is part of the charm of the instrument.

You may be able to access the rods with some models. These can be plucked or struck with percussive objects, but you should experiment to see how easy or difficult it might be before writing it in. Preparing toy pianos is generally not very easy, and I would not advise trying unless you have ample research time with a specific instrument you plan to use (see Essl below).

Grand piano models tend to be easier to play in comparison to the spinets due to gravity, which helps by letting the hammers fall down quicker after playing the keys, and increasing the rate of repetition. Some of the upright spinets can also have an unintentional but charming “bebung” effect when the hammers bounce back on the rods, producing a buzz, although this is impossible to control or predict, and varies from model to model.

If you are interested in exploring repertoire, you may want to start with well-documented composer websites. Check out the works of Karlheinz Essl (Kalimba – placing small speakers inside the instrument, Sequitur V – with live electronics, Miles to Go – using very small prepared toy pianos in a group context). My CD “Shadow Piano” features two pieces for toy piano and electronics: Derek Hurst’s “An Wem: Notes from Underground” (audio) and Lou Bunk’s “being and becoming” (video), with more recordings and links to scores available here. Other performers to discover include: Phyllis Chen, Isabel Ettenauer, Margaret Leng Tan and Pascal Meyer, and you will find lots of interesting repertoire commissioned by them. Happy exploring!

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The title of this post is also the title of the keynote talk given by Richard Barrett which opened the Notation in Contemporary Music symposium at Goldsmiths this weekend. The general consensus of this very large and well-attended conference was that the discussion, debate and presentations…

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Here's full text (free access) of my opinion post on the proliferation unpaid performances for I Care if You Listen magazine.

[laurenredhead]

I’ve decided to write this post after a few recent experiences where either I’ve been given cause to speak about or reflect upon collaborative work. As opposed to doing work on collaboration, an area in which many people are doing extremely interesting things in music, I’ve only been involved in…

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Quick and dirty survey of man/woman ratios in UK academic music departments

Please note: there’s now an updated version here.

Here's a random sampling of UK university music departments as of 10 August 2013, according to the institution websites (presumably including full- and part-time staff), not including administrative staff (overwhelmingly female). For obvious reasons, I did not count hourly-paid support staff such as instrumental tutors. I did not mention conservatoires, nor did I include universities which do not clearly specify staff specialisms on their websites (for example, in mixed arts departments). Note: some of these ratios are already incorrect due to new hires which haven't been officially announced, but I'm going with the published figures. Enjoy!

Aberdeen: 11 men 2 women

Anglia Ruskin: 6 men 6 women (although women dominate in music therapy, and I presume this would be a "traditional" role according to Pierre Bourdieu - anyone who hasn't read "Masculine Domination" yet must do so immediately)

Bangor: 14 men 5 women

Bath Spa: 20 men 4 women

Birmingham: 10 men 3 women

Bristol: 7 men 3 women

Brunel: 7 men 2 women

Cardiff: 11 men 6 women

City: 9 men 2 women

Canterbury Christ Church: 10 men 5 women

De Montfort: 7 men 0 women (well done, guys!)

Durham: 13 men 1 woman

Edinburgh: 15 men 6 women

Falmouth: 7 men 1 woman

Goldsmiths: 16 men 3 women

Hull: 13 men 4 women

Keele: 15 men 3 women

King's College London: 11 men 6 women

Leeds: 20 men 2 women

Liverpool Hope: 10 men 4 women

Manchester: 11 men 4 women

Nottingham: 11 men 6 women

Queen's Belfast: 15 men 6 women

Sheffield: 10 men 9 women

Southampton: 28 men 12 women

Sussex: 5 men 2 women

York: 15 men 3 women

Questions? Comments? For example: where do all the girls go - do they get jobs in other fields, or lower qualified school / private teaching jobs, or don't get jobs at all, or move abroad, or..? The overwhelming majority of postgraduate music students in the department where I teach are female, so this is interesting. Another consideration:

how does the obviously overwhelmingly-male makeup of hiring committees affect the perpetuation of the ratio

? Are there subconscious considerations, peer pressure considerations, or as Bourdieu would say, subtle symbolic violence?