Flow, being in the zone, peak experience â these are all words to describe the same thing, the same experience. This description by jazz pianist Kenny Werner sums up how it can feel for the performer:
Musicians performing
Performing involves a range of experiences from amazing, satisfying, and rewarding to anxiety provoking and scary, with relaxed, calm, unconcerned, even ordinary, run-of-the-mill, and boring experiences in-between. The performer has a lot to do. It is always a complex emotional, cognitive and physical phenomenon, from time to time it is automatic, and from time to time it is transcendent.
When we think of performing at our best in any domain, we donât usually relate it to out-of-body experiences, or transcendence, or overwhelming joy, or freedom, or euphoria, or altered states of consciousness.
But these are some of the words that are often used to describe flow, optimal experience, peak experience, peak performance, or being in the zone by athletes, musicians, and psychologists.
We know very little about what it takes for a musician to perform at their very best. There has been some research and dissemination of information on performance anxiety or âstage frightâ during music performance. But very little is known or written about the other extreme experience of performance â that of flow and peak performance. Musicians tend to talk only briefly about amazing experiences or awful experiences of performance. Actually musicians tend to not talk about their amazing experiences of performance in any detail. Likewise, they tend not to talk about their awful experiences in detail either. Perhaps musicians just donât like to talk much about performance and the details of performing or the details of preparing for performance.
So we havenât known, until now, about the great experiences of performance, how musicians describe their peak performances, what they feel like during peak experiences of performance and most importantly, we havenât known how they make those great experiences happen.
We havenât known the steps taken by musicians to perform at their best, how they practise, the strategies they use, the psychological thought management, the emotion management, the psyching up or calming down, the routines or rituals they carry out.
This book describes the optimal performance experiences of musicians, how they prepare for performance and the strategies they use to perform at their best.
It describes the extremes of performance â the great performance experiences and also the more harrowing performance experiences. It describes the intense emotions involved in music performance and how great performances are created. It shows how even great performances can occur when musicians use all their skills to turn negative emotions and negative thoughts into positive.
Perhaps one of the most enlightening things that is revealed by musicians in this book is that sometimes their best performances happened when they were most scared. Powerful, negative emotions can be harnessed to become powerful, positive experiences.
Great musicians have strategies that they use to prepare themselves emotionally, cognitively, and physically for performance. This book reveals what those strategies are. It combines those strategies with the knowledge that has been gained from psychologistsâ decades of work and research on how best to use performance strategies.
Flow
Flow is actually an altered state of consciousness;2 the kind of experience that people usually speak about with awe and amazement. It can be described as an effortless coming together of mind and body that occurs when the person is totally absorbed in an activity. When in flow, there is total ease, absolute self-confidence, a sense of control, total focus, loss of self-consciousness, and body and mind seem to work totally in synch. People who have experienced flow describe feeling almost in awe of what is happening, feeling like they can do anything, that they are totally in control and able to take risks in their performance; they describe performing at their best with ease and effortlessness, they describe an amazing experience that feels great and is quite different to their usual experiences of performance.
When optimal experiences such as flow happen during performance, they can be life changing. For some, flow is something they have been experiencing in some way, some of the time, since they began playing music. For others, it happens out of the blue, suddenly, intensely, and unexpectedly, just like Werner describes in the quote above.
Musiciansâ descriptions of their experiences of flow are fascinating. They describe an experience that made them feel empowered, invincible, free, absorbed, joyous, happy, satisfied, creative, inspired, free from self-consciousness.
You can see from these descriptions the extraordinary and unusual quality of the optimal experience of flow. Sounds amazing! Does it sound familiar? Possibly youâve had experiences like this yourself.
People experience flow in all areas of life and at all levels of skill.3 Flow varies in its level of intensity, depending on factors such as the person themselves, the situation, the challenge, the level of emotion involved. So flow might not always have the high intensity that those short descriptions convey â perhaps it is not always a âlife-changingâ experience â but it is always of a similar quality, it is always satisfying, motivating and empowering.
Peak experiences in music performance encompass all of the above descriptions and more. Musicians described feeling their body and mind working together effortlessly, being able to do and play exactly what and how they wanted, feeling totally absorbed, feeling free from worries, concerns, or awareness of any negativity, knowing exactly what they wanted to do, being able to respond easily and effectively to any new ideas or errors, or co-performers, not having full awareness of time, feeling highly challenged and even taking a risk(s), and feeling a sense of joy, fulfilment, achievement, satisfaction.
This is just what has been found in research in sport, music, writing, education, creative pursuits, work, computer use, and other areas.4
Nine dimensions of flow
There are nine aspects of experience that come together during flow and optimal experiences.5
1.The âchallengeâskill balanceâ â this is a balance between feeling challenged but knowing that you have the skill to take on that challenge.
2.Total focus and absorption â this is an easy focus that just happens when flow happens.
3.A merging of action and awareness â this is one of the most distinctive features of flow. The body and mind work together effortlessly, the body doing exactly what the mind wants. It is often described as that sense of being âat oneâ with the instrument, the violin, the trombone, the guitar, the throat, the bike, the racket, the car, whatever the object of conveyance is.
4.Clear goals â the player or singer knows exactly what they have to do and what they want to do.
5.Unambiguous feedback â the player/singer is feeling, seeing, hearing clearly, totally aware of what is happening in their body, mind, and music. With this clear feedback comes the ability to respond to new ideas they might have, to respond quickly and easily to errors or mistakes that they or others might make.
6.A sense of control â this is a kind of control that is not experienced at other times. There is a feeling of being able to do anything and that nothing can go wrong. This is often described as invincibility and even âunshatterable self-esteemâ.
7.Loss of self-consciousness â this is another highly distinctive aspect of flow that is rarely experienced at other times. The sense of self and concern for the self disappears. People describe feeling free from worries or from self-consciousness, and even describe a feeling of not caring about anything at all. This brings about a remarkable feeling of freedom, freedom from the ordinary worries of the day, freedom from nervousness, anxiety, doubt, or any negativity. This is not a loss of consciousness, or a loss of self; but rather a loss of the concept of self. It is an altered state of consciousness, one that is sometimes sought out through mind-altering drug use. The result of this loss of self-consciousness during flow is that the self is expanded, there is a feeling of transcendence and of the boundaries of the self having been pushed to their extreme.
8.Time transformation â this is where the concept of time seems to speed up or slow down. This is not always described by musicians, perhaps because time, tempo, rhythm are part of the essence of music. But musicians do often describe feeling some kind of alteration of time.
9.âAutotelic experienceâ â this feeling occurs when we do something purely for the enjoyment of it. There is a feeling of total satisfaction and fulfilment, happiness and joy, with no concern for extrinsic rewards such as praise, applause, winning, or financial reward.
When all these factors come together, flow happens! An amazing, rare, and illusive experience. When in flow, people perform at their peak, due to the sense of control, the loss of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness, the clear feedback, and total absorption.
Musicians describe having performed to the best of their ability during flow experiences. They even describe performing better than they ever knew they could or better than they had in rehearsals, bringing off difficult passages, sequences or creative inspirations in the moment, and to a level they hadnât previously achieved.
All this makes flow a highly motivating and maybe even addictive experience. Feeling great joy, achievement, and fulfilment is certainly not something anyone wants to go out of their way to avoid. Flow may be the reason we continue to do anything. During flow we get a glimpse of our âbest selvesâ, of freedom, of growth, of fulfilment, and satisfaction. We get to push ourselves to our boundaries, out of our comfort zone, and we get to experience a naturally induced altered state of self; it is highly fulfilling and empowering.
Many musicians have described experiencing flow during their practise sessions. It seems to come about in a different way, perhaps more through repetition and focus, than through the high level of challenge and emotion involved in performance. And so, musicians describe experiencing flow to varying levels of intensity and for varying lengths of time.
Flow is for everyone
The next chapter illustrates musiciansâ actual experiences of flow. Their descriptions are based on their most significant, intense, and memorable experiences of flow. This might give the impression that flow is out of the normal bounds of our everyday experience. But it is not. Flow is for everyone.
Flow can be experienced by anyone at any level of skill. It can be experienced during performance, yes, but it can also be experienced when we are on our own when practising,6 or in small groups, or large groups. It can be experienced when we are at work, when we are walking, when we are writing, thinking, cleaning, entertaining, playing computer games, interacting with children, interacting with others. As long as the prerequisites for flow are in place, flow can be achieved by anyone, doing anything.
The three main prerequisites, the musts, for flow to occur are â first, that you are doing something you love to do, something you enjoy. Second, that there is a challenge â whether that is performance-related, skill-related, time-related, or experience-related. And third, you must believe you have the skills to meet that challenge.7 Together the second and third prerequisites here are known as the âchallengeâskill balanceâ (Chapter 2 has more on this).
