Upbeat Spring 2013 - Royal College of Music

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12 Simulating and stimulating performance Performing at one’s best in public can be difficult for any musician. Head of Performance Science Professor Aaron Williamon tells Upbeat about the RCM’s new performance simulator, which aims to help students hone their performance skills… How did the idea of the performance simulator come about? Compared with other conservatoires and universities, RCM students have perhaps the highest number of opportunities to perform in front of a live audience – but you can never have enough! So, we wanted to develop a facility that could give students the chance to develop and refine their public performance skills, allowing them to review and reflect on their performances and to make successful transitions from the practice room to the stage. In parallel with this, our research indicates that performance anxiety is a persistent problem for many musicians worldwide. With this in mind, we were aiming to provide a learning environment in which the risks of reallife performance could be recreated, although controlled, and thereby help musicians address and manage anxiety problems. How does the performance simulator work? Students are booked to perform at a specified time. When they arrive, they are shown into a warm-up room where they can unpack and start their preperformance routine, whatever that may be. Our backstage manager gives them warnings before they’re due to go on stage: “You’re on in 15 minutes… 5 minutes… Please come with me.” Then, they walk to the ‘backstage area’, which looks much like the backstage of any concert venue: it’s small and a little shabby. There, we have CCTV footage showing the audience finding their seats, and they can hear the usual low murmur of the audience talking. The backstage manager confirms that the front of house is ready to start the performance: the audience is seated and the spotlights are on. The stage door opens, the applause starts and the student walks out onto the stage. Under the spotlights and with the audience clapping, the performer takes a bow, gets ready to begin and then starts the performance. The RCM performance simulator Our audience is made up of individual footage of real people, compiled into one large image and projected into the space. The musician sees them through the glare of the spotlights and can hear their applause, their coughs and sneezes, and even their mobile phones loudly and clearly. We control the audience from backstage, such as how often they cough and how enthusiastically they applaud (or boo). The purpose of the simulation session – be it to enhance presentational skills, work on anxiety problems or address specific research questions – determines how the audience interacts with the performer. Video cameras capture the performance as it happens from several angles, and these videos can be taken away by the student for study and review. We also have the option of simulating an audition situation, in which case we project a panel of three ‘expert’ judges. They too can be controlled from backstage to respond to the performance with, for instance, enthusiasm, indifference or hostility. We’ve posted a short video of how the performance simulator works at www.rcm.ac.uk/simulator How do these sorts of experiences help students improve their performance? Exposure to performance situations and reviewing one’s skills is one way we can help musicians enhance their performance and feel more confident on stage. Some musicians have anxiety problems even after many years of performing, and what we can do in this context is expose them systematically to situations with varying degrees of risk and challenge. The video footage is essential too, as it allows them to judge for themselves whether they are communicating and projecting the image they would wish to. How do you measure musicians’ responses to performance situations? We measure physiological responses in performance with a new wireless device called a BioHarness. It captures heart rate, breathing rate, skin temperature and movement data. We also have standardised questionnaires for measuring factors such as performance anxiety, self-confidence and performance quality. We’ve observed that musicians’ physiological and psychological responses to performance situations don’t always correlate. Some people experience elevated heart rate yet interpret this a positive sign that they are ready to perform (as distinct from being ready to practise). Other people may have the same heart rate response and experience debilitating anxiety symptoms. This is why it’s important to understand both general and individualspecific responses to performance situations and then apply learning and performance enhancement interventions that are best suited to the individual musician. We see the performance simulator as central to our ongoing work in this area.
Surigical simulator at Imperial College Has simulation been used in other fields? Yes, the most widely known example is flight simulation, but in fact, simulators are currently used to train surgeons and athletes. We developed our simulator in collaboration with London-based design consultancy Studiohead, who worked with Imperial College to create several surgical simulators, and with the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano. To our knowledge, this is the only facility of its kind worldwide. How does your research link with the current surgical simulation work at Imperial College? Well surprisingly, there are a number of similarities between musical and surgical performance. One example is to look at how teams of people come together: with a surgical team, it’s often only the smallest of gestures or glances that indicate to a colleague to pass a scalpel or to help execute a procedure. Likewise in ensemble performance, musicians too make subtle movements to communicate visually with each other and with their audience. Also, both groups can learn a lot from simulation, and unfortunately, neither gets to be ‘in the spotlight’ as often as they and their instructors might like. A trainee surgeon won’t be let loose on real patients often until very advanced stages of training. Sewing up a wound on a prosthetic sitting on a table is relatively straightforward, but if you place that same prosthetic on the arm of an actor, dress it well with fake blood and tell the actor to squirm (or to complain or swear) while the trainee is sewing up the wound, you’ll see performance levels drop dramatically. They have to learn to deal with real world situations and to develop good interpersonal skills. Similarly, as I mentioned before, it can be difficult for student musicians to have regular access to famous venues and real audiences. Musicians too need to respond to performance problems as they arise and to hone their interpersonal skills. By simulating performance conditions, we can give surgeons and musicians valuable, real-world training. How do you hope the simulator will develop in the future? We’re currently considering several additional environments and types of audiences to simulate. Educationally, we’re now developing curriculum-based opportunities for students to improve audition techniques, and soon we hope to make the simulator available for oneto-one lessons and chamber coaching. The simulator is already being used on our MSc in Performance Science, and we have plans to offer it more widely as part of the RCM’s undergraduate and postgraduate curricula. If any students are interested in using the simulator now, it’s best for them to contact me directly, and I’ll see how we can help. In January Professor Aaron Williamon was featured on the popular BBC Radio 3 series Between the Ears to talk about his research. Three RCM students also took part, relaying their experiences of using the performance simulator. Here are a few extracts from what they had to say. To listen to their interviews visit www.rcm.ac.uk/scalpelandbow “The simulation is such a good tool – to go in there and put yourself in the position of running through the piece, really perform it and see what all the hours of rehearsal and practice have come to” – Postgraduate cellist Jane Lindsay “During the simulation it felt much like a real performance. I felt I got into the zone quickly and that I was really performing on stage, not just playing in a practice room” – Undergraduate cellist George Ross “I felt nervous and uncomfortable going into the simulation… as I went in I was worried I’d mess up the performance. It was good to practice in the simulation environment as a preparation for a performance in front of real people. In general I tried to ignore the audience, but there was a lot of coughing which was a bit distracting”– Junior Department cellist Linden Ralph Any other projects in the pipeline? Much of our research at present focuses on musicians’ health and wellbeing, examining ways of improving and promoting health and preventing performance-related injuries. This an area in which we’ve worked for several years, and it is now producing some very tangible outcomes. More generally, we have a large (and growing) cohort of PhD and MSc students who are working on fascinating projects that span the field of performance science. Find out more about the Performance Simulator and the work of the RCM Centre for Performance Science at www.rcm.ac.uk/cps 13
Page 1: The Magazine for the Royal College
Page 4 and 5: 4 In the news... Soirée d’Or 201
Page 6 and 7: 6 In the news... Welcoming Professo
Page 8 and 9: 8 In the news... Kids take over the
Page 10 and 11: 10 Farewell to Peter After 22 years
Page 14 and 15: 14 Meeting the supporters... David
Page 16 and 17: 16 Student notes Composition congra
Page 18 and 19: 18 Staff notes Guitar professor Car
Page 20 and 21: 20 Alumni notes Anna Rice Composer
Page 22: 22 Obituaries Sir Philip Ledger FRC

Upbeat Spring 2013 - Royal College of Music

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