Performance vocal e ansiedade em cantores populares profissionais: um olhar fonoaudiológico

Abstract

Introduction: Anxiety is often present in the lives of many people who perform to public. In the case of singers there is the complexity of the stage and the audience. Professional singers often experience many varied feelings at the time of performance. How will the relationship between vocal performance and anxiety be experienced by popular professional singers? Objective: to investigate the relationship between performance and anxiety in popular professional singers. Method: the sample consisted of 91 professional singers, with more than three years of professional activity. Three online instruments were applied through the Google Forms platform: one to characterize the sample, another to investigate the situation of having had an unsatisfactory performance and the reason for the dissatisfaction, in addition to a list of possible sensations that appeared during the mentioned situation. Each singer selected at least one and at most three signs or symptoms that best represented the cause of the dissatisfaction at the performance. The following terms were presented: tremor, shortness of breath, dry mouth, heat, sweat, cold, dizziness, stomachache, headache, tightness in the chest, vomiting, tachycardia, fear, shame, desire to run away, insecurity , feeling of incompetence, feeling of being inadequate or none of the options; and the third instrument, which investigated the level of musical performance anxiety through an anxiety assessment questionnaire translated and validated into Portuguese, the Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory. From the responses to dissatisfaction with performance, six thematic axes were created: emotional or psychic aspects; related to voice, singing or vocal health issues; physical, bodily, respiratory or health symptoms in general; the sound system, the environment, the stage, the performance and the audience; problems related to practical singing activities (repertoire, musicians, rehearsals or shows) and others. Results: of the 91 singers, most were cisgender women (57.1%), with a mean age of 32.7 years. 97.8% of the sample reported dissatisfaction with their performance. Regarding the reason, 52.8% linked it to aspects of an emotional or psychic order, more frequently in younger singers and with 12 or more years of profession. The most selected sensations were: insecurity (50.6%), feeling of incompetence (38.2%) and shame (21.3%). In Kenny's score, 100% of the sample had some level of anxiety related to musical performance, with 80.2% at medium level of anxiety and 9.9% at high level. Of these 80.2% singers who had a medium level of anxiety, 50.7% associated their dissatisfaction with emotional or psychological issues. Conclusion: the popular professional singers surveyed revealed a relationship between anxiety and performance. As a reason, the emphasis was on issues related to emotional or psychic aspects