Peak Performance in Singing and Mental Strategies

An Interview Study with Established Elite Performers in Classical Singing

Abstract

Established elite performers in singing need the ability to bring out their full potential on a professional level in the whole course of their career. They have to deal with their own and other’s expectations for their artistic performance, as the assessment of peak performance in singing is highly diverse. A persistent professional career requires mental strength as well as physical resilience and artistic excellence to manage contradictory expectations and to maintain their long-term performance capacity at a high level. Professional athletes use mental training in addition to physical training for decades and research shows benefits in combined mental and physical training. The present study investigates self-set standards to define individual peak performance and mental strategies singers use to reach their full potential on stage. Results show that social, physical, situative and mental determinants influence singer’s peak performance. Depending on mental perception and interpretation in a positive or negative manner, singer’s peak performance gets supported or disturbed. In addition singers define their peak performance with ideal or real reference. According to ideal or real reference, singers use different mental strategies to regulate their activation and sensitivities, to remain focused, to belief in their self-competence and to maintain the ability to act.