Stay well, play well
Playing music is widely acknowledged as having both physical and mental health benefits. These benefits can extend across the life span and can diminish cultural divides. However, like any other skill where high hours of training in competitive environments are required, musicians must take care to practice in a way that minimises health risks.
Most musicians ensure their musical instrument is kept in perfect condition, but many do not look after their own physical and mental health in the same way.
Past research shows that instrumental musicians at all stages experience high rates of performance-related physical or psychological injury in Australia. The problems affect musicians from the very earliest levels to the most senior professional levels of participation. For children, the risk of having performance related injury has been shown to increase by 20% for each additional year of participation.
Musicians take great care of their instruments, maybe more than their own performance health
Investing in the research
Suzanne Wijsman is an Associate Professor and Chair of Strings at The University of Western Australia’s (UWA) Conservatorium of Music. She is a lauded cellist and music teacher, and researcher of music and musicians across all eras. Suzanne has supervised a number of postgraduate projects focused on musicians’ health.
In 2004, with support from a UWA Research Grant, Suzanne initiated interdisciplinary research into the biomechanics of cello bowing in collaboration with researchers at UWA’s School of Human Sciences. Suzanne currently leads an international team looking at how to integrate health education into music teaching.
Associate Professor Bronwen Ackermann is an internationally renowned specialist musicians’ physiotherapist, musculoskeletal anatomist and musicians’ health researcher from the University of Sydney. Her Sound Practice Project has revealed musicians in Australia’s orchestras suffer lifetime prevalence of injury of up to 84 percent and current prevalence of injury up to 50 percent.
The pair recognised the need to incorporate occupational health into music curricula from an early age. Their collaboration resulted in a unique strategy to address the problem of musician health.
We wanted to create the world’s best program for musicians to learn about performance health. We knew we needed to bring that in much earlier in the education process.
The research goals:
- Develop an online tool to help address musicians’ health literacy and ensure information is accessible world-wide.
- Establish an international network of researchers to investigate how best to embed health education into music teaching.
Developing an evidenced-based online course
Led by Suzanne, the Musicians’ Health National Curriculum Initiative (2009) focused on developing an online tool to educate Australian musicians about their occupational health and optimise their performance through healthy practice. The project was funded by the Australian Department of Education and Training – Office of Learning and Teaching.
It’s been authored by expert people with a deep experience in this field, and it’s interdisciplinary. We have something unique to offer.
An online course was developed between 2009 and 2012 and authored by some of Australia’s most respected experts in musicians’ health and performing arts medicine research.
The project design combined the interdisciplinary expertise and interests of a number of different fields:
- music students, at three Australian music schools
- music educators
- health care professionals in physiotherapy, performance psychology and sports psychology
- musicians and music administrators
Survey data and past research underpinned the construction of the online course.
Sound Performers
Sound Performers Logo
Sound Performers was launched in 2012. The online course provides fundamental health information that allows musicians to better understand how to use the mind and body in music performance and practice. The Musicians’ Health National Curriculum Initiative Final Report (2012) encouraged open discussion and support around incorporating health education for musicians as part of educational curricula and occupational health and safety policy in Australia’s tertiary music institutions.
Sound Performers is now offered by subscription world-wide to individual users or to institutions that want to use it as part of their core teaching content.
The course modules move through topics on: how the musician’s body works, posture, injury prevention exercises, stress management, performance biomechanics, performance psychology and how to use mental skills for optimal performance, and physical conditioning and exercise for musicians. The modules are supported by images, demonstrations, tip sheets and testimonials from high-profile professional musicians.
It gives users, and students in particular, some sense of confidence that what they are experiencing—
which at times they may think is negative and unique to them—is actually quite common and they can learn how to manage it.
Sound Performers warm up and cool down
Sound Performers was piloted at UWA and has since become a required component for first year students enrolled within the UWA Conservatorium of Music. It is also being used as a core component of the curriculum at several international universities. Pilot studies and further research about how Sound Performers can be used are currently underway in New Zealand and Canada.
In 2016, the team received further financial help from UWA’s Pathfinder fund and The University of Sydney’s Commercial Development and Industry Partnerships fund. The funding was used to upgrade and repackage the course for an international market, expand existing content and automate the registration and payment process.
Because it’s an expert authored, multimedia-based resource that is adaptable and flexible, Sound Performers can help musicians everywhere to stay well and play well.
The Musicians’ Health Literacy Consortium
We were keen to explore the global potential to positively impact on accessibility of health education for musicians and how we can improve health literacy of musicians.
In 2017, the team was granted a UWA Research Collaboration Award to develop an Australian/ Canadian collaboration. Their project sought to address occupational injuries in musicians by focusing on health education as a primary prevention intervention and the effectiveness of this.
The Worldwide Universities Network funded the team’s next step in bringing the research to a global arena with the formation of an international, interdisciplinary research group to form a global perspective on this problem. Their project resulted in the formation of the Musicians Health Literacy Consortium in 2018. They have also designed a research program to investigate health literacy in musicians. Members of the Consortium are from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the Netherlands and United Kingdom and all have substantial track records in musicians’ health education and research.
The Consortium is keen to expand their network as musician performance health is more widely recognised.
Since its inception, the Consortium has developed a new survey tool to assess occupationally-specific aspects of musicians’ health literacy. The project is also trialling Sound Performers in teaching settings to understand how musicians respond to the online course in different cultures.
Playing it safe
Whilst performance health is important, it is often a neglected area of occupational health and safety in music teaching.
In 2018, Suzanne and Bronwen published Educating Australian musicians: are we playing it safe? It supported the need for authorities to address performance health management and the need to protect students and teachers against risk of injury.
Sound Performers covers many aspects of occupational health and safety for musicians. It’s not just about preventing injury; it’s also about optimizing performance.
Optimising musician performance through healthy practice
Teaching it safe
Future research with Sound Performers can help to inform teachers and better equip them in their passion for music teaching, and teaching organisations to ensure the occupational health and safety standards are maintained.
The course has also given students the tools to optimise their health and performance through targeted exercises. The use of Sound Performers in teaching and learning at UWA has delivered promising results for Suzanne’s tertiary level students.
It has helped students who were at first locked up in their movements to confidently perform at the end of the course in a difficult repertoire or recital. There is a wonderful sense of elation of being free to make the music and not battling the body. This is very rewarding for me as a teacher and as a researcher.
Suzanne with music specialist studies student Miah Smith
A well-orchestrated performance
Music performance ranks highest in terms of government investment, totalling about $120 million and arts and culture industries, including music, contribute 4% to Australia’s annual gross domestic product. The performing and creative arts are not just for pleasure. Musicians are very important for Australia’s economy.
There are large costs associated with musicians who sustain an injury, including workers compensation claims. In contrast, investing in musicians’ health helps to maintain their productivity and keeps them making important contributions to the Australian economy.
Keeping musicians healthy is an investment which affirms the importance of musicians and ensures their audiences keep enjoying what they do. In this way, Sound Performers has great potential to impact positively on society.
Music is important to all human societies, but it’s also important to support and protect musicians’ health so they can keep making that contribution. We want to protect the investment that’s going into the Australian economy.
Democracy and divided societies