The Research Behind My Approach: A 2022 Study With Professional Singers
- Gökçe Kutsal
- May 21, 2023
- 10 min read
Updated: 15 hours ago
Five minutes before curtain, the soprano who was meant to sing the solo tested positive for COVID...
A classical singer in my 2022 research study was told she'd be stepping in.
She had five minutes. No time to warm up properly, no time to mentally prepare. She went into her bag looking for beta-blockers... the ones she'd relied on for every solo performance since her first year of professional training. She couldn't find them.
She sang anyway. It went well.
When she wrote to me afterwards, she said: "I could have said no. It felt like a flight or fight moment. I was very tempted to choose flight. But I kept going back in my head to everything we'd worked on together. Even though anxiety was taking over, I went through it and was in the moment. It was my first solo in a big house, and it was my first one without a beta-blocker."
Six weeks earlier, she'd scored 158 on the Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory. A score of 105 or above indicates clinically significant, problematic levels of performance anxiety. She'd been at 158.
After six sessions of ACT coaching, she was at 110.
That's the short version. The longer version involves colourful spectrograms, fascinating statistics, and a blinded panel of eight singing teachers. Geekier details below :)
What the Study Was
In 2022, as part of an MA in Professional Practice (Voice Pedagogy) at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, I designed and ran a six-week individual ACT coaching programme with four professional singers (two classical, two popular music), all of whom scored above the clinical threshold for music performance anxiety (MPA) at the start.
The programme was delivered entirely online over Zoom, during the pandemic, which turned out to matter less than expected. (More on that in the limitations section.)
The study was supervised by Dr. David Juncos, a licensed clinical psychologist, MPA researcher, and co-author of ACT for Musicians, with academic direction from Debbie Winter of the Voice Study Centre — where I've since gone on to teach as a practitioner scholar.
What made this study different from most ACT-for-MPA research at the time (and there wasn't much of it) was the measurement approach. Most existing studies relied on self-report surveys. Valid, but limited.
Adding acoustic spectrogram analysis to the mix meant the changes, or their absence, could be seen, not just reported. Because the spectrogram captures what the ear hears but can't easily quantify: The chaos in a voice under pressure, and the steadiness that returns when the pressure is met differently.
(By the way, this wasn't a random methodological choice. My background before voice pedagogy ran through interior architecture, architectural acoustics, and 4 years of teaching it at university level. Sound analysis was already a part of my professional language before it became a research tool.)
How It Was Measured
Seven validated self-report instruments, completed at four time points — before coaching, midway, after, and one month later:
ACQ (Anxiety Control Questionnaire) — perceived control over anxiety
BAFT (Believability of Anxious Feelings and Thoughts) — cognitive fusion
ESS (Experiential Shame Scale) — state shame, measured immediately after each live performance
KMPAI (Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory) — MPA symptom severity
MAAQ (Musician's Action and Acceptance Questionnaire) — psychological flexibility in musicians
PHLMS (Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale) — present-moment awareness and acceptance
VQ (Valuing Questionnaire) — values-based living and psychological flexibility
These weren't chosen arbitrarily. Each one maps onto a specific process in the ACT framework (defusion, acceptance, values, committed action), so the data could track not just whether participants felt better, but which mechanisms were doing the work.
Beyond the surveys: Two live performances recorded over Zoom, one before coaching and one after, were sent to a blinded panel of eight experienced singing teachers for scoring. The judges didn't know the order of the performances. Criteria were adapted from ABRSM standards.
And then the spectrograms. Participants recorded audio samples of their singing using their own smartphones. Once in a relaxed state, and then at each live performance. These were analysed using specialist acoustic spectrogram software, examining pitch accuracy, vibrato consistency and range, spectral energy of harmonics, and breathiness across recordings.
What Was Found
The shame finding
This is the one I still find most striking.
Experiential shame, the acute, embodied experience of shame you feel in the moment of a performance, is one of MPA's less-discussed symptoms. Shame is often experienced alongside performance anxiety and is considered a symptom in its own right: The physical, emotional, and social discomfort of being seen, judged, and found lacking, plus the weight of experiencing MPA in the first place.
All four participants entered the study above the non-clinical range on the ESS... and all four ended below it.
Every single one showed a statistically reliable change, with Reliable Change Indices ranging from -4.9 to -6.8 (a change is considered reliable at ±1.96). The improvement was statistically significant across the group (t = 12.847, p < 0.001).
In the previous ACT literature, reductions in shame had been attributed mainly to the bonding that happens in group programmes, when participants realise they're not alone. This was an individual programme. There was no group bonding. Which suggests the ACT and self-compassion work itself was driving the change.
The KMPAI results
All four participants entered above the clinical threshold of 105, and all four moved toward it over six weeks.
In fact, one participant (a popular singer) dropped below 105 entirely at the post-coaching assessment, ending at 83. Essentially, she was below the threshold of problematic music performance anxiety. Her Reliable Change Index was -5.09, one of the strongest signals in the dataset.
The paired-samples t-test across all four was significant (t = 4.401, p = 0.011).
Psychological flexibility
The MAAQ, designed specifically to measure psychological flexibility in musicians, showed reliable change for all four participants, with every single person ending at or above the professional musician sample mean. The group difference was highly significant (t = -10.954, p < 0.001).
This matters because it suggests the ACT mechanisms were actually working, not simply producing a placebo effect of feeling vaguely less terrible. The singers weren't just reporting less anxiety. They were demonstrating greater capacity to act on their values in the presence of anxiety... which is precisely what ACT targets.
The adjudication panel
The overall picture here was mixed, and it's worth explaining what that might've been the case.
Across all four singers combined, the blind panel found no statistically significant improvement in performance quality scores.
But when the two popular singers were analysed separately, however, the results were significant: Musical shaping, dynamics, and vocal expression (F = 361, p = 0.033) and confidence, assuredness, and stage presence (F = 196, p = 0.045) both improved meaningfully.
For the classical singers, external circumstances on the day of the post-coaching performance (like technical difficulties for one, a genuinely distressing incident earlier that day for the other) likely affected their scores. Their self-report data and subjective accounts told a different story.
There's a second factor worth naming. The classical repertoire used in the study left relatively little room for interpretive variation that would be discernible over a Zoom call — the scoring criteria, adapted from ABRSM standards, weight technical accuracy and stylistic convention heavily in that context. The kinds of changes ACT coaching tends to produce, like greater expressive freedom, more committed stage presence, less self-monitoring, are more visible and more scoreable in popular repertoire, where interpretation and personality are part of what the panel is listening for. The significant improvements in musical shaping and confidence for the popular singers may partly reflect this. Meaning that it wasn't a case of the intervention working better for them, but that the measurement tool was better suited to capturing what changed.
The spectrogram data
This is easier to see than to describe, and it also happens to be my favourite part of the project (though I may be a bit biased!).
A spectrogram is a visual map of sound over time. Time runs left to right. The horizontal lines represent different frequencies. The lowest line is the fundamental pitch (the note itself), and the lines above it are harmonics, the overtones that give a voice its colour and carrying power. The brightness or intensity of each line shows how much energy is present at that frequency.
For a singer, three things are immediately visible in a spectrogram:
Vibrato appears as a regular wave pattern in the pitch line. A healthy vibrato looks like a consistent, even undulation. Under anxiety, it becomes erratic: The waves speed up, slow down, or flatten out entirely.
Pitch accuracy is visible in where the fundamental line sits relative to where it should be. A note that drifts sharp or flat shows as the line sitting above or below its expected position, measurable in cents (hundredths of a semitone).
Spectral content shows up in the brightness and density of the harmonic lines above the fundamental. A resonant voice produces strong, clearly defined upper harmonics — for classical singers, a concentration of energy around 2,000–3,500 Hz (the singer's formant) is what gives the voice its ring, projection, and ability to carry over an orchestra. For all singers, strong upper harmonics also affect how clearly words and vowels land. Under anxiety, this spectral energy thins, with the upper harmonic lines becoming fainter, and the voice can lose its brightness and presence even when pitch and vibrato are intact.
With that in mind, here's what the data showed:
Spectrogram views of Classical Singer 2 singing the syllables "Sati" from Rimsky-Korsakov's Snow Maiden's Aria:
A few things to notice: The pre-coaching vibrato (middle image) is visibly less regular. The S-curve pattern is wider and less consistent than the relaxed recording. Post-coaching, the vibrato returns to something much closer to the relaxed baseline. The harmonics (shown in the blue box) tell the same story.
The pitch data tells an interesting story too. Her relaxed recording sits at C#5-44ct, which is slightly flat, possibly due to being a little bit too relaxed (!). Under performance pressure, the note shoots 56 cents in the other direction to C#5+12ct. Post-coaching, it returns to C#5-2ct, which is almost at the centre of the pitch. Pitch accuracy under performance pressure is one of the clearest acoustic indicators of anxiety affecting vocal function.
Here's the same comparison for Popular Singer 1, on the syllable "Now" from the jazz standard Cry Me A River:
Again, we can see the pre-coaching vibrato (middle image) is visibly less regular: The S-curve pattern is shallow and less controlled than the relaxed recording. Post-coaching, the vibrato gets closer to the relaxed baseline, becoming more intentional and consistent. Same thing for the harmonics.
These changes are consistent with what we'd expect if the body's response to evaluation threat had shifted — not fully disappeared, but changed enough in intensity and character to allow the voice to function more freely.
(If you're a voice teacher and found the spectrogram analysis useful or interesting, I occasionally teach a two-part 'Introduction to acoustics for spoken and sung voice' course for the Voice Study Centre — covering how to read and apply acoustic analysis in your own practice and studio, even if you're a complete beginner to acoustics.)
What the singers said
After the programme, all four participants took part in semi-structured interviews. Their responses were thematically analysed. A few things stood out.
Self-compassion was the unexpected highlight. All four mentioned benefiting significantly from the self-compassion work. One even described it as the most valuable part of the entire programme, and the easiest ACT concept to carry into everyday life. This wasn't something the quantitative data could have shown.
They understood ACT, and made it their own. All four could explain the core ACT processes in their own words, without the jargon. That matters a lot, because it suggests the concepts were genuinely internalised, not just intellectually noted and forgotten.
The stigma finding. All four reported feeling more confident talking openly about performance anxiety with colleagues, with other musicians, with anyone. They noted that MPA is rarely discussed honestly in professional circles despite being near-universal. One participant suggested this kind of training should be part of conservatoire education from the start. That's not a research finding. But it's a telling one.
On doing it over Zoom. Reactions were more positive than expected. The flexibility of being in different time zones was named as a bonus. In fact, none of the four could have participated if the programme had been in-person, given their professional schedules and locations. Two participants specifically mentioned that the privacy of their own home made it easier to speak openly. One noted that online performances felt less anxiety-provoking than in-person ones... which is a limitation worth naming honestly, since it may have affected the MPA levels captured in the post-coaching recordings.
What they'd change. Two singers wanted longer sessions (1.5 hours rather than 1 hour). Two wanted more sessions overall (8 to 10 rather than 6) to have more time to practise applying the techniques in performance situations. That feedback has directly shaped how I structure coaching programmes now.
The Limitations
Obviously, the small sample size is a limitation. Four participants, all female, similar age range (28–36). Not generalisable in any strict statistical sense.
Online delivery: Whilst valued by participants who lived in different countries and time zones, and would not have been able to participate otherwise, meant recordings were made on participants' own equipment in varying acoustic environments. This complicated the spectrogram analysis in a few cases. One participant had her phone stolen on the morning of the post-coaching performance.
Visual inspection of spectrograms introduces a degree of researcher subjectivity. Future studies could use automated analysis software such as PRAAT for more objective measurement.
The adjudication scoring criteria were noted by at least one judge to have some ambiguity... a fair point that future studies should address with a more rigorously validated rubric.
What This Means in Practice
The ACT framework doesn't aim to eliminate performance anxiety. It aims to change your relationship to it — so that the sensations, the thoughts, the activation that arrives before a performance stops being something to escape from and becomes something you can be alongside.
That shift is what six weeks produced in these four singers. Their shame scores, their KMPAI scores, their capacity to take valued action despite anxiety... all moved. Not because they learned to suppress what was happening, but because they learned to meet it differently.
The four-component framework at the heart of The Confident Musician™ Method, with Vision, Body, Mind, Craft, is built directly on what this research showed. Not as a theoretical exercise, but because watching it work, measuring it working, and spending six weeks in supervision with one of the field's leading researchers is a reasonably good way to know what you're doing.
Research Credentials
This study was completed in 2022 as the final project for an MA in Professional Practice (Voice Pedagogy) at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.
Academic direction: Debbie Winter, Voice Study Centre
ACT supervision and mentorship: Dr. David Juncos
Findings presented at:
International Symposium for Performance Science (ISPS) 2023
Institute of Acoustics - Acoustics 2024
To understand more about the approach behind this research, you can read about The Confident Musician™ Method or get in touch to discuss private coaching.
About
I'm Gökçe Kutsal, a music performance coach for professional orchestra musicians and opera singers, with an MA in Voice Pedagogy, plus coaching and teaching experience since 2017. I work with orchestral musicians, soloists, and audition candidates across Europe, the UK, North America, and Australia — and I write about performance anxiety, audition preparation, and the craft of practice for musicians who already have the technique and are trying to work out why it doesn't always hold up under pressure.
