Goal setting for musicians: applying SMART goals to the practice room
My encounter with goal setting in grad school
My very first assignment for my postgraduate degree in performance psychology was to create a Gantt chart of all my assignments and projects for the coming semester. I was dismayed. Firstly, because I didn’t know what a Gantt chart was and secondly, because it required technical wizardry (according to the prototype provided) that I wasn’t convinced I was capable of.
In case you’re not sure of what it is, a Gantt chart is a project management tool in which all your projects are time-dated and laid out in a horizontal bar chart so you can clearly see the start and end of all your tasks and make a plan for how you are going to execute them. (If you look them up, you’ll see a range of complexity in how they are created.) Laying out tasks like this is intended to not only organize tasks but to set milestones and other subtasks that are needed to accomplish these.
The only thing that I have done that came close to this was putting my assignment due dates in a planner. I’ve never been shown how to project manage on any scale - and by this time I had completed two completely different graduate degrees.
What became clear to me early on in my program is that goal setting is a crucial, and perhaps the most important, of strategies to get a handle on in the world of high performance. Carefully constructed goal setting is a given for serious athletes and my eyes were opened to periodization training (including reset and recovery periods) and detailed plans of performance preparation. By comparison, musicians do not come close to prioritizing goal setting.
Musicians and goal setting
From my experience, musicians do alright in setting milestone goals such as particular performance events. But if a 2022 study on practice strategies used by emerging professional musicians is any indication, we are not awesome at creating specific practice goals. Over half of the study participants created only content goals (eg. “practice the audition stuff first, then the chamber music”) rather than how they were going to practice.(1)
There could be any number of reasons for this. Perhaps musicians find it more compelling to engage with right-brain creative process than the left brain problem-solving involved (although both are intertwined in our work).
Ultimately though, musicians want a plan of action. This was highlighted in a 2015 study involving music performance instrumentalists which found that more specific guidance from their teachers on how to practice was desired.(2) And creating a plan with an actionable plan is necessary to gain expertise in any field. You’ve probably heard of deliberate practice which is well-established as the necessary precursor to skill acquisition and includes the requirement - “the generation of specific goals [emphasis added] for improvement.”(3)
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Not surprisingly then, there are positive results for those who learn to use goal setting. When university instrumental music students were taught goal setting in a psychological skills training program, their focus on their practice and performance improved, their motivation for their playing increased, and they felt more empowered.(4)
I, for one, dutifully got to work on my Gantt chant after much preparation (or perhaps, more accurately, procrastination as one does when feeling unsure of how to proceed). After all, I was there to learn what I could from the depth of research found in other high performance domains. Planning how to do the assignment took as much strategic goal setting for me as planning out the whole semester’s projects. And I guess that was the point.
So how do we set goals stragically? before we get right down to the nitty-gritty of it, there’s a few things about goals that I’ll touch on more generally.
Goal hierarchy
Research has found that assigning a hierarchy to your goals - long-, medium-, and short-range goals - has been found to be helpful and motivating for performers.(5) General, more long-range goals can be on a continuum of specificity (i.e., vague to specific), like becoming a more effective communicator, landing a desirable teaching position, or placing in an important competition. Middle-range goals within the next 6 months might be learning a new piece of music or performing in a recital. Then there is goal setting that takes place daily. An example of this could be playing a particular passage slowly or with different articulations.
Using a combination of these goals appears to be the most effective. In sport performance, specific goals have been found to more efficient than general goals but a combination of long and short term goals is optimal.(6)
Process vs. outcome goals
Outcome goals are typically more general goals that are visionary. They focus on getting a particular outcome or result. Examples of this would be making second chair in your orchestra section, placing in a competition, or getting a particular job. Initially, they are motivating because they give us direction.
But there’s a danger on relying on outcome goals.With the carrot of second chair dangling out in the distance, one may fling oneself enthusiastically into practice at first, relying on a general intuition of what needs to happen. Yet, just “doing your best” may not be the most effective or efficient approach. And it may not be enough to keep you going when you encounter difficulties in the music you’re working on or even in your personal or social life. That once-motivating goal feels too far away and you’re can be left overwhelmed or disillusioned if you don’t have a guide on how to get there. This is where specific process goals come in.
Process goals constitute the steps one takes toward achieving a particular end. In other words, process goals make outcome goals a reality. Working towards moving up to second chair might involve making more outcome (and middle-range) goals like learning specific repertoire, improving an aspect of technique, and developing greater confidence when performing. But process goals break those goals down into the specifics of how you are going to actually achieve them.
So, say you want to develop more nuance of expression in the soft range of your dynamics. You might spend regular, dedicated time on etudes that develop this or perhaps listen to good recording models of soft playing. Then you might experiment with pressure, body position, visualization and other imagery to emulate that model.
Goal Setting Theory and the characteristics of effective goals
Back in 1968, psychologist E. Locke published research on what influences motivation of task performance, which led to the development in 1990 of Goal Setting Theory (GST).(7) While GST is well-known, robustly researched, and frequently applied to many performance areas, teachers and performers of music could certainly take more advantage of its principles in a more systematic way.
Here are the principles of setting effective goals according to GST: (8)
Goals need to be sufficiently challenging.
Goals that are too easily attainable lead to demotivation. Of course this is completely dependent on the student. For one student, doing two studio recitals a year is plenty demanding; another student may need major competitions to feel challenged. On the other hand, being overwhelmed is hardly motivating.
Daily practice goals need to be stimulating and effortful so that the performer isn’t bored or lulled into mindless repetition.
Goals that are specific bring far better performance results than those that are more vague.
Going into the rehearsal room with the vague goal of “I’m just going to do my best” means that the effects of practicing are left to chance because the performer falls into habitual ways.
Goals that are too vague or general leaves the performer unsure about how to strategically plan and problem-solve. This takes away from their sense of self-efficacy, i.e., belief in their ability to do what needs to done to reach a particular performance goal, which is necessary to sustain motivation to complete goals.
Feedback is needed so the musician knows how the goals are moving them toward their target.
Teachers and coaches are important sources of feedback at lessons and performances, but for those daily practice goals to be really effective, performers need to be their own feedback source. This means critical listening in the practice room as well as recording themselves so they can completely focus and see/hear things they miss when some of their attention is devoted to the playing.
Feedback results in helpful feedforward, i.e, it gives the information needed to know how to tackle the target goal in the next repetition or practice session. The musician becomes engaged in a continual, dynamic process of creating new goals and tweaking the ones they have.
Goals require commitment.
If people can see how the goals will specifically contribute to their progress in something that matters to them (eg., becoming a better musician or playing their best in an audition), they are more likely to commit.
Goals that are set by the participant rather than the coach or teacher are likely to elicit more buy-in. This calls for a two-way unilateral communication approach rather than top-down. Teachers can even collaborate with younger students to set various types of goals.
So what’s a good framework for setting goals, whether they are long- or short-term?
SMART goals
Creating SMART goals is really useful at getting at those things we talked about in Goal-Setting Theory. You’ve likely heard of them (and it’s easy acronym to remember) but they are not commonly applied to music practice.
S - Specific
Musicians probably fall short most often in making those daily practice goals specific enough.
“I’m going to work on refining the long sustaining note in m. 83” is a fairly specific goal but what about going further -
“I’m going to experiment with my bow position, pressure, and speed in 3 dynamic ranges.”
M - Measurable
This is how are you going to measure the progress you’ve made and how you know the goal has been met.
This one can be a little more tricky when you’re dealing with music because many musical elements are subjective. Here are some steps you can follow:
Mental model: Create a mental/sensory model of the ideal and one that’s “good enough” for you for today, next week, next month, etc. This can be done on your own or in collaboration with a coach, teacher, colleague, recording, or anybody whose musical instincts you respect.
Scale it: Put that model on a scale to measure progress. So if, for example, your ideal is a 10 and 0 is the opposite, maybe you set a goal of 5 for the first practice session, 6 for the next, and 9.5 in a month or two hence.
Record it: Recording your final play-throughs on 2 or 3 consecutive days/sessions and then listening and comparing them helps refine your critical listening and enables you be more objective. Practically, you can’t record everything you are working on, but most of us can incorporate this more into our rehearsals. So try choosing at least one thing to record in a given session.
A - Achievable
Is it realistic goal? A few things to consider here:
Consider time and skill restraints but also keep goals optimally challenging. Expecting yourself to go from a 5 to a 10 on a technically demanding passage in a week’s time is likely to be discouraging. Not setting the bar high enough can be equally demotivating.
Account for other areas of your life and prioritize accordingly. Maybe trying to learn a concerto movement in 2 months for a competition you forgot about isn’t realistic when you also have big exams/concerts/family obligations, etc. at the same time - but it may be fine during the slow summer months.
Allow some flexibility. Some days are just hard - cut yourself some slack and adjust when you need to.
R - Relevant
Is the goal you’re making really addressing the progress you want to be making and does it align with what’s important to you?
Consider what you’re prioritizing at any given time. For example, will adding that extra performance opportunity detract from or contribute to the recital you’re working on for your degree? On a smaller scale, perhaps a particular technical aspect needs attention before you decide what fingering you’re going to use (or vice versa).
T - Time-bound
Give your goals a reasonable time-frame. Sit down with a calendar and mark in those large, long-term goals. This helps to define and plan the steps needed to lead up to them. Use a timer to designate a specific time-frame to work on a small specific goal. It can really help motivate you to stay on task if you know you only have a certain amount of time to work on something before that timer goes off.
If you have had a difficult time with following through on certain goals (and who hasn’t?), it is worthwhile to check whether ALL the aspects of SMART goals have been incorporated. We often struggle with achieving our goals because one or more of these pieces are missing.
Btw, I did get my Gantt chart assignment completed, but resorted to doing it on paper rather than on the computer. Well, goals have to be realistic, right?
As you go into the new year, I hope you are inspired to think about planning your progress more strategically, using the kinds of goals that set you up to meet your milestones successfully. Happy goal setting!
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1.Kegelaers, J., Hoogkamer, L., & Oudejans, R. R. (2022). Practice and performance management strategies of emerging professional musicians in preparation for orchestra auditions. Research Studies in Music Education, 44(1), 175–191. https://doi.org/10.1177/1321103X211054659
2.Bratlie, J. M. & Jørgensen, H. (2015). Når du sitter og ser ut av vinduet er du ikke konsentrert nok. NMH-publikasjoner no. 3:7–13 in Hatfield, J. L. (2018). Goal setting and self-determination in music making: Tenets of becoming a deliberate and motivated music practitioner. NMH-Publikasjoner.
3.Lehmann, A. C., & Ericsson, K. A. (1998). Preparation of a public piano performance: The relation between practice and performance. Musicæ Scientia, 2, 67–94.
4.Hatfield, J. L., Halvari, H. & Lemyre, N. (2016). Instrumental Practice in the Contemporary Music Academy: A Three-Phase Cycle of Self- Regulated Learning in Music Students. Musicae Scientiae. doi: 10.1177/1029864916658342
5.Locke, E. A. & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practical useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717.
6.Kyllo, L. B. & Landers, D. M. (1995). Goal setting in sport and exercise: A research synthesis to resolve the controversy. Journal of Sports & Exercise Psychology, 17, 117–137.
7.Locke, E. A. & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting & task performance. Englewood Cliffs ; London: Prentice-Hall.
8.Locke, E. A. & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practical useful theory of goal setting and task motivation. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717.
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