Regulating functional and hedonic emotions in the pursuit of musical practice goals

Individuals can regulate their emotions in order to feel better and avoid feeling worse. However, individuals can also regulate emotions if doing so is believed to be beneficial to the pursuit of a goal. When pursuing a long-term goal, an individual may choose to delay immediate hedonic emotional reward in order to maximize the functional influence of emotions. This study investigates emotion regulation in the context of musical practice. We examine whether musicians adopt specific emotional stances which support their goal orientation, and which are in line with their beliefs about the functional influence of emotions. Via an online questionnaire, musicians (N = 421) reported their goals, meta-emotion beliefs, and emotion regulation behaviour. Musicians used affect-improvement strategies in their practice more often than affect-worsening strategies. Greater use of affect-worsening strategies was associated with stronger support for the utility of unpleasant emotions. Musicians who more strongly endorsed this belief more strongly pursed mastery goals than enjoyment goals. An examination of specific regulated emotions to support musical practice indicated that musicians generally sought to reduce unpleasant emotions, instead preferring pleasant, energizing emotions. However, a subgroup of mastery-oriented musicians may seek a mixed emotional state, increasing anger and nervousness alongside a range of pleasant emotions. Musicians who pursue mastery may be motivated to experience emotions that combine functional and hedonic benefits. Functional emotions may be less relevant for musicians who practice for enjoyment. Research in this field may equip musicians with novel skills for better pursuit of their practice goals

Corrigendum: Expertise-Related Differences in Wrist Muscle Co-contraction in Drummers

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01360.]

Expertise-Related Differences in Wrist Muscle Co-contraction in Drummers

Background and Aim:Drumming requires excellent motor control and temporal coordination. Deploying specific muscle activation patterns may help achieve these requirements. Muscle activation patterns that involve reciprocal contraction of antagonist muscles are particularly favorable as they enable a high level of muscular economy while maintaining performance. In contrast, simultaneous contraction of antagonist muscles is an inefficient muscle activation pattern. In drumming, co-contraction can lead to increased movement variability and greater fatigue over time. In this study we examine how muscle activation patterns develop with increased drumming expertise. Methods:Eleven expert drummers (ED) and eleven amateur drummers (AD) were recorded using 3D motion capture while performing five different uni-manual and bi-manual repetitive drumming tasks across different tempi. Electromyography was used to record muscle activation of wrist flexor and extensor muscles. Results:Findings indicate that reduced co-contraction resulted in more even drumming performance. Co-contraction also increased in extremely slow and very high tempi. Furthermore, regardless of task or tempo, muscle co-contraction was decreased in participants with higher levels of expertise. In addition to anti-phasic activity of wrist flexor and extensor muscles, expert drummers exhibited a flexor dominance, suggesting more efficient usage of rebound. Conclusion:Taken together, we found that higher levels of drumming expertise go hand in hand with specific muscle activation patterns that can be linked to more precise and efficient drumming performance