Student musicians’ self- and task-theories of musical performance: the influence of primary genre affiliation

One hundred and sixty-five undergraduate music students studying in Scotland completed a 30-statement Q-sort to describe their self- and task-theories of musical performance. Statements reflected the importance of effort, confidence, technical ability, significant others and luck/chance in determining a successful performance. The Q-sorts were reduced to six underlying sorting patterns, or viewpoints. The relationship between sorting patterns and participants’ primary genre affiliation was explored in order to identify whether self and task-theories were a function of genre affiliation. Some intuitive hypotheses of what performers of particular musical genres might think were supported by the data. However, results suggested that there was considerable diversity in self- and task-theory of performance within each of the genre affiliation groups, which supports previous research. Other background factors, such as gender, years of playing, chronological age and type of institution, were not significant predictors of self- or task-theory of musical performance.