This week, our class readings stimulated a lot of conversations at home about learning in the virtual world. My husband and I are both musicians, and so I use him as a sounding board a lot of times to hash out my ideas. We were just discussing how a virtual world can offer safe havens for performance anxiety because you can "hide" behind your avatar. You don't need to worry about what your outfit looks like or if you are sweating, no need to hide shaking hands or worry if your gender matters to the listener. I can't tell you how many times I have been told that I need to play my horn more like a man, or that the listener can tell I'm a woman from how I play. It would be interesting to test that theory out behind a gender neutral, non-human or opposite gender avatar to see if visual cues make a difference to the listening ear. We talked about how a student could make several recordings that people could listen to and wondered what it would sound like to perform through the microphone live on SL.
My husband and I also talked about the "cool factor," i.e. Someone who has a striking appearance or personality is sometimes deemed to be better at their craft than the shy or "non-attractive" person based on criteria that has nothing to do with the crafter's ability. I am so intrigued now by this possibility to reduce bias in learning environments.
Having a certain amount of anonymity might improve the boldness in a timid performer...or any performer for that matter.
I used to perform professionally on the French horn. I took several auditions for groups I desperately wanted to perform with, but each time, my nerves got the best of me and I was never able to perform at my personal best. The best way to get over performance anxiety is to practice taking auditions, but practicing in front of others never really impacted me in the same way as the real life audition. I keep wondering if a virtual world can be utilized to practice performance anxiety. Different stages or rooms could be used to mimic the environment, and actual listeners could enter and provide feedback on your playing. Holding competitions for excerpts in a virtual environment could increase the anxious feeling.
I imagine developing something where your avatar is invited into the excerpt competition several months prior to the competition. You receive a list, just like you would in an audition. Your avatar arrives the day of the competition in the virtual environment and has to get a number, just like an actual audition and wait around for your turn to come around. There are real people listening and providing feedback (and awarding a prize or two). It could even be divided into rounds like an actual audition. There has to be some sort of incentive and investment to mimic the anxiety the performer feels. These types of events could be used in different college music studios to encourage auditioning and practice it without the students having to pay a fee to travel to real life auditions. I welcome any thoughts about this. Maybe this can eventually turn into my Master's final project...it's something I think would be welcomed within the music community, anyway (if it's successful).
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