Purpose statement
The main purpose of this study is to conduct a mixed methods pre-post experiment to elucidate whether three short 15-min mindfulness meditations training may report benefits to violinists’ musical practice. Specifically, the experiment intends to measure participants’ levels of mind-wandering, and contextual variables (motivation, fatigue and worry, and difficulty of the piece), and their trait mindfulness, examining how both may be affected by 1-week of mindful practice.
Research questions
1) Is mind-wandering a phenomenon that is present during musical practice? If so, what kind of mind-wandering, spontaneous or deliberate, is more frequent during violin practice? How do contextual variables such as novelty of the piece, motivation, fatigue, and worry relate to frequency of mind-wandering? How does mind-wandering relate to self-efficiency during violin practice?
2) How can one design a violin-specific mindfulness meditation?
3) To what extent does practicing three newly designed mindfulness meditations help violinists gain control over distracting thoughts associated with mind-wandering during violin practice over a week? How does it help them become more mindful according to the FFMQ mindfulness scale and the MfM scale?
