musician


Flirting with destruction

My nice, she’s a student now, told me recently very proud that she has a part time job in a destruction company, and how she loves to demolish old furniture. It’s exciting to play with danger, with destruction. It brings diversity in our predictable lives and it creates space for new creations. As a musician, you usually don’t have to worry, you life is not predictable. Still, many musicians flirt with destruction. The audience expects it, it’s what sells. Though […]


Artist’s passion and burnout

Last month I did a ‘Career Clinic’ about passion and burnout for students of the pop department of Conservatory of Amsterdam, earlier this month I did a masterclass about this subject for students at the Herman Brood Academy in Utrecht. Passion gives you a positive vibe that can protect you against burnout. And the same passion can make you go too far, so you are more likely to burn out. In Amsterdam I talked to a small group of students. […]


Being a star – between imposter syndrome and diva behavior 2

I love watching the stars at this short, warm nights! For people, being a star means that you are in the spotlights, that others notice you, that you are famous. We admire you, you inspire us. All the admiration does something to you and your ego. Your ego is blown up big way! Like a balloon. That’s how people with an imposter syndrome experience it. They still feel the same as they were before they became famous. They are anxious […]


Anxiety and depression – you are not alone!

Working in the music business can make you depressed! That’s the conclusion of a recent online study in the UK with more than 2200 participants: musicians and people working in the music business. More than 70% of the participants recorded to have suffered from panic attacks or high levels of anxiety, almost as many people have recorded to have suffered from depression. Not many musicians dare to talk about it. Not many agents or managers either, by the way. Compared […]


Care for yourself as a musician

Do you dare to take care of yourself? I mean, really take good care of yourself as a musician? It’s not as easy as it might think. If you want to take care of  yourself as a musician, you first need to know what your needs are and what is good for yourself. Your needs can start with the cup of coffee you need now and continue with the good rehearsal room. It gets more difficult with knowing what is […]


What’s your recipe against homesickness on the road?

Have you ever felt homesick when on the road? When I was 19 years old, I moved from a small village in the German country side to the big city Frankfurt. I wanted to study at the university, more than 400 km away from home. I really loved Frankfurt, I felt liberated from the closed culture of the village I came from. Still, I felt homesick, especially on Saturday nights. I missed the social contacts at home and going out […]


Music and addiction

Two weeks ago I went to the ILMC conference in London and visited a workshop about mental health of artists. The topis was addiction in the music business, with musicians and with everyone else working int he music industry. The session started with the introduction of Music Support (later more), followed by a speech of psychotherapist and addiction-specialist Christophe Sauerwein. According to Sauerwein, about 15% of the population is receptive for addiction. While ‘normal’ people use drugs to escape reality […]


Mental coaching is dark and dangerous! 2

Mental coaching is quite common in sports. Many athletes use it to enhance their performances. They become more motivated and happier with mental coaching, they are more focused, run faster, react quicker. The effect of mental coaching has been proven by the registered improvement of the performances. With artists it’s different, especially with rock-musicians and DJ’s. While athletes perform at daytime, rock musicians and DJ’s are creatures of the night. They love the darkness. Many musicians are afraid that the […]


Art is trial-and-error

Last week I got a bit philosophical, with the flu clouding my head. Somehow I could accept from myself to be less than 100% perfect. And while looking around me, I noticed that everyone is actually messing around a bit, trying to adjust to expectations, trying to find a bit of happiness, trying to make ends meet. Even if someone has a great plan, in the end it’s about trial and error. I see the trial-and-error approach with our IT […]


Peace and music 1

2016 was a very loud year, especially in politics. It was loud with attacks and with rude political discussions. Last year ended with the attack in Paris, this year we had attacks in Brussels, Nice, Berlin and there was an attempted putsch in Turkey, followed by repression of everyone with a different opinion. The whole world was watching Clinton and Trump on their way to the elections. Putin was loud in bombing hospitals in Syria. We still hear the screaming […]


Limitations – block or inspiration?

How do you deal with limitations? They can become a real block! This week a friend saw a post on FB. One of his friends asked to share bad jokes with him, but the jokes had to be political correct, not racist, not sexist. My friend is a good joke teller and usually has a good pile of jokes in his mind. I think that all his jokes are political correct, not racist, not sexist. But he blanked and couldn’t […]


Privacy – we all need a place to hide

We loose more and more of our privacy. We post on Facebook what we do, what we think, where we are. Many apps have access to all contacts on our mobile devices. Google and Facebook know what sites we visit on the internet. But why bother, if we have nothing to hide? Last week I saw a very interesting documentary on TV: “Super Stream Me”. Last year, two Dutch guys, Tim den Besten and Nicolaas Veul, started the experiment to […]


Can you trust people in the music business?

Yesterday I was giving a guest lecture at TAMK in Tampere (Finland) about networking. Thanks to Skype, I didn’t have to travel. The students now know, that the music business is a people-business, they know what kind of people they need in their network, how to design their own network, how reciprocity and introductions work. At the end, one of the students asked an interesting question: “In my experience most of the people in the music business are quite shifty. […]


Enhance social skills of musicians to prevent drug addiction

The most common explanation of drug addiction is, that if you take too long a certain amount of a drug, you will become an addict. It’s the substance that makes you addicted. This theory is the basis that the US war on drugs is based on. But it doesn’t explain why so many famous musicians turn to drugs and have to go to rehab again and again. It doen’t explain why too many talented musicians die of an overdose, like […]


Break out of your social-village-bubble

The phrase that the world is a village is often used when you have friends all over the world. It’s easy to travel. As musician you are touring around the world, or you are dreaming about touring around the world. In a social sense, the world is a village too. You are connected with colleagues, friends and family, wherever they are. You share your background and your believes with them. But do you know people with a different background, with […]