Athletes use mental coaches to enhance their performances, entrepreneurs go to coaches to enhance their business, bankers visit shrinks, but musicians don’t need mental support. Here’s why.
Many musicians had to face hard times during childhood. They used music as an escape. Listening to music and later playing music was their way to deal with life. Music itself can lift you up when you are down. Being able to create beauty at any time, makes you feel powerful. It allows you to deal with the less nice sides of life.
“Music is supposed to be an escape. It’s supposed to be somewhere you can go, where you can be yourself, or be whatever you want to be.” (Joel Madden)
The comfort and empowerment of music works very well, as long as there is no pressure involved in music itself. Once you become more successful in your music, music itself can become a source of stress.
You start to load music with expectations. Music has to give you status and success.
You also start comparing yourself with others, regarding the quality of playing your instrument, regarding the amounts of likes on Facebook, regarding the amount of listeners on Spotify, regarding the amount of shows you have.
But what if music is not your escape anymore, after you start expecting and comparing?
When becoming more successful as a musician, you still expect music to be your escape. And while everyone around you admires you, you think that it would be childish of you to complain. You will sort it out by yourself, you don’t need anyone to talk to about what’s bothering you.
If you work hard enough, you might think, music will become your escape again. And if you can’t escape in rock ‘n’ roll anymore, you might try it with the first two parts in ‘sex, drugs & rock ‘n’ roll’.
Musicians always have their music. That’s why musicians don’t need mental support, right?
Well, the second last paragraph is what caught me; because this article seems to be super bias by its tone. Speaking as a pro musician, who had some challenges as a youngster, R&D has recently determined that musician’s brains are actually biologically/chemically different. When they are not exercising their demons through music, they need to beef up the dopamine and therefore, seek it out through sex, drugs, booze, etc. that gives temporary relief.
Cleverly provocative. The nature of the profession often demands the cultivation of mental resilience skills and proper attention to detail with a personalised health and well being regimen. Too many suffer in silence. Some – the unlucky ones – don’t survive.
That’s the problem, I think. Many suffer in silence. Some now dare to break through the silence, and I admire them for that. That’s some DJ’s I’ve heard talking about their burn-out. In rock/pop not many dare to talk about it.