mental health

Live Music Business and Corona III – prepare for after-lock-down

This trilogy is about the live music business and corona. In part I you can read about 6 reasons why people in the live music business have been hit extra hard by all corona measurements. Part II was about how to get through the crisis. Part III will be about how to prepare for after-lock-down. Here again I make a difference between business in general, your own finances, and your mental condition. Business will be different than we are used […]

Gardening for mental health

Recently I (HS) got in touch again with Camilla Phelps (CP). I know her from ages ago, when she still worked as journalist in the music business. She turned her back to the music business and works now as freelance garden writer/journalist and gardener. Next to her regular work, she works as volunteer for Mind Food. The idea behind it uses the five principles of wellbeing: ‘Connect, Take Notice, Learn, Given and Be Active’ to promote good mental health. People […]

Breaking borders and feeling alienated to yourself

The most exciting part of being an artist, is to create. It starts to get really good, when you get in a flow once you start creating. The act of creating always results in something new, something that wasn’t there before. You might have an idea upfront where you want to go, though in the end you are often surprise yourself with the result. For everything new you create, you break the borders of what is known so far. This […]

7 Conceptions that put extra pressure on people in the live music business

It’s spring, so I’m writing about eggs 😉 Just kidding. The egg is a great symbol. The shell is strong and vulnerable at the same time, just as we are. Music is liberating, music helps you to face difficult situations. Though if you work with live music, if live music becomes your work, the situation turns around. Look at the egg. As long as there are no cracks in the egg shell, you can put a huge amount of pressure […]

Touring and feeling at home

Touring is very stressful, for musicians en crew alike. That was discussed this week again at the ILMC. Sleep deprivation and performance pressure are two obvious reasons for the stress. The show must go on, right? Traveling itself can be pretty upsetting to. It all depends on how you feel about home, what you call home. In 2017, David Goodhart introduced the distinction between Anywheres and Somewheres. Anywheres feel at home anywhere. They get their self esteem from achievements in […]

If working in the music business is unhealthy, how can we change it?

For several years already, I’m writing about the mental challenges that musicians have to face. When I started 6 years ago, no one else was talking about it. But musicians are not the only ones in the music business who suffer, it seems. Ticket outlet Skiddle did research with 520 promoters, venue operators and event organizers, 82 percent of people working in this business are suffering with continuous levels of stress. 65% said they frequently felt an ‘intense and unmanageable’ […]

Panel: mental health and music 1

In January, Sony organized a panel in London about mental health and music. They invited 3 speakers to look at mental health from different perspectives. While the event was planned to be for employees of Sony only, the great response lead them to invite friends in the music industry as well, with in the end more than 300 people attending the event. I invited Bec Adams, one of the initiators of the event, to tell me more about it. She […]

Precarity and mental health

In a recent blog post I asked who is responsible for the mental health of musicians, and what the music business can do to support musicians in taking care of their mental health. The article was shared online at various platforms and I got many reactions. Thank you! You all agreed, that people are responsible for their own mental health, musicians too. Some of you shared personal experiences with depression or brain damage and being grateful for help from charities […]

Can the music business support musicians in taking care of their mental health? 18

Many musicians have mental health issues. Most common are depression, anxiety disorder and addiction. The singer of the first European tour I booked, got hooked to drugs again during the tour. While on drugs he got paranoid and accused me of stealing his money and lots of other stuff. After the tour, sober again, he apologized sincerely and wanted me to work for him again. Thanks, but no. Who is responsible for the mental health of musicians? The fans? I […]

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Mental health of musicians in the news

The suicides of Chester Bennington (Linkin Park) last week and of Chris Cornell (Soundgarden) last May made me feel very sad. Some people used it to start a discussion about the mental health of musicians and of people working in the music business. Lisa Gritter published a Dutch article in Vice this week with a very personal story about her own burn-out and about the reactions of colleagues and others in the music business. It seems that many of us […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

What’s more important, myth or mental health of musicians? 9

Last week The Guardian published an article from Fiona McGugan, general manager of the Music Manager’s Forum, about the mental health of musicians. The article is about the role of managers in noticing and addressing mental health problems of their artists. “Maintaining an artist’s health is in the best interest of everyone – the label and the management as well as the artist themselves.” (Rumer Shirakbari) Still, short-term financial interests of the manager can be in conflict with the long-term […]