pressure


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 […]


Fame hurts – 5 reasons why 5

In the last couple of years, I’ve asked myself frequently the question if it’s possible that fame hurts. Usually when I’ve heard of another musician who died on an overdose of painkillers, like Tom Petty, Prince and Michael Jackson. This week I read that Lady Gaga is cancelling at least 10 dates if her worldwide tour because of severe pain, just like she did last year September. Many famous musicians use heavy doses of painkillers on a regular basis, often […]


Survival or the pressure of success

39 years ago, on the first day of summer holiday, I bought a holiday-pass. It was the first time that my small German village had such a holiday pass. One of the offered activities was a trip to an attraction park in the Netherlands. Oh, how much was I looking forward too this, it would have been my first time abroad! With the holiday pass in my bag I was on my way home, by bicycle, when a car hit […]


Musicians need stress – and relaxation 3

If you want a life without stress, don’t become an artist, don’t become a musician! As a musician, you better know how to deal with stress! You need stress if you want to be a good musician. The most common form of stress is to live up to expectations – from others or from yourself. Don’t underestimate your own expectations. At all levels you meet expectations: how you want to sound, how you want to play your instrument, what kind […]


How you can get creative again when being blocked by feeling-special 1

When I was 11 years old, I survived a heavy car crash. A car, driving 120 km/h, drove on the back of my bicycle. There were rumors that I would have been dead, that one leg was amputated or that I’d been paralyzed in my legs. Fortunately I survived, with a heavy concussion and a flesh-wound on my right leg. After 6 weeks hospital I returned home, after half a year I was sporting again. In hospital at 11 years […]


Tired

Somehow the ‘universe’ doesn’t know the right timing. There are periods that I get really bored and nothing happens. And than again, like last month, everything happens at once. This must sound quite familiar to artists too. Right now all business stuff is good news! One of my artists, AlascA, just signed a record deal in the UK. Another Dutch artist, Lilian Hak, released her new album last week. And we just passed the deadline for applications for Conincx Pop […]


Happy?

Everyone wants to be happy, right? It’s so important, that they even put it in the constitution of the United States, just as the freedom to speak. Too often I register with  myself, that I have some very romantic images of happiness. These images often prevent me to really enjoy the moment, for I compare the moment with the images, and often the images are better than the moment. The same is true for success and fame. Most of us […]