Now this is a post where I am pretty confident I will be harangued at the very least, and probably viewed as a certifiable heathen. So, ever prepared to put my head on the chopping block, here goes.
I have become tired of playing music. Now, that should have caught your attention, let me explain. Over the last year I have thrown myself into music as a means of coping with a number of life events. As a result, in the last year I have probably practiced for at least 2000 hours (averaging 5-6 hours every day). Now this is a conservative estimate and it is not beyond the possibility that the amount of practice has been significantly more. In that time I have almost exclusively concentrated on ITM, although there have been a few forays into English and Welsh folk music.
Now I have a high level of patience, but there is a point reached where boredom becomes inevitable and I think I have reached it. I mistakenly assumed you can play everyday without an effect. When I begrudgingly picked the mando up today it sounded bland and lacklustre. Thus, in my case the effect is that I need a break, before it is too late.
Fortunately I can still get a tingle down my spine when I hear Micho Russell, Junior Crehan or Joe Burke, so I am not without hope. The music has a fire in it, a vibrancy that once sent the hairs of my neck almost vertical and a grin like a Cheshire cat on my face. It still does - but not when I play! Right now I need to put down the instruments and listen. Which in itself reminds me of a saying I used to teach to student psychotherapists when I was training them - The good Lord gave you two ears and only one mouth, so maybe you need to listen twice as much as talk.
It is advice I regret not having given myself in my own playing for imagine what my playing would be like now if I had applied that principle to my playing?
So I am taking some time out although I will continue to listen .. and listen .. and listen. I am in no doubt I will be back playing again, because music is in my blood. When I do return I am confident I will be stronger for the break. Now my only problem is - what the hell do I do?
I am curious about one thing - how many others here have chosen to take a musical sabbatical and what helped and what hindered their return to playing again?
Well WM, I too play and practice a lot, always have done.
What I have done upon reaching a dry moment is
1; ignored it and focused on boring technical stuff with the faith that the inspiration will return in good time.
2; picked up a different instrument. This has reinspired me with the love of learning and curiosity.
It also, is a challenge in a way, a new opportunity.
Another thing i do is focus on a different aspect of music, ie not ITM which is my main focus, so I might take a few jazz guitar lessons, or learn a few Breton tunes, just to add a bit of 'spice' to my diet of pure poteen
But as for actually not playng! shock horror! never!
Do something else even on the same subject ie/
Drawing ITM musicians - OR poems /songs about them or ITM
subject ..
Or do something compeletely different as well as your
music - You suffer musicaly of-
TO MUCH OF A MUCHNESS,,,
Need a little change,,**Hope you find it,, **
jim,,,,
Give it a rest for a bit. Happens to us all. When you come back to it you'll find you've mysteriously improved. Don't know why this happens. Maybe neurons need time and personal space to connect with each other without you constantly forcing them to network!
It's fine! I've taken sabbaticals from classical music (and hell, you need them) and it's just made me more determined to prove myself when I get back into it. it's completely normal to get bored of something you do way too often.
As for alternative hobbies, you can take up Irish dancing - and if you don't fancy that, there's always TV.
Welshman-
Disclaimers: I'm in no way claiming to be any kind of psychotherapist, amateur or professional, and obviously I don't know you or your circumstances. But what caught my eye was when you mentioned throwing yourself into music "as a means of coping with a number of life events."
Absolute pure speculation on my part, but is it possible that there may have been enough significant developments in some of these "life events" such that you simply don't quite feel the same degree of impetus you did when you began devoting so much time to your music? Your state of mind might not have as much to do with being "tired" of playing music as it is a general reaction to whatever you've been dealing with. If the source(s) of your motivation has/have altered, it may be you need to reevaluate the place music holds in your life.
For what it's worth, I wound up taking somewhat of a sabbatical from playing music for several years. In my case, it was the demands of fatherhood and other aspects of domesticity; essentially, I just found myself pushing music lower and lower on my list of things to do.
But ultimately, my life events changed, and I got back into the music -- and, to my mind, I've actually gone past the point where I'd left off. I've learned more, I've gotten better, and of course, therefore realized I've yet more to learn and have more room for improvement.
Rather exciting, really.
Anyway, best of luck, definitely keep listening, and you'll find the music will be waiting for you when you're ready to pick it up again.
I'd say sts is probably near the mark. "Life events", when people mention them, are sometimes euphemisms for bad stuff, and let's face it, bad stuff saps your enthusiasm for anything, even the music.
Best wishes to you, Welshman, but it will come back. I think our bodies and minds usually know what to do without our realising it. And the music will always be there, as sts says, waiting for you!
Either try a new instrument, or a different tradition (only for a change, not for ever) - Northumbrian has a pretty big following of tunes on thesesh - or Scottish
A change is as a good as a break they say. If you want a break why not just ban yourself from all the tunes you know for a few weeks and learn a whole new batch. By the time you get to the end of your ban you'll probably be dying to play some of your old favourites.
Welshman, you mention practicing endless hours but not playing with others. I assume you know the huge payoffs of the latter, as a reward for time spent on the former. If I had to practice on my own for thousands of hours with no chance to inflict the results on an unsuspecting public or friends, I would get pretty tired of it also.
IMO, if you need a sabbatical, take it, do anything else you enjoy (ITM connected or not), and when you return to the music, it will just be that much sweeter. Everyone has flat, burnout periods.
It sounds to me like you became obsessive/compulsive about playing, and got temporarily burned out. Maybe you just need to be more casual about it for a while--play a few minutes, if you feel like it, whenever you feel like it. No pressure, nothing compulsory. (And maybe--although I am not a psychiatrist--try not to dwell on the things that pushed you into overdoing it in the first place. The association between the life events and the playing may be more significant than the amount of playing itself.)
Anyway, it doesn't have to be black or white, all or nothing. Play for five minutes, and put it down. Nothing illegal about that.
I was in a car accident in 1990, didn't play for almost 5 years, never thought I'd be able to play again. Because I had used music throughout my life as a coping mechanism to deal with some "issues", I was devastated by the turn of events, and just about lost my mind... Luckily, I found a great surgeon, and thanks to titanium and a dead man's bone (could have been a woman, but I like the sound of "dead man's bone"), I was healed. I picked up the fiddle 6 weeks after surgery (5 years after putting it down) and it was pretty sweet. I played in the local symphony, and picked it back up pretty quickly.
One thing that can put a brake on learning new tunes or practising others is that sessions can be a pretty predictable sequence of well-worn tune sets, and it can be pushing against the flow to play or try to induce others to play something different that one has dragged along. And I'll add, it can be dragging against one's own inertia to make the effort to learn and play new tunes that other people are trying out. This is not to knock sessions I go to, where there's space when it's wanted, but to claim that a "rut " factor in the choosing of tune sets is very often there in sessions and can stall the interest of individuals - although trying to play the session's "canonical" tunes better, or at all, is no bad thing to aim at.
What to do with tunes you've learnt that somehow you don't play in a session? Busk them, take them to a folk club, play them in a scratch wedding / cafe / comparable event, or a band if one's in one - that sort of thing. But I expect quite a few people have tunes curdling around in their system that lack opportunities for airing.
I did a lot of drawing and painting some years ago, but (in my experience) it's even more addictive and maddening than ITM and is also very solitary. Musos do make a good subject - their movements are fairly circumscribed and predictable (while they're playing, that is!), and I sat happily through concerts and on the edge of sessions with sketchbooks.
Does the instrument that you play
sound bad to you? There will come
a time when you play it and it will
sound sweet and the attraction will
be back.
I had a love hate relationship with
the banjo that always improved
when I put it down for a short time.
But now with the fiddle, I notice I
almost always like it when I am
playing it and it is when I listen to
me recorded playing it that I get
the thoughts you describe.
Never taken a complete musical sabbatical. But I have needed to take time off from one musical genre or another over the years.
What to do with your spare time if you don't have another musical performance direction? Maybe give a listen to Dionne Warwick's 1963 rendition of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "Anyone Who Had A Heart."
WM-options and an alternative or two that might cause your interest to return
If you asre rally desperate to back out of music, you could study to become a priest (God knows Mother Church likes guys with no interest or talent in music)
Or go to a south seas island where sweet young things prance about in the altogether...but you might get sick of that for a while.
Or you could become an Amy Grant groupie and follow her on her next world tour.
Tired and need a sabbatical
Tired and need a sabbatical
Now this is a post where I am pretty confident I will be harangued at the very least, and probably viewed as a certifiable heathen. So, ever prepared to put my head on the chopping block, here goes.
I have become tired of playing music. Now, that should have caught your attention, let me explain. Over the last year I have thrown myself into music as a means of coping with a number of life events. As a result, in the last year I have probably practiced for at least 2000 hours (averaging 5-6 hours every day). Now this is a conservative estimate and it is not beyond the possibility that the amount of practice has been significantly more. In that time I have almost exclusively concentrated on ITM, although there have been a few forays into English and Welsh folk music.
Now I have a high level of patience, but there is a point reached where boredom becomes inevitable and I think I have reached it. I mistakenly assumed you can play everyday without an effect. When I begrudgingly picked the mando up today it sounded bland and lacklustre. Thus, in my case the effect is that I need a break, before it is too late.
Fortunately I can still get a tingle down my spine when I hear Micho Russell, Junior Crehan or Joe Burke, so I am not without hope. The music has a fire in it, a vibrancy that once sent the hairs of my neck almost vertical and a grin like a Cheshire cat on my face. It still does - but not when I play! Right now I need to put down the instruments and listen. Which in itself reminds me of a saying I used to teach to student psychotherapists when I was training them - The good Lord gave you two ears and only one mouth, so maybe you need to listen twice as much as talk.
It is advice I regret not having given myself in my own playing for imagine what my playing would be like now if I had applied that principle to my playing?
So I am taking some time out although I will continue to listen .. and listen .. and listen. I am in no doubt I will be back playing again, because music is in my blood. When I do return I am confident I will be stronger for the break. Now my only problem is - what the hell do I do?
I am curious about one thing - how many others here have chosen to take a musical sabbatical and what helped and what hindered their return to playing again?
D
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by Welshman
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
Well WM, I too play and practice a lot, always have done.
What I have done upon reaching a dry moment is
1; ignored it and focused on boring technical stuff with the faith that the inspiration will return in good time.
2; picked up a different instrument. This has reinspired me with the love of learning and curiosity.
It also, is a challenge in a way, a new opportunity.
Another thing i do is focus on a different aspect of music, ie not ITM which is my main focus, so I might take a few jazz guitar lessons, or learn a few Breton tunes, just to add a bit of 'spice' to my diet of pure poteen
But as for actually not playng! shock horror! never!
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by jig
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
Welshman
Do something else even on the same subject ie/
Drawing ITM musicians - OR poems /songs about them or ITM
subject ..
Or do something compeletely different as well as your
music - You suffer musicaly of-
TO MUCH OF A MUCHNESS,,,
Need a little change,,**Hope you find it,, **
jim,,,,
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by FIDDLE4
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
Give it a rest for a bit. Happens to us all. When you come back to it you'll find you've mysteriously improved. Don't know why this happens. Maybe neurons need time and personal space to connect with each other without you constantly forcing them to network!
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by Dow
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
It's fine! I've taken sabbaticals from classical music (and hell, you need them) and it's just made me more determined to prove myself when I get back into it. it's completely normal to get bored of something you do way too often.
As for alternative hobbies, you can take up Irish dancing - and if you don't fancy that, there's always TV.
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by mehitabel23
Sabbatical from playing
Welshman I am so happy to hear someone is willing to listen to his own advice.
What took you so long.
Listen & dance!
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
Welshman-
Disclaimers: I'm in no way claiming to be any kind of psychotherapist, amateur or professional, and obviously I don't know you or your circumstances. But what caught my eye was when you mentioned throwing yourself into music "as a means of coping with a number of life events."
Absolute pure speculation on my part, but is it possible that there may have been enough significant developments in some of these "life events" such that you simply don't quite feel the same degree of impetus you did when you began devoting so much time to your music? Your state of mind might not have as much to do with being "tired" of playing music as it is a general reaction to whatever you've been dealing with. If the source(s) of your motivation has/have altered, it may be you need to reevaluate the place music holds in your life.
For what it's worth, I wound up taking somewhat of a sabbatical from playing music for several years. In my case, it was the demands of fatherhood and other aspects of domesticity; essentially, I just found myself pushing music lower and lower on my list of things to do.
But ultimately, my life events changed, and I got back into the music -- and, to my mind, I've actually gone past the point where I'd left off. I've learned more, I've gotten better, and of course, therefore realized I've yet more to learn and have more room for improvement.
Rather exciting, really.
Anyway, best of luck, definitely keep listening, and you'll find the music will be waiting for you when you're ready to pick it up again.
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by sts
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
Growth is accomplished during rest periods, therefore rest and recuperation are essential parts of any growing/learning experiance.
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by jig
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
I'd say sts is probably near the mark. "Life events", when people mention them, are sometimes euphemisms for bad stuff, and let's face it, bad stuff saps your enthusiasm for anything, even the music.
Best wishes to you, Welshman, but it will come back. I think our bodies and minds usually know what to do without our realising it. And the music will always be there, as sts says, waiting for you!
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by maxF
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
Either try a new instrument, or a different tradition (only for a change, not for ever) - Northumbrian has a pretty big following of tunes on thesesh - or Scottish
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by geoffwright
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
A change is as a good as a break they say. If you want a break why not just ban yourself from all the tunes you know for a few weeks and learn a whole new batch. By the time you get to the end of your ban you'll probably be dying to play some of your old favourites.
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by bogman
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
Welshman, you mention practicing endless hours but not playing with others. I assume you know the huge payoffs of the latter, as a reward for time spent on the former. If I had to practice on my own for thousands of hours with no chance to inflict the results on an unsuspecting public or friends, I would get pretty tired of it also.
IMO, if you need a sabbatical, take it, do anything else you enjoy (ITM connected or not), and when you return to the music, it will just be that much sweeter. Everyone has flat, burnout periods.
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by ayedbl
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
It sounds to me like you became obsessive/compulsive about playing, and got temporarily burned out. Maybe you just need to be more casual about it for a while--play a few minutes, if you feel like it, whenever you feel like it. No pressure, nothing compulsory. (And maybe--although I am not a psychiatrist--try not to dwell on the things that pushed you into overdoing it in the first place. The association between the life events and the playing may be more significant than the amount of playing itself.)
Anyway, it doesn't have to be black or white, all or nothing. Play for five minutes, and put it down. Nothing illegal about that.
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by mickray
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
I was in a car accident in 1990, didn't play for almost 5 years, never thought I'd be able to play again. Because I had used music throughout my life as a coping mechanism to deal with some "issues", I was devastated by the turn of events, and just about lost my mind... Luckily, I found a great surgeon, and thanks to titanium and a dead man's bone (could have been a woman, but I like the sound of "dead man's bone"), I was healed. I picked up the fiddle 6 weeks after surgery (5 years after putting it down) and it was pretty sweet. I played in the local symphony, and picked it back up pretty quickly.
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by wyogal
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
Dead Man's Bone sounds right in the groove for an old-time American tune name, or (for all I know) bluegrass / newgrass: are you going to write it ?!
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
One thing that can put a brake on learning new tunes or practising others is that sessions can be a pretty predictable sequence of well-worn tune sets, and it can be pushing against the flow to play or try to induce others to play something different that one has dragged along. And I'll add, it can be dragging against one's own inertia to make the effort to learn and play new tunes that other people are trying out. This is not to knock sessions I go to, where there's space when it's wanted, but to claim that a "rut " factor in the choosing of tune sets is very often there in sessions and can stall the interest of individuals - although trying to play the session's "canonical" tunes better, or at all, is no bad thing to aim at.
What to do with tunes you've learnt that somehow you don't play in a session? Busk them, take them to a folk club, play them in a scratch wedding / cafe / comparable event, or a band if one's in one - that sort of thing. But I expect quite a few people have tunes curdling around in their system that lack opportunities for airing.
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
hmmm... may just have to explore those possibilities...
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by wyogal
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
but not blue grass, probably a bluesy tune or a slow waltz
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by wyogal
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
I did a lot of drawing and painting some years ago, but (in my experience) it's even more addictive and maddening than ITM and is also very solitary. Musos do make a good subject - their movements are fairly circumscribed and predictable (while they're playing, that is!), and I sat happily through concerts and on the edge of sessions with sketchbooks.
# Posted on March 30th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
Take a break - slob out in front of the telly and eat crisps and junk food. Before too long you'll be hankering after the fiddle (or whatever) again.
# Posted on March 31st 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
Welshman:
Does the instrument that you play
sound bad to you? There will come
a time when you play it and it will
sound sweet and the attraction will
be back.
I had a love hate relationship with
the banjo that always improved
when I put it down for a short time.
But now with the fiddle, I notice I
almost always like it when I am
playing it and it is when I listen to
me recorded playing it that I get
the thoughts you describe.
It's OK to put it down for a time.
-dogma
# Posted on March 31st 2008 by dogmageek
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
Never taken a complete musical sabbatical. But I have needed to take time off from one musical genre or another over the years.
What to do with your spare time if you don't have another musical performance direction? Maybe give a listen to Dionne Warwick's 1963 rendition of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "Anyone Who Had A Heart."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkyBMRulHK4
When you're done with that, Burt and Hal wrote another 600+ tunes.
That's just an example. Music history is really beginning to come to life. You won't be bored and it won't be wasted time.
# Posted on March 31st 2008 by BarryM
Re: Tired and need a sabbatical
WM-options and an alternative or two that might cause your interest to return
If you asre rally desperate to back out of music, you could study to become a priest (God knows Mother Church likes guys with no interest or talent in music)
Or go to a south seas island where sweet young things prance about in the altogether...but you might get sick of that for a while.
Or you could become an Amy Grant groupie and follow her on her next world tour.
# Posted on March 31st 2008 by zippydw