Freshmen year there was a senior in my voice studio who was a double major Vocal Performance and Microbiology. When I asked her what was the hardest part of being a double major her response was immediate: sleep. The need for and lack of sleep has become a defining trait in modern society as high expectations and numerous time commitments reduce the number of hours which a person is able to sleep each night. According to the Center for Disease Control, sleep deprivation has reached the point of an epidemic with over 30% of adult Americans sleep deprived. <\/p>\n
So how does this relate to music? For a vocalist, their physical body must be their most prized procession because their body is their instrument. While a violinist could purchase a new violin if disaster should strike, a vocalist is given one body and one voice to last them a lifetime. The immediate and long term effects (increased risk of hypertension, diabetes, depression, obesity and cancer) of sleep deprivation are common knowledge but to a vocalist the immediate repercussions are evident in the quality of sound which they produce.<\/p>\n
As a vocalist, I need my 8 hours a sleep a night in order to produce a good sound the next day. As an engineer, 8 hours of sleep is as elusive as a perfect score on an exam. Here in lies the difficulty of being a double major, it is never a question of whether the tasks can be accomplish but a question of if they can before I have to go to bed. The decision between sleeping now so that I can sing tomorrow or finishing the EECS 463 homework is one which offers little room for compromise.<\/p>\n
This week, sleep deprivation won. Next week, with a midterm to sing and an EECS exam worth 30% of my grade on the same day, it’s anyone guess. Here’s hoping that I (and the rest of my classmates) find the time to study and sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Freshmen year there was a senior in my voice studio who was a double major Vocal Performance and Microbiology. When I asked her what was the hardest part of being a double major her response was immediate: sleep. The need for and lack of sleep has become a defining trait in modern society as high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4708"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4712,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708\/revisions\/4712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}