{"id":9658,"date":"2018-10-30T19:23:36","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T23:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=9658"},"modified":"2018-10-30T19:26:18","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T23:26:18","slug":"navigating-burnout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2018\/10\/30\/navigating-burnout\/","title":{"rendered":"Navigating Burnout"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\u00a0Photo by Julia Rose Lawson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I started playing violin when I was eight years old, and the Suzuki method of teaching guided my studies for about four years until I started playing the viola. I never saw myself becoming a musician; I was more interested in becoming a famous actress or singer, and viola was just a hobby. But the more I practiced, the better playing viola felt. Eventually I went to a summer camp and experienced playing in an orchestra for the first time, and I realized what passion felt like. I became a music nerd by the time I was a sophomore in high school, but more specifically, a <\/span>classical <\/span><\/i>music nerd. Classical music felt so special to me. I started listening to it all the time and dedicated hours upon hours of my week to practicing and various musical commitments. It became everything to me. And my experience at a classical music camp gave me a glimpse of what my life could be like if I pursued music full time. I loved it: the feeling of success from becoming a better player, the adrenaline that flooded my limbs during performances, and the friends that I made who inspired me artistically and showed me what real love in a friendship felt like. When I left camp, I wanted to commit to being a classical musician because it showed me how perfect my life could be. For the next three years, I put everything I had into becoming a good enough viola player to get into my top choice college: the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. <\/span>(Surprise, surprise, I got in\u2026 hence my writing a blog post for Arts at Michigan.) <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I am a junior now, still pursuing viola performance. Sometimes, I feel so immersed in music, that it doesn\u2019t feel like music to me anymore. It\u2019s analyzed, fragmented, repetitive, robotic. It\u2019s causing me anxiety when I work on anything else. I have spent almost eight years with this viola on my shoulder– my longest relationship. I love it because it has taken me everywhere that I have needed to go in my life. Without it I would not have met my closest friends and because of that, I would not be myself. I wouldn\u2019t be here, in Michigan. And maybe it\u2019s cheesy to say, but I feel connected to it. In my heart. How could I not? Eight years and thousands of hours. It is my part of my body and it is my voice. But I have done so much. It is so integral to my identity that I don\u2019t know who I am without it, and that\u2019s not necessarily a good thing. Lately, practicing has become more mundane and I constantly question myself about what I <\/span>really <\/span><\/i>want. <\/span><\/p>\n

I know classical music isn\u2019t my path anymore. I have to stick with this degree because the training is good and I care about being a good violist, but I also have to start challenging myself again. It\u2019s dangerous to pursue an art if you don\u2019t love it. And I know that deep down I love it, but it\u2019s been a really long time since I\u2019ve felt genuinely passionate about something. <\/span><\/p>\n

The truth is that my ideas about <\/span>what music is <\/span><\/i>are changing. Since I\u2019ve gotten to college, I have been more exposed to jazz, world music, roots music, and improvisation. Musical improvisation has been this big concept looming over my head as I question what it really means to be a musician. Improvisation requires you to make music in the moment, like a real-time composer. To be a good improviser is to have a musical mind, but what if I can\u2019t improvise? If I can only play what\u2019s printed on a piece of sheet music, do I have a musical mind? No, but I know I want to. Every musician wants to know music like that. If you know music like that, and you have the technical abilities to play whatever you want, your creative expression will be endless. And that\u2019s what I really want: to be able to fully, freely, creatively express myself in a musical way. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Photo by Julia Rose Lawson.\u00a0 I started playing violin when I was eight years old, and the Suzuki method of teaching guided my studies for about four years until I started playing the viola. I never saw myself becoming a musician; I was more interested in becoming a famous actress or singer, and viola was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1183,1188,683,1187,1184,1185,1182,1189,1186],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9658"}],"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\/2197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9658"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9662,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9658\/revisions\/9662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}