Burn Out
Burn Out
by Dave Latchaw
Trying not to burn out. This is a challenge for anyone who is obsessed with an activity that is mentally all-consuming. Music is that for me. We have all seen or been the musician who has burned out on playing, teaching or just about any aspect of music. Music is too important to get burned out on. Too much of any good thing can lead to burn out, and one needs to watch out for it and take the appropriate steps to avoid it.
If a musician is playing on autopilot, it’s a good sign that they are burned out. You can see this when one is playing Autumn Leaves or Old Time Rock and Roll for the millionth time and approaching it with the same non-intensity as putting kogs into the kog machine. One is surely burned out when autopilot is happening. It is not fair to the music and the people you are playing for when you are just going through the motions. Performing on autopilot just leads to crappy music. Playing music deserves more respect than that. When one is burned out it may be a sign to take a break from the musical situation causing it. You could possibly need to take a break from music all together to be able to adjust your attitude. It is important for the uninspired musician to take appropriate action to help get rid of their burn out. Finding new musical endeavors that can rekindle your spark of inspiration for music is absolutely necessary. The process may be different from person to person and whatever it may take to have you keep your own personal music drive is up to you to figure out. When you are inspired it might help jump start the other players you are working with to a level of engagement that can make a routine gig fun for everyone. Inspiration can be contagious on the band stand, teaching and so on.
It is hard not to burn out when music is the way you make your living. One needs to make a living. Usually a musician that depends on music for a living will have several musical activities going on at the same time. This is to help make the financial ends meet. Because the full time musician needs to thinks of themselves as a business it leads to a variety of sources of income. As with any good business diversity is important. Having a variety of music jobs might make ones music activities easy to deal with for some period of time. Even then, doing a variety of the same things for a great length of time can create a situation that becomes mundane and mind numbing. It is even harder for those that playing, teaching or engineering is their only musical outlet. For both groups of people things may be cool for awhile but the probability of burn out is high. It is hard sometimes to recognize personal burn out sometimes because anyone with a gig should feel lucky to have it. If steak and potatoes was your favorite meal and you ate it every day you would eventually get tired of it.
Mixing things up between your musical work and your own creative interest will help keep things fresh for the musician and help in avoiding burn out. Your creative efforts may not make you any money but they can help with conquering that burned out vibe towards music, which is valuable just in it self. Outlets for your creative efforts which ignites that spark of inspiration about music is amazingly important. When you have projects that inspire you because they are new and exciting it becomes easier to deal with the jobbing side of your musical work. The routine of the jobbing gig can be easier to deal with just knowing that you also have your creative efforts going on. If you are into composing start your own record label, build your own website, start your own internet radio station can be just some ideas of a fun and viable ways of presenting your musical interest. The worse thing that could happen is that you might start making some money from your creative pursuits and have less time to do your jobbing activities.
Learning to say no is hard is also important in helping avoid burnout. When starting out in the music bizz you say yes to every type of gig that comes in. It is part of the conditioning that comes from struggling to become financially sufficient with music. When one starts getting more established it is hard to cross the bridge of saying no to musical situations. Learning to say no to the dodgy gig that has you on the road for more hours more than the gig and does not pay enough to cover your time and gas money has to stop at some point. If you can do it and dig it, cool for you, but there are people that have done that kind work for years and will say yes to that and hate the whole thing. Let some one else play that gig. A downer attitude just makes the musical vibe a drag. Just say “No” to any gig that you can’t have a cool attitude about. It is not worth it. It will eventually do your head in.
One has to look inward and work at creating a musical situation for a high level of personal inspiration and satisfaction which aids from getting burned out. It may take time to get where your ideal music situation may be. But, if you have something to shoot for it can make the time you spend on your jobbing side of music easier to deal with. Set goals, work hard and just say no to being burned out.
