“Music students: as the semester grinds on you may feel intensely burnt-out. You may even consider dropping out of music altogether. If that happens, go back and listen to your favorite recordings, make music with your friends, do anything you can to remind yourself why you loved music before you started studying it. An education in music can be a very good thing, but it can also squeeze the life out of any love you ever had for it. Don’t let it.”
Recently, I came across this quote by Eric Whitacre from his blog, via Facebook. The timing couldn’t have been better.
Lately, I’ve been exhausted and burned out on music. As of this semester, I’m officially a double major in Music Composition and Audio Engineering. At my school, there’s no overlap between the two degrees outside of the general education requirements. As far as I know, no one has ever successfully completed both programs, because they’re both so demanding. The only reason it’s not completely insane for me to attempt is because I transferred a lot of credits from community college.
But it’s still so much work.
If you’re going to be a music major, you can kiss goodbye all of your notions of having a “stereotypical” college experience. I don’t get to have a normal social life—mine revolves around required concerts and ensemble practices. I don’t get to know what it feels like to finish my homework—there’s always more practice to be had and more measures to be written in my compositions.
I literally do nothing but music all day long. It’s wonderful, but it’s also terrible sometimes—two hours of piano practice, one hour of organ practice, at least another hour (hopefully two or three) of composing, varying amounts of time rehearsing for ensembles, and then more time doing theory, ear training, and orchestration assignments. And then I have to work on recording projects, which takes up the rest of my day.
There are times when I legitimately start to hate all of it, because my life is completely scheduled, and I barely have any time to breathe. This week, after a particularly long day of practice, I even found myself lying in bed wondering, Why did I give up my teenage years to get here—to just be miserable? How can you write good music when you’re not enjoying what you’re doing? You can’t, which is why I’ve had such a hard time composing lately.
Sometimes, you need to step back and realize why you’re studying music in the first place.  Sometimes, when you’re burned out, you need to get out of the practice room and listen to some great music. Sometimes, you have to remember the dreams you had that gave you the courage to pursue a music career in the beginning. Sometimes, you just need to do something that has nothing to do with music so that you can come back to it refreshed. Don’t let the pursuit ruin the goal.
In the end, I have to remind myself that everything I’m doing and the sacrifices I’ve made are moving me on towards my objectives. The only reason to pursue a music career is because you cannot do anything else—when you try, music simply comes back to haunt you, leaving you without a choice.  For me, every time I feel like I can’t compose any more, I hear a new melody, and I have to give in and write it down. It often keeps me awake at night.
It’s clear to me that composing is what I was put on this earth to do, and this notion is what keeps me going through the drudgery of music school. It’s what lets me have confidence that I will get out of this dry spell and recover from the burnout…
As soon as I can leave the practice room for a few minutes.
So readers, what do you do to overcome musical burnout? How did you get through music school?