A Couple of Days in the Life of Jenny Smith
Written By: Izzy Swift
The below images are representative of what a normal weekday for Jenny looks like. These are from weeks that didn’t have concerts, performances, or major exams. Those weeks get even more intense and involve multiple all-nighters, high tempers, and lots and lots of energy drinks. This semester, Jenny not only balanced this enormous workload, but also had to fly across the country for live auditions and lessons for graduate school. Music classes are difficult to Zoom into (and rehearsals impossible), so when Jenny gets back from these engagements it becomes an endless game of catch up.
As you can see, there’s no time for self-care, healthy eating or sleeping patterns. Don’t even dream about hanging out with your friends between classes if you’re a music student because you’ll be in a practice room to try and avoid criticism from your peers and mentors. But no matter how much work you put into a piece, you’ll still get criticism because that’s how the music world works.
Below is the first page of a piece of music Jenny was learning in a week for her lesson. The entire piece is eleven pages long and lasts for about thirty minutes. In a typical week, Jenny not only has to learn this piece of music for a lesson, but multiple others and they all have to be performance ready by the time she shows her teacher. In addition to these pieces, Jenny needs to have all her other music for orchestra, quartets, quintets, and trios under her belt before rehearsals.
Looking at these images, one can see how demanding the life of a classical music student is. The love of the instrument and the gratification of winning an audition or competition keeps these students going, but the unhealthy expectations and schedule is one reason why musicians are so prone to developing mental illnesses.