Journalism Program

Mental Health in Classical Music

Izzy Swift 0:00

When you think of classical music, you might think of something like this [intro to Beethoven's 5th Symphony plays], this [intro to Flight of the Bumblebee plays], or even this [The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night Aria plays]. Something pretty extravagant, and probably something you wouldn't want playing at the gym when you're working out. But what if I were to tell you classical music might sound more like this [conductor yells in Italian], this ["Now answer my question: Were you rushing? Or were you dragging? ANSWER!"], or even this [man yells during orchestra performance], behind the scenes. Classical music isn't all Mozart and Beethoven. It's hours of grueling work, playing while injured and trying to navigate a world full of strong and competitive personalities. For those with classical music as a hobby, it can be fun and stress relieving, but people seem to be unaware of the challenges professional musicians face, specifically regarding mental health. So I'm going to dive into these challenges to show non-musicians what really goes on when the concert is over [ending of In the Hall of the Mountain King plays].

Jenny Smith 1:35

I'm a senior undergraduate at the University of Miami,

Izzy Swift 1:40

That voice you're hearing is one of my best friends from high school, Jenny Smith.

Jenny Smith 1:45

Studying Viola performance with a double major in Violin performance as well. And I'm going to grad school for performance.

Izzy Swift 1:55

[Record scratch] Now, hold on a second. Before we get into Jenny's story, we need to break down orchestral instruments. Most of you may be familiar with what a violin is. It's a stringed instrument that is held on a player’s shoulders and will make sound when they move the bow across its strings. It sounds like this: [violin plays]. Violas might sound a bit more unfamiliar, though. Basically, violas are larger than violins and can play lower notes. They sound like this: [viola plays]. But there's another cool thing about the viola:

Jenny Smith 2:32

So, the viola is the closest instrument to like the human voice. So, I kind of think about it as like kind of speaking like a dialogue. A dialogue going on between whoever I'm playing with, or maybe the piano, or if I'm solo, then what am I wanting to say to the audience.

Izzy Swift 2:47

Right.

Jenny Smith 2:47

And like convey to them like what do I want them to feel?

Izzy Swift 2:51

Now, let's get back to Jenny's story. Jenny started playing the violin for fun when she was five. It wasn't until middle school until she began to treat music more seriously, which is where we met. At the time I played the flute, which sounds like this [flute plays]. And we had tons of fun playing and competing together. Even though I wasn't at the same level as Jenny musically, I had my fair share of strict conductors who demanded I'd be at rehearsals on birthdays, exam days, and days where I had other performances in the afternoon. The only time I was allowed to miss was when I had the stomach flu and physically couldn't play without throwing up. But enough about me. The shift for Jenny from music as a fun hobby to a profession came in high school when she switched to playing the viola

Jenny Smith 3:35

The stress started to build once I realized hey, like this is this is what I want to do, and go to college for so once I started preparing for undergrad auditions, which are very different from just regular college applications, where you have to play live, auditions and learn a lot of repertoire which took hours and hours on top of other high school things.

Izzy Swift 3:58

And the stress didn't stop growing once she was admitted to the University of Miami's Frost School of Music. As Jenny had more added to her plate, it seemed like the support resources she had dwindled.

Izzy Swift 4:09

Who would you go to for support?

Jenny Smith 4:12

Um, there are not--there are no people who are like specialized in working with musicians.

Izzy Swift 4:19

When Jenny says there are no people who are specialized in working with musicians she means specifically at her school. There are entire organizations dedicated to training and advocating for health care tailored towards the performing arts, like the Performing Arts Medicine Association, and Sound Mind.

SoundMind Podcast 4:35

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the sound mind podcast where our mission is to end the stigma surrounding mental health in the classical music world by starting a conversation.

Izzy Swift 4:43

Which brings us to our second voice in this story.

Alexandria Hoffman 4:46

My name is Alexandria Hoffman. I am a co-founder and executive director of Sound Mind and a flute Fellow at the New World Symphony.

Izzy Swift 4:55

I sat down with Alex to not only learn more about Sound Mind but also about her personal journey and experiences as a professional musician.

Alexandria Hoffman 5:04

I co-founded Sound Mind in 2019 with two other people as part of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and their independent project grants. Me and my co-founders bonded a lot over shared experiences in classical music that revolved around mental health struggles. And we saw this really big void in mental health support in our field in particular, and we felt it was crucial that a discussion needed to happen.

Izzy Swift 5:32

Sound Mind hosts bi-weekly podcasts, monthly virtual gatherings, a blog showcasing the personal stories of those in the music community, and an annual panel featuring professionals from both the classical music world and mental health communities. These are the types of resources students today would find invaluable, but their universities make little to no effort in providing which is a huge problem.

Jenny Smith 5:54

Like almost every person, like every musician that I've gotten close to and or, like gotten to know does have problems with like burnout and like mental illness, anxiety, depression, and all that stuff. Like every single person that I know, my roommate, my friends, like, there's not one person who I could think of who doesn't struggle with that, which is interesting. There's like a higher correlation of mental illness honestly, amongst like classical musicians, just because it's such an isolating profession, like you can't, it's not always--like the fun parts are working in orchestra or working in chamber music, getting to bring like fun music together. But like being able to, like reach that point of being good enough to show up to those things requires like hours and hours and days of like practicing by yourself in a room, which is very isolating.

Izzy Swift 6:44

And this isn't just a University of Miami problem. Musicians and schools around the world either feel similarly or have personal experience with this issue. Here's Alex's experience and journey with mental health throughout her college years:

Alexandria Hoffman 6:57

I started going to therapy in college, I was under like a lot of stress, actually, to the point where a couple friends of mine actually said very directly to me, we kind of don't know how to deal with you when you're this stressed. I later learned that that stress was actually you know, an anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder and clinical depression. But I didn't learn that until much later. But in my junior year of college, I was actually hospitalized for suicidal ideation. I went through a really bad breakup that kind of made me completely spiral. And once I hit that kind of breaking point, I knew that something needed to change. And so I've kind of spent the last decade or so in therapy, different kinds of therapy, individual and group therapy, experimenting with different medications and really learning a lot.

Izzy Swift 7:45

[Intro to Danse Macabre plays] The isolation Jenny talks about isn't just a self-imposed practice strategy. It's a phenomenon experienced by musicians across the world. A study conducted by Dianna Kenny and her team surveyed full time professional musicians playing in Australian symphonic and pit orchestras. Her findings revealed that 33% of these professional musicians may meet criteria for a social phobia diagnosis. Another problem is that music students are usually physically separated from other schools on campus, which may hinder them from socializing with non-musicians or prevent them from escaping the competitive nature of music school. Besides social phobias, there's a higher correlation between mental illness and professional musicians. A study conducted by Jolan Kegelaers in the Psychology of Music Journal found that 61.1% of the music students she surveyed in the Netherlands had symptoms of depression or anxiety. These findings support other studies that confirm there's a higher prevalence of mental illness in musicians, as the percentage of the general population with similar symptoms only ranges between 10 to 20%. That means music students may be six times more likely to develop a mental illness compared to the general population. Studies have yet to pinpoint a concrete reason why the chances of music students developing depression or anxiety are so high, but Alex has great insight into why we might see such a high prevalence of mental health conditions in this industry.

Alexandria Hoffman 9:16

One of the things we talk about in our workshops at Sound Mind are the overlapping risk factors for developing a mental health condition and then just the life of being a classical musician. So some of the risk factors for developing a mental health condition are things like stressful life situations, particularly financial, low self-esteem, self-esteem or perceived incompetence, poor nutrition or lack of sleep and with that use of alcohol or drugs, a lack of access to support services and perception of insignificance. And as musicians we deal with a lot of things like isolation, constant criticism, the use of alcohol and drugs as coping mechanisms and, like we talked about, you know, being told that you have to be the best in order to get a job. So there are lots of really problematic overlaps here. Because there's this sense of, as musicians that our work is never done, right, that there's always going to be somebody practicing more than you, working harder than you. And because of this, we're so afraid, especially like financially, again, going back to these risk factors. Because if we don't win a job, we have no income. Because we're so scared and because, you know, you need to make a living you have to survive. Um, we push ourselves to like our absolute physical and mental limits, and then that leads to burnout, and then that can lead to injury. And then we beat ourselves up about it, the whole thing, and it's this vicious, horrible cycle that I just really hope that someday we we break or at least develop better coping skills to deal with all of it.

Izzy Swift 10:56

I'm going to zero in on two reasons why classical music might overlap so much with these risk factors, the culture and the faculty. To explain the culture of classical music. I'm bringing in two new voices to the story. Brett Yang and Eddie Chen. Brett and Eddy are professional musicians who started a YouTube channel in 2013 called TwoSetViolin.

Eddy Chen 11:17

Yo, what's up welcome back to another episode of--

Brett Yang 11:20

TwoSetViolin!

Izzy Swift 11:21

They poke fun at the world of classical music through their comedic videos, and have gained over 3 million subscribers and 1 billion, yes billion with a B, views on YouTube. Since they've started their channel, they've gone on world tours and have been listed by Kyle MacDonald on classic FM as one of the 10 ways the 2010s changed classical music forever. Here's a clip of Eddy from their "Opening Up About Our Mental Health" video:

Eddy Chen 11:46

Unlike a lot of other musical genres, classical music has, I mean, it's a pro and it's a con, like it depends how you see it right. But we have such a kind of, a standard for perfection, and a standard for like respecting tradition. Personally, I do think there is something value in that. But at the same time, we're kind of caught up in this, especially in university. There's this kind of like mindset of like, everything has to be so perfect like, oh that note was out of tune, like audition is over. I think it's very easy to get caught into this world where it's like perfection, and then like cutthroat competitions. And we all know like music is not about competition. But if you're studying classical music in a university environment, it kind of does feel like oh, you want to actually make a legit career and be able to sustain yourself, then you better win this insane international competition, competing against these crazy prodigies and practice forty hours a day or whatever right. 

Izzy Swift 12:53

It feels almost impossible to escape this culture of perfection since there can be so many students competing for a single spot in an orchestra or competition. Even if you take away the literal competitions, the need to be perfect can still be ingrained in music students by their professors and private teachers. And the professor you have is crucial for your experience in music school.

Alexandria Hoffman 13:14

We are, you know, we work one on one with our private teacher all four years of undergrad, two years of masters. And that relationship is so critically important for our career. And I essentially like listened to every single thing that my teacher told me in undergrad, and him and I have a great relationship, and it's a good thing that he had a relatively healthy outlook on these things, encouraging, you know, rest one day a week, taking time off in the summer, because if he hadn't taught me that it's not necessarily something I would have ever considered or thought about. So it definitely has to occur at all levels and, you know, be reinforced throughout your education. And then also once you get that professional job, in a professional orchestra,

Izzy Swift 14:01

But not everyone is lucky enough to have a supportive private teacher.

Jenny Smith 14:05

Teachers are not very forgiving, How the mindset is, how it works is you know, you show up to your lesson prepared with the music ready to go. Like it doesn't matter what your mindset is, it's just get the work done. And that's just it. Like it doesn't really matter to them. As long as you have the products ready to go. As an example, Can I give an example?

Izzy Swift 14:28

Yeah, of course.

Jenny Smith 14:29

During college, so my my mom got like a very serious like illness and had to get surgery and all this stuff. And I told her, Hey, like this is going on in my family right now. I might have to like be in the hospital and like deal with all this stuff. And she actually made the comment of maybe this will be good for you, because you'll be able to like focus more on working. You'll be able to like put your head more into the game more. That's like getting your work done, which was like her first comment after I told her that so that's just an example. I think there's a lack of connection, between like the music world and like how the real world works.

Izzy Swift 15:04

And if a musician can't meet the sometimes impossible standards set for them, the repercussions will reinforce negative thoughts about how they're not good enough, imposter syndrome, and may even lead to public humiliation.

Izzy Swift 15:15

Have you ever failed to be up to the bar that your teacher set for you? And what happens in those cases?

Jenny Smith 15:21

Um, one example I can think of was two years ago, I was at a summer festival or summer um, yeah, like a summer festival that my teacher was running. And I was playing in a quartet, I was playing viola in a string quartet. And I was balancing that and, we essentially had to get like three or four, like ,major, like, chamber works ready in the span of, like, a week, with rehearsing, like, constantly. I didn't, I was physically just like, and mentally, just not doing well, like trying to balance all these performances and like, basically not even having time to eat food and just rehearsing all the time. Anyway, I showed up to a coaching and you know, my part was mostly learned, it wasn't completely up to the standard that I would have liked, or that she would have liked. But um yeah, so my quartet played through this movement. And, like, right away, my teacher was like, just like, targeted me and was like, Oh, these people were like playing their hearts out. And you're just like, sitting there, like a piece of wood [laughs]. Like, what are you doing? And she just started getting very, like very sarcastic with me. And I just like, the rest of the people just got like, really quiet. There were two other professors there. And she was saying things like, can you like pick up your pencil and write this in your part? But then she was like, Oh, are you even like capable of doing that? And she was like, cursing saying things like, like, I don't know what's wrong with you. I can't believe this, like Jesus Christ. Like, she started just like yelling and like one of the other teachers had to like, kind of restrain her, not--not restrain her, but just tell her to like, calm down. And they were like, Oh, it's okay. Like, I'd be scared too like, don't worry. And then, like after the whole ordeal, like it was at the point where I was just like, staring at the music on the stand just completely just like, zoned out. And she was just like yelling, and I just wasn't even like processing what was going on. I was just like, sitting there. While she was just being super sarcastic. And I was just like, get me out of here. One of the other, one of the other professors like later that day, like came up to me and was like, Oh, are you okay? And they were like apologizing on another person's behalf. And they were telling me I need to like stick up for myself more. But it's like very hard to stick up for yourself when the other person's in like an authority like an authoritative position. So it's not like dealing with a fellow like colleague or student is acting out towards me. It's like, how do you stick up for yourself, in a sense, when the person's in like a position of power like your professor, your teacher, you know, 

Izzy Swift 17:43

Yeah.

Izzy Swift 17:44

As horrible as that experience sounds, it might not even be intentional.

Alexandria Hoffman 17:48

There are teachers that really do inflict lots of trauma onto their students unknowingly. Because, again, it's learned. It's learned behavior, right? If we teach our students that they have to practice eight hours a day to be successful, and it might work for them, "work for them", then what are they going to teach their students, they're going to teach their students the same thing. And that kind of goes back to all of this, like undoing and untangling of all, and breaking cycles. And, you know, people talk a lot now about breaking generational trauma. And, you know, I think classical music, classical musicians are now, I think, are trying to do a bit of that. 

Izzy Swift 18:32

Even if this verbal abuse isn't intentional, how can a student protect themselves from these mentors?

Izzy Swift 18:39

Like what would happen if you were to go to like, I don't know, the dean of the music school or something and put forth complaints about kind of these situations,

Jenny Smith 18:47

It's just, the music world is so small that if I were to like burn a bridge with her, I would be like, lowering my prospects of like, job opportunities and like connections elsewhere, because for example, the person that I'm going to study with in grad school is like great friends with her, like, everybody knows everybody. So if I were to like burn a bridge with her, I would be burning a bridge, or like a bunch of connections I could possibly have in my future you know. So, I just wouldn't be willing to do that. Obviously, if it were, like worse, like physical harm.

Izzy Swift 19:17

Yeah.

Jenny Smith 19:17

Like, like worse, worse than I would obviously say something. But I think now it's just yeah, not worth.

Izzy Swift 19:23

Yeah, so basically, you almost have to choose between yourself and your future, almost, like your present self. Since everyone's so well connected, you can't really risk saying anything almost.

Jenny Smith 19:34

Yeah, pretty much.

Izzy Swift 19:36

So when faced with all of these odds and stress, how does a musician continue to pick up their instrument without breaking or dropping out?

Alexandria Hoffman 19:43

I think a lot of musicians and, speaking for myself, our signs to keep going are just stringing together those successes that tell us, oh just keep going. And that's what we hold on to sometimes But at the end of the day, we still, we do love it. I mean, we wouldn't be, you know, giving all of ourselves to this, if we didn't, if there wasn't a part of us that loved it.

Izzy Swift 20:11

Here's how Jenny manages,

Jenny Smith 20:13

I think, as far as, in order to, like, practice and be productive, I guess this applies to, like, any area of life, but to have like, motivation, obviously, but there's, you know, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, where, you know, are you personally like, motivated? Like, do I want to do this for myself? Or is it like extrinsic motivation, where you have like outside pressure and resources making you do it. So in order to work, you need to, you need to be motivated. But when you add stress and like pressure, it's very hard to feel that motivation. So we're essentially having to, like work and create the best possible product off of like zero, like, unstressful motivation, where it's just like muscle memory, and just like hammering out the product to be good enough. No, like enjoyment or anything. It's just like, it's funny, when you think about music, you think like, Oh, that's fun.

Izzy Swift 21:02

Yeah.

Jenny Smith 21:03

That's so passionate, like,

Izzy Swift 21:05

Exactly.

Jenny Smith 21:06

You're having such a great time on stage, where you see the people moving and like looking like, every time but all of that is mostly and I mean, this is just some of the time this isn't all the, all the time. But at least when things are, when things are bad, it's like everything is just like, choreographed. Like, down to like, every like movement, basically. And just like, it's just muscle memory, when it's bad, when things are going not well, you know, it's just like, How can I like, stay up as late as possible and just get this. It's just like any other like motor skill, like any other sport or anything, it's just like small muscle sport, I guess. It's just like working through, working hard through also not being motivated is hard.

Izzy Swift 21:46

Yeah. So what do you find to motivate you, then? Is it just like, get through it? Or do you end up finding some form of motivation?

Jenny Smith 21:55

That is something that I'm working on, like myself. Recently, I did struggle a lot this year, because with auditions for grad school. For grad school auditions or any audition, it's it needs to be like technically claiming, I mean they always say, Oh, it doesn't have to be perfect, and they're looking for someone to work with, but that's not like we're looking for like technical basically, basically, whoever plays with the least amount of error A, and also the most passionately and musically gets wins. So I was in this mindset of, I need to play like, Absolutely, like flawlessly, basically. Which just requires hours and days and hours and days, and more hours [laughs] of getting it there.

Izzy Swift 22:39

Even though it may lead to quick results. This is the exact mindset that can lead to burnout. And it's not the type of burnout that can be solved with a wellness day or by taking a week break. Burnout in the music industry can be career ending.

Izzy Swift 22:52

Here's another clip from the TwoSet "Opening Up About Our Mental Health" video.: 

Eddy Chen 22:56

It's not that working hard equals stress and burnout. But it's more like where it's coming from.

Brett Yang 23:02

Yes.

Eddy Chen 23:03

And if it's coming from the wrong place, you're not good enough, I need to be better. Yes, it'll make you temporarily work harder. But it's almost like there's a price to pay

Brett Yang 23:13

Yes.

Eddy Chen 23:13

For not dealing with these internal issues.

Brett Yang 23:16

Yeah, the outcome is generally not good.

Eddy Chen 23:18

Yeah,

Brett Yang 23:18

actually. 

Eddy Chen 23:19

I've been there. I mentioned it briefly, I was so stressed and burnt out that I eventually had to stop playing violin for about eight months, it was probably the most difficult time of my life. But not just that, like the number of musicians, the ones that I know about is already so many. I can't imagine how many of them I didn't know about as well, that burnt out. I personally have a good friend of mine that she used to practice so much. And don't get me wrong, practicing is good. But it was like this kind of stressed obsessive kind of mindset. It was really sad, because she eventually burnt out in the last year of uni. And she was unable to touch her instrument without breaking down into tears. It is so sad that like as musicians that we love, what we do, in some cases, our careers actually end because of these burnouts.

Brett Yang 24:12

And actually, yeah, and I, there's this person I know, I knew, also just disappeared and stop playing violin. Extreme talent, did everything, all of a sudden just stopped. And that I remember as like a kid when I was like 13, 14, or 15 I can't remember, it was like a mystery to me. It's just not talked about.

Izzy Swift 24:31

There is no published information available regarding the number of professional musicians or students who burn out and end up quitting their instrument altogether. Which reveals one of the largest problems that classical musicians face: the stigma surrounding mental health. Because of the perfection that is expected of musicians and symphonies and orchestras around the country, and the world, there is little institutional support for mental health. According to the League of American Orchestras, "administrators, musicians and board members are encouraged to educate themselves on how to de stigmatize the issue". But leaving it up to individuals causes little to no change for the industry as a whole. But again, that's not to say support doesn't exist. Symphonies like New World offer free subscriptions to Better Help, an online counseling and therapy service, host wellness talks and have an entire wellness budget for the Fellows they employ. But these resources only appeared after one of their own committed suicide. Classical music is becoming more and more popular as a therapy for those with dementia or other cognitive illnesses. A study conducted by Jenny van der Steen and her team in 2018 found classical music therapy was able to reduce depression and behavioral symptoms in people with dementia, while global cognition seemed to improve, and Laura Fusar-Poli's study from 2017. The benefits of classical music continue to be lauded and researched. But the mental health of those producing the music continues to be ignored. So what's the solution? Like the stigma that surrounds mental health in our general society, there's no quick and easy fix to this problem. No one can snap their fingers and make every orchestra or musical school help their members equip themselves to face the mental challenges they will undoubtedly face in a music career. But having conversations like the one we're having now is where to start. If we share our stories and speak about mental health, like it isn't some taboo topic, because it certainly isn't, we can normalize invaluable support tools like therapy and taking breaks from our work to prioritize ourselves. 

Izzy Swift 26:27

Do you have hope for the future with like, our generation, and then like, upcoming generations that things will change, or do you see kind of the same things being perpetuated?

Alexandria Hoffman 26:38

I have hope, because Sound Mind exists. And people, younger folks, I think, you know, because our generation, your generation, my generation is just more conscious of mental and physical welleing in general, like, so many people, our age are in therapy, and it's not. And we talk about it, like, it's not a big deal. Like, I know my friends' therapists names, you know, it's like, it's very casual conversation. But you bring that up with maybe somebody in an older generation, and they're like, oh, that's, that's like, why are you talking about that. And it feels like icky to them. But I think we are breaking a lot of cycles. I think that because we've normalized it a lot more for our own generation, we're definitely going to normalize it if any of us, you know, have students or children or just younger people that we interact with, we'll definitely pass this on to them. I think, I think they're going to be in much better hands, not to say that we weren't in good hands. But there are just lots of things that, that our, the generation above us changed, and we're also going to be changing as well. 

Izzy Swift 27:45

So hopefully in the near future, we can get classical music to sound a little less like this [conductor screaming in Italian] and a lot more like this [end of Beethoven's 5th Symphony with applause].

Izzy Swift 28:04

[underscored by Café 1930] Thank you to Jenny Smith and Alexandria Hoffman for sitting down with me to talk about their experiences and insight into mental health in the classical music world. Source material for this audio story includes TwoSetViolin's "Opening Up About Our Mental Health Video" from February 28, 2021. The sources for the montage of orchestral clips you've heard throughout the video are the following in order of when the clips appear: the West-Eastern Divan orchestra, James Galway, the Royal Opera House, Steve Metcalf, Whiplash, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Seattle Symphony and the National Philharmonic Orchestra. The clip you're hearing right now is Café 1930, performed by Alexandra Whittingham, and Esther Abrami. Be sure to check out Sound Mind at soundmindmusician.org And to listen to their bi-weekly podcast, which can be found on Spotify and Apple Music [music continues to play].