Tonic Rider Peer Support Group Supervisor, Adam Ficek, has published an academic study on the mental health of musicians.
‘It was great. I felt like I connected with an audience and I sometimes find that quite a difficult thing to do’. Professional popular musicians’ experiences of pride, insecurity and pressure in their musicking environment.
The experiences of seven popular musicians were explored through interviews, which resulted in three themes. These themes consisted of: pride and validation from successfully challenging their personal expectations; loss of self-confidence through musicking; pressures to not let people down.
This illustrated how the musicians experienced their musicking as a contradictory, fluctuating environment in terms of its impact on self-worth. Overall, the findings shed light on and develop the reductive polarisation of therapeutic versus destructive impact, where music-making is therapeutic, but pursuing a career in music is destructive.
The study is available to read and download for free via the International Journal of Music, Health and Wellbeing webpage.
