“Musicians often pay a high price for sharing their art with us. Underneath the glow of success can often lie loneliness and exhaustion, not to mention the basic struggles of paying the rent or ...buying food. Sally Anne Gross and George Musgrave raise important questions – and we need to listen to what the musicians have to tell us about their working conditions and their mental health.” Emma Warren (Music Journalist and Author). “Singing is crying for grown-ups. To create great songs or play them with meaning music's creators reach far into emotion and fragility seeking the communion we demand of it. However, music’s toll on musicians can leave deep scars. In this important book, Sally Anne Gross and George Musgrave investigate the relationship between the wellbeing music brings to society and the wellbeing of those who create. It’s a much needed reality check, deglamorising the romantic image of the tortured artist.” Crispin Hunt (Multi-Platinum Songwriter/Record Producer, Chair of the Ivors Academy). It is often assumed that creative people are prone to psychological instability, and that this explains apparent associations between cultural production and mental health problems. In their detailed study of recording and performing artists in the British music industry, Sally Anne Gross and George Musgrave turn this view on its head. By listening to how musicians understand and experience their working lives, this book proposes that whilst making music is therapeutic, making a career from music can be traumatic. The authors show how careers based on an all-consuming passion have become more insecure and devalued. Artistic merit and intimate, often painful, self-disclosures are the subject of unremitting scrutiny and data metrics. Personal relationships and social support networks are increasingly bound up with calculative transactions. Drawing on original empirical research and a wide-ranging survey of scholarship from across the social sciences, their findings will be provocative for future research on mental health, wellbeing and working conditions in the music industries and across the creative economy. Going beyond self-help strategies, they challenge the industry to make transformative structural change. Until then, the book provides an invaluable guide for anyone currently making their career in music, as well as those tasked with training and educating the next generation
A response is needed to the numerous issues spurred by the expansion of the gig economy, where flexible patterns of employment prevail in contrast to permanent jobs. In this context of the ...exponential growth of the digital economy and underlying business models the largest nationwide study of its kind into the impact of the working conditions in the UK music industry 'Can Music Make You Sick?' has been conducted by MusicTank/University of Westminster. This research suggests the need to consider the future of work not only from an economic or employment law perspective but from a mental health one too. What are the psychological implications of precarious work and how are factors such as financial instability, the feedback economy and personal relationships reflected in mental health outcomes or connected to the business relationships most musicians and other gig economy participants work under?
"A response is needed to the numerous issues spurred by the expansion of the gig economy, where flexible patterns of employment prevail in contrast to permanent jobs. In this context of the ...exponential growth of the digital economy and underlying business models the largest nationwide study of its kind into the impact of the working conditions in the UK music industry ‘Can Music Make You Sick?’ has been conducted by MusicTank/University of Westminster. This research suggests the need to consider the future of work not only from an economic or employment law perspective but from a mental health one too. What are the psychological implications of precarious work and how are factors such as financial instability, the feedback economy and personal relationships reflected in mental health outcomes or connected to the business relationships most musicians and other gig economy participants work under? Authors Sally-Anne Gross, George Musgrave and Laima Janciute consider which policy measures may help or harm gig economy workers including the taxation of self-employed workers, a universal basic income, education around mental health issues and access to mental health support."
People working in the music industry report significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than the general population, but to date, studies have not explored the differences between ...professional musicians and those who perform music primarily for recreation. In this study, 254 musicians from 13 countries completed measures of anxiety, depression, and wellbeing as well as answering questions about their professional status, level of success, and income. Across the whole sample, we found that over half had high levels of anxiety, and a third were experiencing depression. We showed that musicians who viewed music as their main career were more likely to have poor mental wellbeing and had significantly higher levels of clinical depression. Status as a solo or lead artist and perceived level of success also significantly predicted higher levels of anxiety and depression, and lower levels of positive wellbeing. We conclude that low mental wellbeing in musicians is the result of working as a professional musician, as opposed to being an inherent trait. Future work should explore underlying beliefs and perceptions of career musicians alongside other key factors, such as health behaviors and social support, with the aim of making specific recommendations to the music industries and educators.
Being a career musician is typified by high risk. Despite low earnings, many musicians pursue their careers driven by self-belief, high expectations, and optimism. However, failure to obtain the ...success many optimistically aspire to has been seen to pose psychosocial risks relating to mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression. While studies have shown dispositional optimism as having many health-related benefits, it has also been conceptualized negatively in encouraging a tendency toward loss-making in one key area: gambling. In this article, we develop the argument that the risks of professional music-making are analogous to gambling, and the optimism displayed by many aspiring career musicians may therefore represent a form of what Berlant calls cruel optimism, with negative effects on mental health and wellbeing. In doing so, we draw on Berlant’s theoretical position to examine the potentially harmful intersections between risk-taking behaviors and creative desire. Drawing also on our clinical experience, we consider when and how musicians who are emotionally struggling with their work might find it advantageous to reorient their careers, or even withdraw from the labor market altogether, to support their health and wellbeing, and the challenges around the loss of identity these can present.
"A response is needed to the numerous issues spurred by the expansion of the gig economy, where flexible patterns of employment prevail in contrast to permanent jobs. In this context of the ...exponential growth of the digital economy and underlying business models the largest nationwide study of its kind into the impact of the working conditions in the UK music industry ‘Can Music Make You Sick?’ has been conducted by MusicTank/University of Westminster. This research suggests the need to consider the future of work not only from an economic or employment law perspective but from a mental health one too. What are the psychological implications of precarious work and how are factors such as financial instability, the feedback economy and personal relationships reflected in mental health outcomes or connected to the business relationships most musicians and other gig economy participants work under? Authors Sally-Anne Gross, George Musgrave and Laima Janciute consider which policy measures may help or harm gig economy workers including the taxation of self-employed workers, a universal basic income, education around mental health issues and access to mental health support."
The gender debates sparked by #MeToo back in 2013 could not have predicted the widespread acknowledgement of structural racism and gender inequality in the music industries. In the midst of a global ...pandemic and the events that followed #BlackLivesMatter, this research hears directly from a specific ethnically diverse group of women music industry professionals, including members of the LGBTQ community. All of whom are alumni of the Music Business Management MA at the University of Westminster (UK), identify as feminist and are social media activists. This research is a continuation of the author's pioneering research into the relationship between music and mental health. It aims to contribute towards the growing body of research on working conditions within the music industry. It does so by considering the challenges of industry access as experienced by this specific sample and the challenges of providing pathways from a position as an intermediary between university and industry.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS Sally-Anne Gross; George Musgrave; Laima Janciute
Well-Being and Mental Health in the Gig Economy,
08/2018
Book Chapter
Odprti dostop
These findings suggest, more generally, that the Government should consider policies that disincentivise the spread of working arrangements that result in precarious working conditions. Such ...initiatives should be supplemented with revisions to work contracts which seek to avoid the granting of basic employment rights. These might be developed alongside new expanded contractual conditions that could, for example, include time spent working (hours), output of work and/or reflect a product or service’s value and income ultimately earned as a result – all along more equitable lines. This paper will explore the viability of a bolder policy suggestion – that of a
WHAT’S THE ISSUE? Sally-Anne Gross; George Musgrave; Laima Janciute
Well-Being and Mental Health in the Gig Economy,
08/2018
Book Chapter
Odprti dostop
The expansion of the so-called gig economy, where flexible patterns of employment prevail in contrast to permanent jobs, is causing numerous issues. The UK Government’s inquiry into Employment ...Practices in the Modern Economy is a much-needed initiative in response to this trend: the number of self-employed workers in Britain has increased by 1 million between 2008 and 2015³, while so-called ‘zero-hours contracts’ have also reached a record high⁴. The transformation in British labour relations and the departure from traditional forms of employment is part of a global trend that has emerged as a result of new technology-enabled business models. This
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