husband travels for his work on a regular basis. I run my own private practice, and I try to manage the administrative tasks that go along with having four subcontractors. I could easily say the reason I need a break from music therapy is because I want to spend more time with my kids while they ' re so young. I could easily say I have a lot of trouble managing the daily tasks of running a household, even when my husband is home. I could easily say I need more time for self-care, and, if I were to find that time and establish a self-care regimen, whatever that may be, my anxiety would abate naturally. While all of these things are true, they are not the Truth. I need a break from the field, because I have been in a constant state of resistance. I am resisting and ignoring the fact that music and I have a relationship fostered by other people ' s expectations. I need to find music on my own terms before I can use it to help anyone else. I need to stop thinking of music as a means to judge, a platform on which correctness and aesthetic quality are raised, in my head, above expression and creativity.
I have, truthfully, never identified as a musician, because I ' ve always thought that to be a musician, one has to be adept at theory and songwriting, technique and musicianship. A musician has to meet a number of expectations that I could list. Yet, I don ' t have someone in mind who is this musician. I don ' t have a model. All I know is that I am not this person.
At one point in high school it was assumed I would go on to college and study voice. Although I played violin my whole life, I did that because I couldn’ t remember a time when I didn ' t. I was two years old when I started playing, and though Suzuki taught me many great things, it did not teach me to love the violin. However, I continued to play because I didn ' t know how to leave it behind, or even that it was an option to do so. I began singing in fifth grade and have a natural talent for it. I enjoyed singing through middle and high school and won leading roles in all the musicals in my high school. When I eventually went into college and majored in music, I remember having such conflict with regard to singing classical music. To this day I have trouble understanding the importance of singing other people ' s works in exactly the same way, over and over. I also struggled with this in violin. I remember asking myself why I had to play a specific grace note. I couldn ' t fathom the importance of playing something the same way time and time again, especially when it was not even my music. Of course I wonder if I simply wasn ' t working hard enough to make it my own.
I ' m in music because I don ' t know how no to be. I am in music because I grew up in music and because I became good at it at some point. I continued on with it because I never asked myself what I got from it, whether it fulfilled me. Was I satisfied and sated when I performed it or
listened to it or experienced it in some way. And now, here I am: on the precipice of divorcing music altogether.
I have burnt out. I have let my conversation with music become a soliloquy of " you should do this now " and " why don ' t you sing?" and " I should be gigging on the side, in addition to being a business owner, a mother, a wife..." The music I ' ve experienced in my life has always belonged, in some ways, to other people. To anyone and everyone. My parents. My peers in college, some of whom are now happily singing opera or are professional choral singers in New York City. The music I ' ve known has become a reflection of all the business owners out there who seem to be doing a much better job than I am. It ' s this unfair ideal I have held onto and have created. It has been a presence in my life since before I can remember, a family member I ' ve had passive-aggressive arguments with over the years but have never truly confronted. This music I have belongs to other people. I think it ' s time for me to find my own music, and to do that, I need to stop doing what I ' m doing. I need to quit music therapy, but not because I ' m not balancing my work life and home life, and not because I don ' t have the time or energy to learn a new strum pattern. I need to quit so that I can build within me my own music.
I see clients on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and when I see them, I ask them to check in with me on an instrument of their choosing. I ask them to share with me their voices, and I ask them to play out their experience of the day with me. I ask them to communicate with one another by vocalizing in a way that is probably pretty foreign to their caregivers and family, and likely pretty intimidating and vulnerable for them. I ask them to do all of this processing " in the music." I believe that the music I have brought to them might be the only space in which they can share a common language. Our music therapy sessions might be the only time in the day where they ' re invited to express and consider what emotions are. The music therapy sessions may be my clients ' time to experience their own feelings, not the ubiquitous happiness that seems to be prescribed to them. Now I need to ask myself those very important questions. Now I need to identify my own emotions and feelings surrounding music. I need to cultivate my truths and write my own music, build a relationship with it on my own terms. I need to decide what role music can take in my life. I need to make these decisions and these choices.
To do that, I need to spend time away from music therapy and music. I need to get out to someday get back in, hopefully with a genuine, authentic, lived appreciation of the power of music.
Have you struggled with your musical self? Share your experience: musictherapyclinician @ gmail. com / Facebook.
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