Success Beyond The Score

An unfortunate old belief about the arts, including music, is that it's not worth it to start pursuing them as an adult. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's never too late to learn how to paint, sculpt, or play an instrument, and doing so brings countless benefits at all levels.

For example, music is a scientifically proven booster of memory and neural connections. Here's a helpful and concise explanation of how it works by Dr. Lewis Clarke:

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lewis Clarke (@drlewisclarke)

It's helpful to be aware of this when working with adults in music education, or as part of your own journey through aging. It surely keeps motivation up! If you have personally identified benefits that music gives you as an adult musician, tell us about it.

Everything in life entails a risk, even not doing anything at all. Assessing and managing risks is part of life, but it becomes critical in professions that involve large numbers of people, like live music.

Despite what some might think, working in music can be quite physically demanding. As a gigging musician, I have to travel to the venues where I’ll perform, often carrying my instrument and PA system with me. I bend, lift, shift and go up and down to set up my equipment. I move around the stage (sometimes off it and through the crowd, even) while performing. As a saxophonist, I really put my lungs to work every time I play, and I can’t run out of breath mid-concert!

Now, our bodies go through important changes during menopause that can have a huge impact on our energy levels and physical endurance. Menopausal people might experience changes in bone density, heart health, weight, body shape and mobility. This can affect our ability to keep working, so it’s important to exercise consciously and regularly in order to counter menopausal symptoms.

To be transparent, I didn’t struggle that much keeping up with physical activity prior to joining the SMART Rewind Metabolic Health 12 Week Pro...

Creative endeavours are, at the same time, energising and draining. Gigging musicians thrive on stage, but once they get off, they are hit with the exhaustion of having given their all to their audience, their clients and their craft. If, on top of performing, they are in charge of logistics, finances and/or organisation, as it was the case for the women who put together the Time For My Music's evening showcase last October, this fatigue gets dialled up to eleven.

If you plan to become a professional gigging musician, it's essential that you come up with mechanisms to rejuvenate after shows. There's only so much your body and mind can endure with no support, and if you force yourself to move forward despite signs of alarm like pain, sleep issues, and anxiety, you're going to burn out.

On one hand, there's the physical side of things: take care of your health and cultivate your endurance with an appropriate diet, physical activity and good sleep. Allot time specifically to rest, both ...

Nowadays, the making of both woodwind and brass instruments is considered an endangered craft by the Heritage Crafts Association. If something goes wrong with your instrument, there are very few places where you can take it in order to get it back on track. When Millicent's trusted sax repairer retired seven years ago, she was faced with the gravity of this problem, struggling so much to find a reliable replacement that she decided to learn how to do it herself. She signed up for a sax repair and maintenance workshop offered by Cambridge Woodwind Makers, which was extremely useful and gave her a new perspective. She talked at length about her experience in this blog entry, and also on her YouTube channel.

While she eventually found a new trusted sax repairer, Millicent didn't completely leave this knowledge aside. As a busy gigging musician, she doesn't always have the chance to take her saxophones to the shop if something breaks, and knowing how to do quick fixes can be a lifesaver w...

One of the most essential strengths a gigging musician must have is adaptability. Every gig comes with a new set of conditions: from the dimensions and design of the stage, to the size and position of the audience, to the PA system and the staff in charge of it.

Let's make an example out of the latter: for a certain gig some time ago, Millicent asked about the technical set up—as she always does—but a little later than usual. She got a reply through WhatsApp many hours later, and had to continue the conversation the next day. It became evident that the person answering to her wasn't tech-savvy, but rather followed instructions by the tech people at their organisation, which made the process slow. Thinking that this could cause problems down the line, Millicent decided to take her own PA system equipment to the venue, just in case.

When the day of the gig came, the sax mic didn't work, and there was no one among the staff who knew what to do. On top of that, Millicent had sent her bac...

As a musician, I work funny hours, and I don’t like eating right before performing. This means that, some days, I’ll eat in the morning and not at all in the afternoon, to then be famished in the evening and gobble as much as I possibly can. Or maybe I’ll have a hasty lunch and not eat again until after an evening gig, late at night, which as we all know, isn’t good for the midriff at all. I’d frequently eat whatever was at hand, too, without putting much thought into it.

Generally speaking, I’ve always known that such lack of consistency is detrimental to my health, but I kind of put my concerns aside in favour of getting things done, trusting that my body would somehow keep up—which it did, for many years. I’m sure many of you can relate.

But alas, there’s a limit to everything. As I mentioned in the previous article, I got diagnosed as pre-diabetic on December 2023. What does this mean, exactly, and why does it have so much to do with nutrition?

Pre-diabetes

You’re pre-diabetic ...

Xdinary Heroes is an accomplished K-Pop band with a prolific and entertaining YouTube channel. Through their short videos, they share glimpses of their life as a band, make comedy skits and show appreciation for their fans.

One of these shorts, which you can watch by clicking this link, pokes fun at the different ways people can react to a bandmate's mistake during group practise. From the one who assures that it's alright while cursing inwards, to the one who's so focused on their own thing that they don't notice something went wrong, their skit gives a humorous twist to something that, unfortunately, can snowball into big issues in real life.

Mistakes are bound to happen because we are human. There's no way to completely prevent them, so there's no point in holding yourself or your bandmates to impossible standards. If someone's skill level isn't enough to flawlessly perform a piece, or it is, but their focus slips for whatever reason and there's a mistake, that doesn't mean that t...