I’m dissatisfied. \u00a0Not super unhappy, not depressed, just dissatisfied. \u00a0With playing in an orchestra. \u00a0There. \u00a0I said it. \u00a0I’m not satisfied by playing in an orchestra at the moment. \u00a0Is this unusual for me? \u00a0A little. \u00a0I usually manage to find the silver lining of even the most yawn-inducing orchestral service. \u00a0But this season I’ve found it harder to cope. \u00a0My defenses seem to be down – my internal Scotty in engineering is yelling “I’m givin’ her all she’s got, I canna give ya anymore!”, and I’m having a hard time dealing with all of the usual minor annoyances that come at one in the average orchestral rehearsal. \u00a0I often get to this point once in a season, and it’s usually right around March, when the spring break is approaching like an oncoming garden snail, and everyone in the orchestra is just sick and tired of looking at each other anymore.<\/p>\n
I’m not sure why it has hit me so much earlier than in other seasons. \u00a0It could be that I’ve hit the age of mid-life crises for orchestral members – I’m starting my 15th season with the orchestra – and that could have something to do with it. \u00a0I haven’t taken a sabbatical in my tenure, even though I could have qualified for two of them so far, but I can’t afford to have no income for an entire season, and we aren’t allowed to take partial sabbaticals. \u00a0I’d probably be bored if I took a sabbatical anyway, and I wouldn’t be able to afford doing anything fun with one that would be interesting enough, unless it was working with another orchestra. \u00a0That would kind of defeat the whole notion of why one takes a sabbatical, at least for me.<\/p>\n
The orchestra is sounding great, so it’s not as though there is some artistic deficit that is causing me to feel ‘meh’ about the whole thing. \u00a0We’re even going to Carnegie Hall this May, and that is definitely an exciting prospect, but it’s too far away to get me all fired up just yet. \u00a0I have been doing a number of outside gigs that have taken a fair amount of time and energy, and those have been quite fun and interesting, so I can’t say that I’ve been entirely too busy. \u00a0But I still find myself on the ragged edge of burnout already.<\/p>\n
I know that there are a lot of people in the music business who read this blog, but who lurk and don’t comment or otherwise make themselves known to me. \u00a0Here’s your chance to offer some sage advice: what should I do to get myself out of these early Fall doldrums? \u00a0What has worked for you in the past? \u00a0Do you have the same sorts of issues in your orchestral life?<\/p>\n
I’d love to hear from you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m dissatisfied. \u00a0Not super unhappy, not depressed, just dissatisfied. \u00a0With playing in an orchestra. \u00a0There. \u00a0I said it. \u00a0I’m not satisfied by playing in an orchestra at the moment. \u00a0Is this unusual for me? \u00a0A little. \u00a0I usually manage to find the silver lining of even the most yawn-inducing orchestral service. \u00a0But this season I’ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[2434,2433,2435,55,2436],"class_list":["post-5565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-dissatisfaction","tag-doldrums","tag-job","tag-orchestra","tag-working"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-1rL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2943,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/08\/04\/unhappy-perhaps\/","url_meta":{"origin":5565,"position":0},"title":"unhappy? perhaps…","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Photo: dra_schwartz\/iStockphoto.com Violist Sam Bergman (of the Minnesota Orchestra and the Inside the Classics concerts\/blog) writes this week about the seemingly endless parade of studies that determine that orchestral musicians are a deeply unhappy lot: Every few years, someone does a study of orchestra musicians, and comes up with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "labor issues"","block_context":{"text":"labor issues","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/labor-issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Conductor getting angry","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/iStock_000002018724XSmall-400x265.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":75,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/09\/10\/orchestral-inheritance\/","url_meta":{"origin":5565,"position":1},"title":"orchestral inheritance","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I read the most recent issue of Senza Sordino (the journal of ICSOM or the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians) at work yesterday, just before our second of two Garrison Keillor concerts (great fun, and absolutely worth the money if he's coming to an orchestra near you soon\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/12\/04\/orchestral-citizenship\/","url_meta":{"origin":5565,"position":2},"title":"orchestral citizenship","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'd gotten a couple really good responses to the semi-rant that I posted a couple days ago, and one of them came back to having orchestra members coming out to the foyer after concerts (it's a practice that we instituted a few years back, but the number of players going\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3474,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/01\/composer-orchestra-as-albatross\/","url_meta":{"origin":5565,"position":3},"title":"composer: orchestra as albatross","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Frank J. Oteri writes at NewMusicBox that he is not certain of the future of the relationship between composers and the symphony orchestra: I just got back from a week in Minneapolis for the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute followed by a day of jury duty. My time in the Twin\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "composition"","block_context":{"text":"composition","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/composition\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":439,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/09\/20\/tenure-troubles-in-philly\/","url_meta":{"origin":5565,"position":4},"title":"tenure troubles in philly","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As I noted when Ellen DePaquale resigned in protest from the Cleveland Orchestra last year, when internal orchestral machinations make the media, you know that something major has gone on behind the scenes. Philadelphia Inquirer classical music critic Peter Dobrin writes in his blog about the grievance process filed by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2113,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/03\/11\/more-orchestral-cuts\/","url_meta":{"origin":5565,"position":5},"title":"more orchestral cuts","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a lot of belt-tightening going on with orchestras around the US. Pittsburgh Symphony Lays Off Nine Administrators - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Grand Rapids Symphony administration, senior staffs take pay cut to balance budget - Grand Rapids Press Notes of Distress and Discord from the Esteemed Philadelphia Orchestra - New York\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "fundraising"","block_context":{"text":"fundraising","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/fundraising\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}