Dealing with (creative) burnout

Note: all of these are taken from my experiences, and may not wholly apply to your situation.

Introduction

Creative burnout is something that, unfortunately, is really, really hard to avoid. And yet, creative types (especially composers and creators) have to power through these situations in order to obtain results. These often, in one way or another, result in us being weighted with more guilt & stress that, if left unchecked, could wreck our wellbeing beyond recovery.

Stress is never fun, especially when crushed under a creative deadline!

So how could we keep them in check?

Before I try to answer that, I would like to offer some backstory…

Feel free to jump ahead using the Table of Contents!

A little backstory…

In May 2022, I was asked to write a new piece for Elysium Consort, a subdivision (well, choir) of Elysium Music (ie Orchestra). Specifically, they wanted a new piece of Jewish music for our Gala Concert. (More on this piece later…)

We fear nothing but fear itself…

This posed a few problems:

• How do I write music that does not culturally appropriate Jewish music?
• What makes a piece Jewish? Is it the music or the poetry/words?
• How do I write the piece?

The first two fears have been quickly alleviated:

• I quickly realised that one of my favorite composers ever, Christopher Tin, wrote song cycles that incorporate words from multiple languages, including “Waloyo Yamoni”. The piece, with text set to a Lango rain-making litany, distinctively sounds European with hints of Ugandan music. Additionally, conversations with a few music friends pointed out that “Jewish” music does not have a distinctive, set-in-stone sound/timbre.
• Since I am definitely not Jewish, I am unable to write Jewish music by heritage alone. However, once again I recall that Whitacre wrote “5 Hebrew Love Songs”. As far as I know, Whitacre is not Jewish (he wrote it for the soprano Hila Plitmann) - arguably both composers have credence to their name, nonetheless my lack of Jewish heritage or connection should not deter me from writing the piece.

… and the elephant in the room

The last point is, obviously, the biggest hurdle. How do I get writing? The very first thing I did was look for the right poem, and came across Emma Lazarus’s poem “Venus of the Louvre”. (I will talk about my composition process as a separate blog post at some point…)

Great, that sounds incredible. (And as of July 2022, no music has been set to this poem so far.) Now what? How do I set music such that it serves the poem well? I did some research into the historical context of the piece and looked up analysis notes of the poem.

All well and good, but still I face the harsh reality: I still need to write the piece.

Breaking down

It wasn’t easy writing this piece.

(TBC)