If you’re a musician, it’s hard to say no. From the first time you’re offered actual cash money (not food or booze) in return for performing, that dopamine rush of “they like me, they really, really like me” compels one to say YES! Then you have to deal with all of the real world stuff that comes with saying yes. On your calendar the concert date is isolated – it looks so totally doable. But if the gig involves scheduling your own rehearsals it quickly turns into a case of “what have I gotten myself into??”
When I was playing at the 2000 International Viola Congress in Seattle I had the great pleasure of having lunch with the great violist polymath Garth Knox. I asked him how he’d managed to have such a varied career by that point (he’d been violist in the Ensemble Intercontemperain, the Arditti Quartet, and played period viola and composed) and he said that every four years he’d quit what he was doing currently and move on to something new. That was flabbergasting to an orchestral violist (who at that point was five years into my now 29 year tenure). Just up and quit and go to something else??
That ethos, however, has stuck in my mind consistently over the years. I’ve sort of made it a mantra of mine. I’ve definitely make changes over longer periods that seven years, but I’ve been pretty good about making changes as needed. Generally, if I’m bored with something, and it’s not giving me pleasure to do it (and I can afford to drop it), I’ll make a change with one of my outside of the orchestra regular activities.
The most important thing to me is playing chamber music with new people, especially people that I don’t get to play with in my day-to-day life. I never say never to going back to things that I’ve dropped, but so far I’ve left things in the rear view mirror and been happy with the change (and no doubt they’ve been happy to bring in someone who is happier and fresher as well!).
The moral of the story? If you’re finding that you’re on an endless treadmill of gigs and responsibilities with burnout staring you in the face, it might be good to take a hard look at what you’re doing and see if something can at least be changed. A sabbatical from a festival (if they allow it) or a lightening of a teaching load (if you can afford it) might make a huge difference in your life.