I’m dissatisfied. Not super unhappy, not depressed, just dissatisfied. With playing in an orchestra. There. I said it. I’m not satisfied by playing in an orchestra at the moment. Is this unusual for me? A little. I usually manage to find the silver lining of even the most yawn-inducing orchestral service. But this season I’ve found it harder to cope. My 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. I 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.
I’m not sure why it has hit me so much earlier than in other seasons. It 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. I 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. I’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. That would kind of defeat the whole notion of why one takes a sabbatical, at least for me.
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. We’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. I 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. But I still find myself on the ragged edge of burnout already.
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. Here’s your chance to offer some sage advice: what should I do to get myself out of these early Fall doldrums? What has worked for you in the past? Do you have the same sorts of issues in your orchestral life?
I’d love to hear from you!