Mental Health
Bloom Vol 4: A Rising Tide Can Raise All Ships
Individual desire can be deadly. Longing can lash all of our roots. Today, let my writing be a subtle question. A musician might tell you of the following ambitions: they want to be the best in their genre, play X or Y music festival and be released on Z label, or be on A playlist. This musician, let’s say a DJ for the sake of letters on a keyboard, hasn’t played a prime slot at a club in his home city yet. Other people are playing all the good slots with the main promotion groups. This DJ feels that it’s a competition, and they must beat others to grow worthy of playing at a club. This DJ is in a state of judgment as often “becoming the best” invites. Judgment comes from Ego. Esteemed psychologist Carl Jung refers to the ego as the conscious mind itself – our emotions, moods, and thoughts...
Bloom Vol 3: The Last Drink
Choking on your own vomit isn’t a way that anyone wants to die. Rumor has it that this was the fate of Jim Morrison of the Doors one night in Paris back in 1970. Nor is dying from acute liver failure in a New York hospital as Billie Holiday did in 1940 considered desirable, or passing in a dingy bathroom from alcohol poisoning as Amy Winehouse did in 2011. The most beautiful rose reduced to its thorns, rotting through the years within the stem itself. Poison poured into the throat by the desire for silence. If we are not equipped with an understanding of ourselves or a toolbox of techniques we can utilize in times of mental health challenges, alcohol is something known to be effective. Alcohol doesn’t have much of a learning curve to bring immediate results. Society generally accepts any l...
Bloom Vol 2: The Songs that Support Us
Some say that singing to your flowers can help them grow. When I’m scared in the shadows, withering at the bottom of a valley of my own making, music has been the only thing that sparks a sense of confidence within me. Why? A cruel example of how music empowered people throughout periods of hardship lies within the history of slavery. Work songs grew during slavery when African Americans sought resilience and strength to endure injustice and cruelty. When interviewed by NPR about his novel “Work Songs,” Musician Ted Gioia said of work songs that: “[They] are more than a musical genre; they’re a transformational tool. It made the work less arduous; it made the hours roll by…It allowed them to have some sort of mastery over their work conditions which were often very demeaning ones.” Observi...
Sony Music Publishing to Provide Songwriters With Mental Health and Wellness Resources
Sony Music Publishing will provide its global roster of songwriters and composers with access to free, confidential counseling services and wellness resources, the company announced Monday (Jan. 31). Starting Tuesday, the new Songwriter Assistance program will offer 24/7 counseling support via global hotlines, in addition to ongoing counseling services for emotional health issues including stress, anxiety, depression and family/relationship challenges. The company’s songwriters and composers will also be given unlimited access to customized resources for tackling responsibilities such as researching childcare and eldercare options, navigating life transitions, co-parenting and budgeting for major life events. Songwriter Assistance is an expansion of SMP’s Songwriters Forward Legacy Unrecou...
Bloom: Vol 1
Bloom is a weekly column exploring mental health through the eyes of recording artist and mental health advocate, Alex Wagner. To me, well-being is like a garden. The seed was planted when I was young, seeing my mother outside gardening for hours on end. When I’d come outside onto the backdoor steps, she’d turn to me with a smile that touched the edges of her face. It was a joy that resonated within me like a ray of light through a Victorian pane window. She left this Earth a little under five years ago, but everyone that knew her understood that the garden was her place of solace. As my own story progressed past childhood and eventually into a period of madness, I would come to realize the salvation she discovered amongst the flora. “Bloom” is rooted in my own experience. So, that is wher...
Music for the Mind: Researchers Develop Brain-Computer Interface That Matches Music to Your Mood
Happy playlists, sad playlists, party playlists—any music fan knows that when it comes to setting the mood, there’s no better way than with a killer soundtrack. Now, a pair of researchers from Germany and Singapore are taking this tenet to the next level with a brain-computer interface (BCI) that matches music to a user’s mood in real time. Ultimately, their goal is to teach listeners experiencing mental illness how to regulate and control their own emotions, they described in a recent interview. Stefan Ehrlich from the Technische Universität München and Kat Agres from the National University of Singapore have developed a brain-computer interface for music-based emotion mediation. PLOS ONE According to Dr. Stefan Ehrlich, the technology uses neurofeedback to set...
Ask Dr. Mike: Making Mental Health Your New Year’s Resolution
Supplementing the Going There with Dr. Mike podcast presented by Consequence and Sound Mind Live, the monthly “Ask Dr. Mike” column is here to answer listeners’ questions. As we come up on the New Year, Dr. Mike is here to help us set intention with our resolutions to take care of our mental health. Right now, many of us are looking ahead towards the New Year as a time to make change in our lives. We think about who we are at this moment, and who we want to be at the end of the upcoming year. We craft goals in the form of New Year’s resolutions that we hope will help us attain our life’s vision. It can be a very exciting time, full of promise and hope that we can improve the quality of our lives. Over the past year on the Going There with Dr. Mike podcast, we have...
Mura Masa Opens Up About Mental Health and Music Production In Candid Reddit AMA
In a candid Reddit AMA (“ask me anything”), Mura Masa has opened up about his mental health journey. After a fan asked him about noteworthy achievements that have helped his creative process and anything that’s helped his mental wellbeing, Masa said he started going to therapy, fixed his sleep, and started eating healthier and more regularly. “But to be honest after all that I was still feeling mentally exhausted and ended up getting on Anti-depressants and that’s really changed my life,” he explained. “Anxiety was basically dictating all my descisions/movements [sic]. I can only say to anybody reading, if you’re feeling like things aren’t going right for you mentally then do reach out and make some changes. I had no...
Elohim Drops Candid “Journey to the Center of Myself, Vol. 3” EP: Listen
Earlier this year Elohim announced her four-part EP series titled Journey to the Center of Myself, a result of setting up a home studio during lockdown. After releasing the first two parts in 2021, she’s now capping off a huge year with the series’ third volume. The self-released, five-track EP offers insights into the inner workings of Elohim’s brilliant mind. As someone who has openly struggled with mental health issues, her lyrics explore anxiety, depression, and dissociation in a way that’s relatable and healing. “this EP is for the emotions,” she said in an Instagram post. Recommended Articles Kicking things off on the EP is “Little Idiot,” which explores self-loathing and self-sabotage with guitar licks and electropop flair. On the same topic of...
Ask Dr. Mike: The Big Lie We Tell Ourselves About Substance Abuse
Supplementing the Going There with Dr. Mike podcast presented by Consequence and Sound Mind Live, the monthly “Ask Dr. Mike” column is here to answer listeners’ questions about their mental health. This past month’s episodes focused on Substance Abuse, and with the holiday season rife with reasons to turn to unhealthy behavior, Dr. Mike is here to help demystify the reasons why we often turn to such bad habits. The holiday season is upon us once again. For many people, this can be a wonderful time in our lives filled with holiday parties, seeing family and friends, and exchanging gifts and gratitude. It’s also the time where we often find ourselves engaging in a range of unhealthy behaviors that are intended to be celebratory in nature. Those behaviors may range from bi...
A Fifth of Musicians Are Considering a Career Change Due to Lack of Income: Study
Instead of sweet music, musicians are hearing a death knell in the wake of the pandemic. According to a study by Help Musicians, one-fifth of musicians have considered a career change because they’re unable to make ends meet financially through music, among other factors. Other artists have done quite well on platforms like Spotify. Help Musicians interviewed nearly 1,000 musicians to gather insight and data on how the pandemic continues to affect working musicians. One-third of the surveyed musicians noted that they were still earning nothing after the pandemic. Nine in 10 musicians are earning less than £1,000 (about $1,338) per month. Peter F Recommended Articles “Whilst much of the economy is gradually getting back to normal, it will be a long time before musicia...
Underoath’s Aaron Gillespie Unmasks His Struggle with Mental Health
Anyone who has struggled with mental health issues can point to a moment when someone told them that what they’re feeling isn’t real. Aaron Gillespie—drummer and vocalist for the Grammy-nominated metal band Underoath, as well as the touring drummer for Paramore and founder of the band The Almost— recalls a time when the people around him said that his generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) could be addressed with something as simple as forgetting about the affliction. “My whole life the coping I received from anyone was, ‘If you feel it, ignore it because it isn’t real it’s in you mind,’” he says the latest installment of Sound Mind Unmasked, a video series featuring artists sharing their mental health journey and opening up about the toll touring and recording can take. Unmasked is focu...
