Musicians’ State of Mind

Professional musicians’ and music creators’ rapidly changing industry requires an expanding arsenal of digital and business skills on top of artistic virtuosity, and the pandemic made an already demanding situation even more so. This changing landscape causes a great deal of concern about musicians’ health and well-being in the European Union, which created an initiative to study the challenges the music sector faces. The 2023 report, “The health and wellbeing of professional musicians and music creators in the EU,” reveals that musicians in the EU are vulnerable to a number of risk factors that impact their well-being and livelihoods.

Call For Participants: Musician’s Mental Health

Peabody’s Postdoctoral Research Fellows in Performing Arts and Health Raluca Matei and Giulia Ripani are conducting a comprehensive study on musicians’ mental health, generously funded by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Musicians, educators, music students, and experts in social sciences, public health, and musicology are invited to join online focus groups to discuss key factors affecting mental health in the music industry. Your insights will shape future pathways in musicians’ well-being!

Who can participate?

Music Faculty (instrumental/vocal teachers, high school music program conductors)
Music Students (higher education music institutions)
Freelance Musicians
Full-Time Musicians (orchestras, bands, religious institutions)
Experts in public health, social sciences, musicology, and healthcare

Have you juggled with mental health issues yourself as a musician? We especially want to hear from you!

Focus group times (Eastern Time):

Morning: 10:00 am – 11:15 am
Evening: 6:00 pm – 7:15 pm

Available dates:

October: 16, 18, 22, 24, 30
November: 1, 5, 7, 13, 15, 19, 22, 27, 29
December: 3, 5, 11, 13

How to join:

To express your interest and share your availability, please contact:

Raluca Matei at rmatei1@jh.edu
Giulia Ripani at gripani1@jh.edu

More details will be provided upon expressing your interest.

“Music makers are becoming more aware of the need to take care of their own mental and physical state, both as a matter of personal self-management and of building a sustainable career,” the report notes, adding that “[m]usicians with mental or physical problems are seeking professional help earlier than they used to, but they still perceive medical or psychological guidance and treatment to be inaccessible, expensive, and rarely geared to music-related professions.”

Accessing data about musicians’ health in the United States is more challenging. In mental health, studies of specialized professions—whether among dancers, athletes, or musicians—often adopt a focused lens, such as concentrating exclusively on anxiety and depression, inadvertently overlooking aspects such as burnout and stress, or limit their scope only to negative mental health outcomes. Earlier this year Raluca Matei and Giulia Ripani, researchers in Peabody’s first class of Postdoctoral Research Fellows in Performing Arts and Health, began the first comprehensive project aimed at exploring musicians’ mental health by mapping the existing literature about risk and protective factors.

Titled Work-Related Influences on Musicians’ Mental Health, the study is a collaboration between Peabody and the Johns Hopkins Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation department. The project is supported by a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Pilot Project Research Training award, a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health-funded program to improve occupational research training and research in workplace mental health and worker well-being.

“Our mental well-being is shaped by a complex tapestry of elements ranging from the personal to the systemic—encompassing everything from family dynamics, workplace environments, cultural backgrounds, to societal structures and beyond,” Matei says. “Recognizing the intricate interplay of these factors, we’re on a mission to dismantle the traditional confines that have long dictated the field of mental health—historically monopolized by psychology and psychiatry—placing undue emphasis on individual responsibility for issues that are rooted in broader societal challenges, such as cultural norms, economic disparities, systemic inequality, and more.

“Our project embraces a more inclusive perspective, aligning with the World Health Organization’s definition: ‘Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It has intrinsic and instrumental value and is integral to our well-being,’” Matei continues. “This broad approach allows us to encompass a wide array of mental health outcomes, both positive and negative, ensuring a holistic view of the mental health landscape among musicians.”

Co-Principal Investigators Matei and Giulia Ripani say Work-Related Influences on Musicians’ Mental Health has three main objectives. First, it seeks to chart the landscape of existing research on the mental health outcomes observed in musicians, which occupied the first half of this year. Next, it aims to identify and map out both the risk and protective factors that influence these mental health outcomes within the musical community. Finally, the project aims to gather thought leaders from a variety of pertinent fields and collaboratively generate innovative research directions, intervention strategies, and guideline proposals for musicians’ mental health issues.

“Researchers have conducted extensive literature reviews in the field of performing arts and health—however, these reviews mainly address physical health or negative aspects of mental health, such as debilitating music performance anxiety,” Ripani adds. “To date, no review has focused on musicians’ mental health by addressing both positive and negative outcomes and by highlighting both protective and risk factors that can affect these outcomes.”

All three of Peabody’s Performing Arts and Health postdoctoral fellows are artist-researchers who bring interdisciplinary expertise to their projects. Ripani spent several years as a viola player before earning her PhD in music education, and her research has focused on how artists use music to define themselves and form a professional identity. Matei, trained as both a violinist and psychologist, has investigated musicians’ performance anxiety and the reasons why music students may seek counselling, and she wrote the first manual on musicians’ health education for Romanian music teachers. Nabeel Zuhdi, who holds a Master’s in guitar performance and a PhD in Performing Arts Health, previously researched physical (musculoskeletal) and mental health problems among musicians; his current focus explores the relationship between musician identity, music performance anxiety, and mental health.

The Work-Related Influences on Musicians’ Mental Health study touches on all of their research interests, and as artist-researchers they’re pursuing questions and findings that can then be implemented in performing-arts training. “I believe that music teachers play an important role in influencing musicians’ mental health,” Zuhdi says, adding that the current study “aligns with my overarching research agenda that advocates for showcasing music research applicability, influence, and meaning for music students and teachers, and how such research activities may become a standard practice within the discipline.”

“We can observe a gradual de-stigmatization of mental health issues in our society and within the arts community,” Ripani says, pointing how the rising understanding of the role of performing artists’ health and well-being in their careers is a growing concern in the industry. “Artists and cultural institutions are increasingly open to discussing and addressing mental health concerns. Our project can contribute to an in-depth understanding of musicians’ mental health, while providing guidelines for creating more supportive music environments.”

Matei and Ripani are currently recruiting participants for the study’s online focus groups: all musicians, educators, music students, and experts in social sciences, public health, and musicology are invited to discuss key factors affecting mental health in the music industry.

Insights from these sessions will shape future pathways in musicians’ well-being. “I think it’s extremely important to look at mental health from a broader perspective than we have so far,” Matei says. “I’m more and more persuaded by the wider factors that tend to remain unaddressed given that they are often hidden and also, more difficult to change. For instance, the norms and principles that are intrinsic to the Western classical music canon are often unquestioned, and we tend to focus on holding individuals responsible for what are, actually, systemic problems requiring systemic approaches.”