Resources
Depression, Suicide, Crisis hotlines and chatlines
Crisis Text Line: text BUDDY to 741-741 (for free 24/7 support)
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
Trevor Project (for LGBTQ+ youth): 1-866-488-7386
Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860
NEDA (National Eating Disorders Association) Helpline: 1-800-931-2237
Teen Line: 310-855-4673 or TEXT TEEN to 839863
Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743
Online Counseling services
Psychology Today
Psychology Today is an online magazine discussing mental health topics, as well as a website hosting one of the largest directories of Therapy and Healthcare professionals. This website is features a tool for individuals to find possible care within their city/zip code. Authors of blogs on the website vary from Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Medical doctors, and Anthropologists.
Rise Above the Disorder (RAD)
RAD is a non-profit 501(c)(3) dedicated to removing barriers of access and affordability that come from seeking mental health care/treatment. RAD serves people both domestically and internationally. Their website features a find Therapist tool (locates available Therapists within a city) and a Grant application tool, removing the financial paywall that mental health services usually have.
BetterHelp
BetterHelp is the world’s leading and largest e-counseling platform. Their mission is to provide professional counseling that is accessible, affordable, and convenient. BetterHelp offers access to licensed, trained, experienced, and accredited psychologists, marriage and family therapists (LMFT), clinical social workers (LCSW / LMSW), and board licensed professional counselors (LPC).
Crisis Text Line: text BUDDY to 741-741 (for free 24/7 support)
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
Trevor Project (for LGBTQ+ youth): 1-866-488-7386
Trans Lifeline: 877-565-8860
NEDA (National Eating Disorders Association) Helpline: 1-800-931-2237
Teen Line: 310-855-4673 or TEXT TEEN to 839863
Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743
Online Counseling services
Psychology Today
Psychology Today is an online magazine discussing mental health topics, as well as a website hosting one of the largest directories of Therapy and Healthcare professionals. This website is features a tool for individuals to find possible care within their city/zip code. Authors of blogs on the website vary from Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Medical doctors, and Anthropologists.
Rise Above the Disorder (RAD)
RAD is a non-profit 501(c)(3) dedicated to removing barriers of access and affordability that come from seeking mental health care/treatment. RAD serves people both domestically and internationally. Their website features a find Therapist tool (locates available Therapists within a city) and a Grant application tool, removing the financial paywall that mental health services usually have.
BetterHelp
BetterHelp is the world’s leading and largest e-counseling platform. Their mission is to provide professional counseling that is accessible, affordable, and convenient. BetterHelp offers access to licensed, trained, experienced, and accredited psychologists, marriage and family therapists (LMFT), clinical social workers (LCSW / LMSW), and board licensed professional counselors (LPC).
Organizations and Scholarly Research
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Organizations/Foundations
Musical U Musical U strives to provide music learners with effective and enjoyable musicality training to reach musicians goals. The podcast Musical U covers a large amount of topics that musicians strive to learn more about, such as learning to improve, healthy practice habits, and conquering self doubt and imposter syndrome. The podcast How to Stop Doubting and Start Performing, with Brent Vaartstra covers imposter syndrome and self doubt as a musician, what these concepts look like, and approaches towards understanding and ease these feelings as a musician. The Eric Domanico Foundation “Founded in 2020, The Eric Domanico Foundation is a US-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and our mission is to provide financial assistance to musicians struggling to maintain mental health. More support is directed to the underlying causes of anxiety and depression as well as prevention. The identification of young folks who need extra help and the process of connecting them to resources is done early, often, and confidentially. With these supports, we as a society are better able to protect our most vulnerable — our youth. Incorporated Society of Musicians The Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM) is the UK’s professional body for musicians. ISM actively campaigns for musicians’ rights, music education and the professional within the musician sphere as a whole. ISM Webinar: Performance anxiety A practical guide for music teachers is a fantastic webinar that was run by ISM covering performance anxiety, and guides/strategies for music teachers to support music students. |
Scholarly research/studies
Depaul University School of Music, The Healthy Musician: Below is a great guide from DePaul University School of Music discussing step by step process towards evaluating our physical well-being as musicians. 
Self-reported mental health and mental illness among university music students in the United States:
A survey done by Professor Lisa Huisman Koops at Case Western Reserve University. This study examines the data of self-reported mental health state of US music majors. Uses DASS-21 (Depression Anxiety Stress Scale) and ANOVA (Analysis of variance).
The 73% Report
Through Record Union, The 73% Report is a survey that asked nearly 1500 independent music makers about their mental health and wellbeing. The name comes the results more than 73% of musicians said that they have experienced negative emotions such as stress, anxiety, and/or depression in relation to their music creation.
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Further reading
The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten
The Mindful Musician by Vanessa Cornett
The Musician’s Way by Gerald Klickstein
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
The Inner Game of Music by Timothy Gallwey
Further reading
The Music Lesson by Victor Wooten
The Mindful Musician by Vanessa Cornett
The Musician’s Way by Gerald Klickstein
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
The Inner Game of Music by Timothy Gallwey
Summary of all Creators and Resources
Below is a listing of all organizations, musicians, and creators whose resources have been listed on this site.
Please check out their websites and the work that they do!
Please check out their websites and the work that they do!
Ameila at Music Body Mind
Yoga and musicians health advocate, Amelia has a variety of content education on physical posture/yoga practices for Musicians, as well as dealing with burnout as a music student.
Personal burnout story and journey - MY BURNOUT STORY: Advice for Music Students
Bob Reynolds
Los Angeles-based saxophonist Bob Reynolds is a Grammy-winning member of the instrumental group Snarky Puppy, an award-winning composer, and a prolific recording artist.
VLOG/Q&A: Music career burnout - One of Bob Reynolds Q&A Vlog covers the topic of burnout. Through Bob Reynolds own personal career experience and struggles with burnout and loss of motivation towards art, this video offers a variety of perspective and advice towards musicians dealing with the topic.
Dr. Barbara Payne McLain
Dr. McLain has a very insightful lecture video covering the topic of burnout, and specifically burnout felt by Music Teachers/Professors. This 20 minute video defines the term burnout, how to identify if we are experiencing it, and what support to seek. Music Teacher Burnout
Elisa Janson Jones
Elisa Janson Jones is an active music educator, author, podcaster, and business consultant. Prevent Teacher Burnout is a fantastic workshop towards preventing teacher burnout and overall prevention rather than treatment for the concept of burnout as a music teacher.
Incorporated Society of Musicians
The Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM) is the UK’s professional body for musicians. ISM actively campaigns for musicians’ rights, music education and the professional within the musician sphere as a whole.
ISM Webinar: Performance anxiety A practical guide for music teachers is a fantastic webinar that was run by ISM covering performance anxiety, and guides/strategies for music teachers to support music students.
Janet Horvath
Author of Playing (Less) Hurt: An Injury Prevention Guide for Musicians, Janet’s book offers incredible insight with Janet’s personal experience with physical injury playing an instrument, and her own path to recovery.
Interview given by Barrie-Louise Switzen with Janet Horvath on her personal experience with injuries given by instrumental playing Janet Horvath (Playing Healthy as a Musician) on The Woman's Connection ® w/Barrie-Louise Switzen
Jasmine Pigott
MSU Student and 2020 Running Start Competition winner Jasmine Pigott is a musician, writer, activist, that often writes and shares personal experiences, as well as conversation around mental health topics on her blog - Jasmine Pigott - 5 Strategies to Find Motivation When You're Drained
Jeffrey Leung
Dr. Leung, an incredibly accomplished saxophonist and collaborative musician, uses one of his shows on YouTube (From the top) to discuss a variety of topics.
Performance anxiety and tendonitis Taking it From the Top with Jeffrey Leung | Episode 5: Musician's Wellness
Jenny Maclay
Vandoren artist and clinician Dr. Jenny Maclay is an active performer as a soloist, orchestral player, and chamber musician. Dr. Maclay also runs a blog on her website that covers a variety of topics towards specifics of the clarinet, and some personal anecdotal experiences and advice for imposter syndrome, and performance anxiety.
A Musicians guide to fighting imposter syndrome is one such post in which Dr. Maclay offers some clarity on the term of imposter syndrome, and advice/strategies towards tackling such an issue as a musician.
A Musician's Guide to Fighting Imposter Syndrome
Liberated Performer
Cory Lee is the founder of Liberated Performer. Violist and active performer as a soloist, chamber musician, and lecturing of Liberated Performer.
Liberated Performer offers a large amount of free materials for performers, students, and teachers wishing to learn more towards the topic of performance anxiety.
One of Liberated Performer’s videos Stage Fright: the key elements of stage fright that you need to know is a fantastic introduction towards recognizing and understanding our own unique anxieties and how to approach them.
LickNRiff
LickNRiff has an incredibly active Website and YouTube channel featuring tutorials for guitar education.
Diverging from this content, LickNRiff published the video - Musicians and Depression\Anxiety (Please Watch This) | LickNRiff. In this video LickNRiff discusses his own struggles with depression, and offers his own advice on how he approached this high highs and low low’s lifestyle as a musician.
Mind Over Practice
Mind Over Practice: Integrated Perspectives on Health and Performance, is about the body, mind, and well-being of performing artists. This Blog series discusses topics of mental and physical pain experienced as musicians, and how to help ourselves and other fellow musicians who suffer from these topics.
My favorite entry from the Mind Over Practice blog is Applications 101: How to Accept Rejection and Pick a School That's Right For You! This post explores the topic not discussed much in music academia, that of rejection. How do we approach it as students for undergraduate, and graduate school, and personal experiences from Rebecca Karu with rejection as a music student, and how to tackle it.
Musical U
Musical U strives to provide music learners with effective and enjoyable musicality training to reach musicians goals.
The podcast Musical U covers a large amount of topics that musicians strive to learn more about, such as learning to improve, healthy practice habits, and conquering self doubt and imposter syndrome.
The podcast How to Stop Doubting and Start Performing, with Brent Vaartstra covers imposter syndrome and self doubt as a musician, what these concepts look like, and approaches towards understanding and ease these feelings as a musician.
Noa Kageyama
Performance psychologist Noa Kageyama provides workshops, practice plans, and weekly posts about the latest updates in the performance psychology literature. Dr. Kageyama presents psychology literature in an easily digestible format that can be readily applied to your own music practice.
Priyanka Potdar
Priyanka Potdar shares her own personal experience with performance anxiety, and the lesser known concept of neurodiactics, the mixing of neuroscience and the art of teaching.
Neuropsychology and Performance Anxiety | Priyanka Potdar | TEDxNapaValley
Rob Knopper
Rob Knopper is a passionate percussionist with the metropolitan opera orchestra, Juilliard graduate and founder of auditionhacker.
AuditionHacker is an online resource covering various topics of the audition process for musicians, such as creating a daily practice schedule, setting goals during the coronapause, and dealing with expectations and anxieties of audition day.
Sharon Bill
Sharon Bill is an author and music tutor. Sharon has a large amount of video series available on her YouTube channel ranging across a variety of topics and issues musicians face such as isolation, practice management, rest, and burnout. Sharon as well as a great series of Music Theory PDF’s worksheets and tests available for teachers and students.
Silence the Shame
Silence the Shame is a nonprofit organization that focuses on education and awareness of mental health in this musical industry. They work closely with music producers and professions within the music industry to provide information resources and public outreach.
The PSA done on their YouTube channel Silence the Shame Extended PSA shows what they truly are about as an organization. Silencing the shame, offering support, and normalizing conversations surrounding mental health.
Steak and Butter Gal -
Bella from Steak and Butter Gal offers her own story and experiences in music academia from both Mannes School of Music and Juilliard. These experiences and stories cover a variety of diet explorations, and personal struggles with performance anxiety, and depression.
Healing Mental Health w/ Keto Carnivore Diet | Juilliard Music Student Talks Anxiety & Depression
The Eric Domanico Foundation
“Founded in 2020, The Eric Domanico Foundation is a US-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and our mission is to provide financial assistance to musicians struggling to maintain mental health. More support is directed to the underlying causes of anxiety and depression as well as prevention. The identification of young folks who need extra help and the process of connecting them to resources is done early, often, and confidentially. With these supports, we as a society are better able to protect our most vulnerable — our youth."
Vanessa Cornett - The Mindful Musician
This book by Vanessa Cornett (The Mindful Musician) is one of the most comprehensive books on the applications of mindfulness in music in literature today. The book is filled with practical exercises and comes with an accompanying website to help you apply the concepts directly to your practice.
Instagram
Yoga and musicians health advocate, Amelia has a variety of content education on physical posture/yoga practices for Musicians, as well as dealing with burnout as a music student.
Personal burnout story and journey - MY BURNOUT STORY: Advice for Music Students
Bob Reynolds
Los Angeles-based saxophonist Bob Reynolds is a Grammy-winning member of the instrumental group Snarky Puppy, an award-winning composer, and a prolific recording artist.
VLOG/Q&A: Music career burnout - One of Bob Reynolds Q&A Vlog covers the topic of burnout. Through Bob Reynolds own personal career experience and struggles with burnout and loss of motivation towards art, this video offers a variety of perspective and advice towards musicians dealing with the topic.
Dr. Barbara Payne McLain
Dr. McLain has a very insightful lecture video covering the topic of burnout, and specifically burnout felt by Music Teachers/Professors. This 20 minute video defines the term burnout, how to identify if we are experiencing it, and what support to seek. Music Teacher Burnout
Elisa Janson Jones
Elisa Janson Jones is an active music educator, author, podcaster, and business consultant. Prevent Teacher Burnout is a fantastic workshop towards preventing teacher burnout and overall prevention rather than treatment for the concept of burnout as a music teacher.
Incorporated Society of Musicians
The Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM) is the UK’s professional body for musicians. ISM actively campaigns for musicians’ rights, music education and the professional within the musician sphere as a whole.
ISM Webinar: Performance anxiety A practical guide for music teachers is a fantastic webinar that was run by ISM covering performance anxiety, and guides/strategies for music teachers to support music students.
Janet Horvath
Author of Playing (Less) Hurt: An Injury Prevention Guide for Musicians, Janet’s book offers incredible insight with Janet’s personal experience with physical injury playing an instrument, and her own path to recovery.
Interview given by Barrie-Louise Switzen with Janet Horvath on her personal experience with injuries given by instrumental playing Janet Horvath (Playing Healthy as a Musician) on The Woman's Connection ® w/Barrie-Louise Switzen
Jasmine Pigott
MSU Student and 2020 Running Start Competition winner Jasmine Pigott is a musician, writer, activist, that often writes and shares personal experiences, as well as conversation around mental health topics on her blog - Jasmine Pigott - 5 Strategies to Find Motivation When You're Drained
Jeffrey Leung
Dr. Leung, an incredibly accomplished saxophonist and collaborative musician, uses one of his shows on YouTube (From the top) to discuss a variety of topics.
Performance anxiety and tendonitis Taking it From the Top with Jeffrey Leung | Episode 5: Musician's Wellness
Jenny Maclay
Vandoren artist and clinician Dr. Jenny Maclay is an active performer as a soloist, orchestral player, and chamber musician. Dr. Maclay also runs a blog on her website that covers a variety of topics towards specifics of the clarinet, and some personal anecdotal experiences and advice for imposter syndrome, and performance anxiety.
A Musicians guide to fighting imposter syndrome is one such post in which Dr. Maclay offers some clarity on the term of imposter syndrome, and advice/strategies towards tackling such an issue as a musician.
A Musician's Guide to Fighting Imposter Syndrome
Liberated Performer
Cory Lee is the founder of Liberated Performer. Violist and active performer as a soloist, chamber musician, and lecturing of Liberated Performer.
Liberated Performer offers a large amount of free materials for performers, students, and teachers wishing to learn more towards the topic of performance anxiety.
One of Liberated Performer’s videos Stage Fright: the key elements of stage fright that you need to know is a fantastic introduction towards recognizing and understanding our own unique anxieties and how to approach them.
LickNRiff
LickNRiff has an incredibly active Website and YouTube channel featuring tutorials for guitar education.
Diverging from this content, LickNRiff published the video - Musicians and Depression\Anxiety (Please Watch This) | LickNRiff. In this video LickNRiff discusses his own struggles with depression, and offers his own advice on how he approached this high highs and low low’s lifestyle as a musician.
Mind Over Practice
Mind Over Practice: Integrated Perspectives on Health and Performance, is about the body, mind, and well-being of performing artists. This Blog series discusses topics of mental and physical pain experienced as musicians, and how to help ourselves and other fellow musicians who suffer from these topics.
My favorite entry from the Mind Over Practice blog is Applications 101: How to Accept Rejection and Pick a School That's Right For You! This post explores the topic not discussed much in music academia, that of rejection. How do we approach it as students for undergraduate, and graduate school, and personal experiences from Rebecca Karu with rejection as a music student, and how to tackle it.
Musical U
Musical U strives to provide music learners with effective and enjoyable musicality training to reach musicians goals.
The podcast Musical U covers a large amount of topics that musicians strive to learn more about, such as learning to improve, healthy practice habits, and conquering self doubt and imposter syndrome.
The podcast How to Stop Doubting and Start Performing, with Brent Vaartstra covers imposter syndrome and self doubt as a musician, what these concepts look like, and approaches towards understanding and ease these feelings as a musician.
Noa Kageyama
Performance psychologist Noa Kageyama provides workshops, practice plans, and weekly posts about the latest updates in the performance psychology literature. Dr. Kageyama presents psychology literature in an easily digestible format that can be readily applied to your own music practice.
Priyanka Potdar
Priyanka Potdar shares her own personal experience with performance anxiety, and the lesser known concept of neurodiactics, the mixing of neuroscience and the art of teaching.
Neuropsychology and Performance Anxiety | Priyanka Potdar | TEDxNapaValley
Rob Knopper
Rob Knopper is a passionate percussionist with the metropolitan opera orchestra, Juilliard graduate and founder of auditionhacker.
AuditionHacker is an online resource covering various topics of the audition process for musicians, such as creating a daily practice schedule, setting goals during the coronapause, and dealing with expectations and anxieties of audition day.
Sharon Bill
Sharon Bill is an author and music tutor. Sharon has a large amount of video series available on her YouTube channel ranging across a variety of topics and issues musicians face such as isolation, practice management, rest, and burnout. Sharon as well as a great series of Music Theory PDF’s worksheets and tests available for teachers and students.
Silence the Shame
Silence the Shame is a nonprofit organization that focuses on education and awareness of mental health in this musical industry. They work closely with music producers and professions within the music industry to provide information resources and public outreach.
The PSA done on their YouTube channel Silence the Shame Extended PSA shows what they truly are about as an organization. Silencing the shame, offering support, and normalizing conversations surrounding mental health.
Steak and Butter Gal -
Bella from Steak and Butter Gal offers her own story and experiences in music academia from both Mannes School of Music and Juilliard. These experiences and stories cover a variety of diet explorations, and personal struggles with performance anxiety, and depression.
Healing Mental Health w/ Keto Carnivore Diet | Juilliard Music Student Talks Anxiety & Depression
The Eric Domanico Foundation
“Founded in 2020, The Eric Domanico Foundation is a US-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and our mission is to provide financial assistance to musicians struggling to maintain mental health. More support is directed to the underlying causes of anxiety and depression as well as prevention. The identification of young folks who need extra help and the process of connecting them to resources is done early, often, and confidentially. With these supports, we as a society are better able to protect our most vulnerable — our youth."
Vanessa Cornett - The Mindful Musician
This book by Vanessa Cornett (The Mindful Musician) is one of the most comprehensive books on the applications of mindfulness in music in literature today. The book is filled with practical exercises and comes with an accompanying website to help you apply the concepts directly to your practice.