FAC Insights: Music & Mind by Adam Ficek
FAC Insights is a forum for us to showcase and share long form pieces looking at various parts of the music industry and the society that shapes it. Pieces take the form of videos, interviews, discussions, articles and more. This time we are sharing with you a very interesting piece written by Adam Ficek - a UKCP Accredited Clinical Psychotherapist, MBACP Counsellor. Adam is also qualified in EMDR and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy. He has been involved in the music industry for 25 years as a performing artist and DJ and toured extensively at top level (EMI/Parlophone/Rough Trade) as a solo artist, band member and as a DJ. Following his own therapeutic experience within the music industry and witnessing the struggles (and consequences) of many of his peers, he decided to train as a psychotherapist.
Music and Mind
“What do you want to do?” The bereavement counsellor asked.
Being asked such a question was as foreign to me as the perplexing GCSE language exam I had miserably failed along with the other self perceived, hoop-jumping tests of schooling.
“What do I want?”
I have a choice? The local factories, warehouses or low level crime were the holy trinity of future progression from my eye-squinting vantage point.
What do I want…
“I quite like playing the drums…”
From here, year dot, with my newly acquired counselled support and the splendour of 90’s government funding I moved to Essex and started my musical journey. First a BTEC in popular music, then onto a Jazz degree, PGCE (secondary music school teacher training), MA (Music Education), and finally an MA in Music Technology. I knew as a musician, especially Jazz that the financial rewards could be slow, meagre and arduous. But….this was the expected life of an artist entwined with the meaning and motivation this could afford (albeit with a sprinkle of teaching).
Years were subsequently spent in and out of the London band scene, playing weddings, birthday parties and the long list of other standard-journeying, musicking corporate events. I had also thrown my hand into DJing and was precariously balancing a portfolio of late night house sets, mid night banding and daytime teaching. Hustling and juggling between mini tours, near miss ‘could have made its’ and the ever-present thriving company of tinnitus. The ‘near misses’ were becoming warmer and closer as I swam in between small label signings, mini advances and a hint of media interest. The DJing was gathering pace as my commerciality spread into the popular psyche. The teaching was allowed to dwindle as the musicking took over. This refreshed zeal facilitated a slow metamorphosis prompted by the energy of 8 hour daily practice sessions and being in the ‘right place at the right time’.
I had made it! We were signed to Rough Trade, Parlophone then the mighty EMI. Armed with a shiny financial advance, media hype, drums, B-list fame and a well-honed, life desire to cling (on for dear life) to every opportunity on the bumped roading ahead.
It was as fast moving and mind blowing as often imagined, interlaced with playing, recording, swaggered touring of hedonistic indulgence both on and off the pitch.
The manic chorus swerved, dipped, bled and sweated through the music industry with all the trimmings of top ten singles, award shows, gold discs, private jets, arrests, international success and the ‘coming and goings’ of the various part-time infrastructure chancers that swarmed the nest.
In hindsight, my nervous system had been blown apart from every fragmented angle of my previously sellotaped-together psyche. Like everyone, I was carrying old wounds from my young life and the music industry sought to both soothe and salt this scar tissued narrative.
I wasn’t aware at the time but the complex, and spikey marriage of music and commodification had evolved and subsequently enveloped my ‘sense of self’ to the extent of losing what made me, me!
My industry rollercoaster slowly lost fuel as glimmers of normality crept into my slowering pace.
It wasn’t quite a brave new world as I ventured back out, and as the saying goes ‘the phone stops ringing’. The brutality of the true commercial experience is at its bitterest burn when an ascent becomes frozen momentum. In a practical sense, I no longer had the objectified monetary worth for the business filter of the infrastructure gatekeepers. Alas, somehow the subjective human experience affords an emotionality to which a musicking, artistic perspective has a deeper insight and an undeniable worthiness.
Going it alone….
I was limping on but musically bursting! With the help of some smaller independent labels I continued to self release four more albums and remained on the touring circuit as a solo artist. It was a humbling experience, driving up and down the main artery roads across the UK and Europe with just a guitar and no desire to engage with the juggernaut of commerciality. This rich troubedour-ian experience connected and enabled a lens of deeper insight into the smaller tier level of DIY culture resonating around the melody of living life through my earlier days.
I learnt about the cost of manufacture, the PR hustle, the payola of radio, the cost of racking, the massaging of reviews, buying likes and selling merchandise. It was an eye opening adventure of exhaustion alongside the real joy of writing, producing and performing. There were no team strings of structure or support this time around but it was a uniquely freeing and invigorating endeavour.
Around this time I had attempted to find a therapist to help me unpack the vast sum of mixed up colours enmeshed from my over vibrant journeying. I rekindled what I had begun twenty years previous in the early incarnations of garage band dreamers and greying futures (see intro).
I struggled to find a clinician that understood the nuances of the industry! Sure, there were some that had been on a tour bus once, sat in as live agents or had managed a band or two but none with the grit and wounds to know or understand the popular musicians dilemma of following an applied need, a passion of famine, feast, fame, and commerciality all underpinned by the life blood of musicking.
I eventually found a close-fit therapist and spent a long time unpicking, packing-up and meaning making. From this experience I entered my own therapeutic training. I initially trained for three years as a counsellor (BACP) then moved through another two years of psychotherapy training to attain an MSc and UKCP accreditation. I am now in my 7th year of ongoing learning as I pull together all of my loose ends and strangled thoughts for my doctoral qualification. This psychological finale specialises around the experiences of being a professional popular musician and the subsequent impact on mental health.
Yes, I’m also still musicking!
Through my own continued journey of musicking in both the high and low commercial winds I cherish the opportunities to continue to play, perform and learn about myself, music and musicians. I want the nuanced psychological experiences of musicians (us) to be more understood!
My dual perspective (Music & Mind) has allowed me to consult with labels, charities and educational facilities in how they can better support artists but there is still more to be done. The mental health of musicians is growing in awareness but diluting in content….but there is increasing support within the field. Charities such as BAPAM, Help Musicians, Tonic Music and Music Support all run free support groups and trainings for musicians but often go under the radar.
One recent research paper suggested how the biggest barrier to mental health within musicking environments is the lack of awareness of the existing support. This correlates with insight from my own weekly peer group facilitated through Tonic Music…
“What do you want?”
“Mental Heath resources for musicians by people that understand?”
Well, here they are: Help Musicians / BAPAM / Tonic Music. / Music Support / Weekly peer group link