[this is an updated version of a post which first appeared on my blog From the Front of the Choir]
As a singing workshop and choir leader I have an incredibly easy life. I can get up when I want to and have no work commitments for five days of the week. So why do I feel so tired?
I’m my own boss and can choose when I work and how much I do. I have holidays when the schools do, which means a long summer break each year.
Choir broke up in mid-July and my last work commitment was on 29th July, so I’ve been on holiday now for nearly four weeks. So how come I feel so tired and burnt out?
I got to thinking: how much do I actually do when I’m working?
Perhaps it’s more than I thought. Maybe it’s like teachers and other high-energy, stressful occupations – when you eventually stop, you crash. Most teachers seem to get ill in the holidays when they let go. Perhaps it’s adrenaline that keeps us going during term time, and as soon as we have time off our bodies let go.
Until recently, when people asked me what I do, I felt slightly embarrassed to say that I just taught songs for two hours a week, and ran singing workshops three Saturdays each month. It seemed a pathetic amount of work for a grown man!
Then I realised that, of course, the ‘work’ is not just during the contact hours, that in fact I am not just a teacher of songs, but also:
… amongst other things!
In fact, I have a very FULL TIME job!
I work evenings, weekends, bank holidays, and half-terms. Yet it doesn’t feel like ‘work’ at all. When I’m arranging a song or designing publicity or writing this blog, it’s because I want to. It has to be done at some point, but I enjoy doing it, it’s creative, and I can choose when to do it.
I thought it might be interesting for those starting out (or for those who’ve been doing this for a while who didn’t realise how much work they actually do!) to give an idea of what a typical week might be like for a freelance teacher of songs/ musical director/ community musician. This is (some of) what I did during a fairly typical week shortly before the holidays began:
When I look back at that list it just makes me feel tired! Most of us get through huge amounts of work like this every week, but it’s only when we write it down that we realise how much we actually do to maintain our modest lifestyles, and that being a ‘community musician’ or ‘choir leader’ is not just about the music.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, you may be interested in several other posts I've written about choir leadership.
I’ve looked at the basic job definition, the roles and responsibilities and the notion of the ‘benign dictator’ (What the job of choir leader involves).
I’ve considered how you might assess a choir leader and whether the ends justify the means (How to tell if your choir leader is rubbish).
I've listed what I consider to be the six qualities needed by any good choir leader.
A version of this appeared as an article in the Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network’s newsletter in 2006.
Chris Rowbury: chrisrowbury.com
