Choosing a career is one of the most important decisions we make in our lifetime. Career choice is more than working to earn a living but also an important window into how we identify and feel about ourselves. There are multiple issues involved in every career choice, particularly in the pursuit of a career in music performance.

Influenced by her hybrid background in music performance, psychology, and psychoanalysis, Julie Jaffee Nagel addresses the joys and challenges of career choice in music, with a specific focus upon the classical performing musician. She addresses a wide range of pressing topics related to such a career choice at a time when jobs and income for musicians are diminishing and COVID-19 has had a monumental, long-term impact on the arts. This includes feelings of burnout, career change and redirection, the need for self-care, mental health issues related to the lack of jobs and income, and the oftentimes crippling standards of professional performing musicians.

In addition, Nagel also points to potential opportunities and advocates new roles for musicians in the wake of a transformed music industry and society. Despite the numerous challenges performing musicians face in their careers, music can play a powerful role in mental life and society, helping us cope with the ravages and losses of the pandemic and other important events, and this can serve as much inspiration and reinvigorate professional musicians questioning the purpose of their career. All of these themes are developed through stories, clinical examples, anecdotes, research data, and personal reflection.

About the Author

Julie Jaffee Nagel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, psychoanalyst, and musician. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School, The University of Michigan, and The Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, and author of Managing Stage Fright (OUP, 2017). She has given conference presentations for The American Psychoanalytic Association, Music Teachers National Association, College Music Society, and National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy. She is in private practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan and her website is www.julienagel.net.

Reviews

Julie Nagel knows the field as a trained musical performer and a practicing clinician who is an international authority on work inhibition and performance block. There is none better!

-- Peter Loewenberg, history and political psychology, professor emeritus, University of California Los Angeles


Awards
Winner of 2024 Nautilus Book Award 2024.



Book Information
ISBN 9781538168394
Author Julie Jaffee Nagel
Format Paperback
Page Count 150
Imprint Rowman & Littlefield
Publisher Rowman & Littlefield
Weight(grams) 236g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 151mm * 11mm