Debate: What place should mental health have in music education?

In advance, all the participants had been asked to reflect about the following question: "What do you understand by mental health and what place should it have in music education?"

Anne-Karin Mullally, who heads SiO mental health, believes mental health is about quality of life:

- That what we do makes sense. That we experience getting recognition and being appreciated for what we do.

Are Sandbakken, professor of chamber music, believes that mental health should be a large and spacious term in music education:

- If a musician does not need to go to a psychologist, then there is almost something wrong, said the experienced teacher.

Upcoming principal rector Astrid Kvalbein also believes that it is within the nature of art that there is a lot at stake. What we do as musicians is important to us and thus nervousness is something we cannot completely get rid of, but which we must learn to live with:

- It is normal for artists to get nervous. Nervousness can be destructive, but it can also be very productive, emphasized Kvalbein.

Mullally also agreed that stress can be an important resource:

- We like to talk about getting rid of stress - but it is almost impossible. What we should rather talk about is how we can accept it and find ways to live with the stress. Stress is about the body getting ready to perform and it actually helps us to handle the challenge we face.

Rune Rebne, who is himself a composer and teacher at NMH, asked if there is some kind of stigma attached to having mental health problems. Mullally believes we can benefit from expanding the boundaries of normality.

- Many of those we meet come with very natural problems - being nervous before an exam is something almost everyone knows. Maybe it is a problem that we talk about it as a problem? It's actually very normal.

To the extent that there has been focus on the mental health of musicians, it has largely been about performance anxiety. Sandbakken believes that the concept of anxiety is alienating, and that it makes the concert nerves almost into a malady. He believes that we should instead talk more about the desire to perform, to bring out the positives in experiencing concert nerves.

Rebne pointed to the previous SHOT survey which revealed that many people are lonely at NMH. Why is it like that? Lundgreen believes it is connected to the fact that music students practice alone for many hours every day.

- The students are usually here from 8-8 to practice. A large part of everyday life is spent practicing, and it is lonely. For classical performers, there are many hours spent locked in that room.

Kjetil-Andre Aamodt explained in Thursday's panel discussion that a strong competitive culture often leads to loneliness. The opposite is a healthy performance culture or sharing culture where you get the experience of being part of a team that whish each other well. This feeling of loneliness that many students report may indicate that NMH is still characterized more by competition than by sharing.

Kvalbein also believes that the teachers can sense this loneliness, and that it is connected to old perceptions of the musician as the lonely genius:

- Why aren't you invited to group lessons more often? Why don't the students invite each other into the rehearsal room? There is something cultural here about the solitary genius. We talk a lot about performing, but what if we just do music? asked the incoming headmaster rhetorically.

Kvalbein believes that much is already in place at NMH to notice students who are having a hard time, in that so much of the teaching takes place individually or in small groups.

The student on the panel, Annie Lundgreen, believes that a lot of good initatives has happened recently.

- We have received an interview offer and it is fantastic, and we hope it can become a permanent offer at NMH, because we think we need it very much.

During the corona pandemic, a low-threshold call service for students was started. In addition, four student assistants are employed to initiate social activities.

- They go for walks, have conversational coffee at 12 o'clock on Thursday, and do a lot of nice things that can attract those who don't already have an established social network, explains the SUT leader.

In many ways, it is difficult to escape the competitive aspect of a music education. It is present during the admission, in performance situations through the course of study, at exams and, of course, later in working life. Sandbakken believes we must dare to talk about how many musicians we should educate. For singers and some instrumentalists, an international top level is required to be able to enter the jobs many music students aim for, for example in orchestras.

- We also have to look at the fact that we educate too many musicians - that can be a good thing because then we have a competition, but it contrasts a culture of sharing.

And when it comes to sharing knowledge, across genres, instruments and disciplines, being curious and building bridges, there is still a long way to go. Lundgreen holds up the historical role model of musicians as generalists, more than specialists.

- Can we create a greater NMH soul? Which can help shape you as a musician, across disciplines and thus create a larger community?, asked the SUT leader and saxophonist.

Yes, said Sandbakken, and pointed out that this is closely related to the teachers' competence. NMH needs both experts in their narrow field, and the more versatile teachers who are present and build bridges.

- You need a father and you need a mother, but you also need uncles and aunts. Someone who can take you on a trip over to the new building - to visit music therapy, folk music, the jazz floor, but then we have to make arrangements to make it happen. We need people who can build bridges, emphasized the chamber music professor.

Rebne ended the conversation by pointing out that cultural change takes time, and that all change starts with people talking to each other. His appeal to the audience was therefore:

- Take the questions out to the student body and talk about the topic. If you talk to two and they talk to two again, suddenly everyone is talking.