Taboo perpetuates health problems in music industry

Trouble with your voice? You don't talk about that. Because competition is so high in the music industry, there is a taboo on showing weaknesses. While the consequences would be much smaller if attention was given to it sooner. Time for the Muziek Centrum Nederland to raise the question of where the risks for the musician lie during the music café on 3 March.

After all, the shocking news was almost impossible to miss: Caro Emerald's vocal cord polyp. She needs surgery and may not perform for several months. Other celebrities preceded her: Jan Smit, Xander de Buisonjé, Frans Bauer, André Rieu, Janine Jansen.

Musicians' health is more a matter of public, rather than medical concern: a preventive check-up, an apk of the voice should become common, but it is not yet. In elite sport, a shift towards acceptance of regular medical supervision is already visible. The music sector is still lagging behind.

To prevent health problems, the three O's are important, says ENT doctor Jan Willem Arendse: training, maintenance and overload prevention. Overuse is particularly lurking. The music industry is becoming increasingly commercial and the supply of talented musicians ever greater. Young talents are under great pressure to make a career fast. After all: a career can be over in just a few years, overtaken by new up-and-coming talent.

The industry is pushing high to sell as many CDs as possible in a short period of time. And with those sales declining, musicians need to perform as much as possible: to compensate, but also because of promotion.

Marco Riaskoff, organiser of classical concerts, sadly observes how quality is becoming less important than quantity. "Music is becoming a kind of fast food. If you do four hundred performances in a year, you can no longer do it with inspiration every time." Besides, when the pressure to perform is so high, the decision to cancel a gig due to health reasons is not easy. In doing so, the musician cuts himself in the fingers, according to Riaskoff. "If as a musician you have doubts about whether you can perform well, you shouldn't do it. It's not about having once performed at place this or that, but about being asked back there. So you should only go there when you are in top form."

The artist is not only responsible for preventing overload. The manager also influences the artist's well-being. The musician himself feels what he can handle physically and mentally and should set his own limits. "But an artist always wants to play," says Niels Aalbers, former manager of Kyteman. "It is therefore the manager's job to take care of the artist, to sense when he is on the edge." It seems to be a field of many, sometimes conflicting interests. The musician has to perform at a fast pace while keeping an eye on his health. And the manager has to see what the musician can handle on a human level in addition to the business level.

ENT doctor Arendse: "It's a shaky balance. But when continuing in the long run is worse for the singer than for the career, then you have to stop performances."

Giel Beelen interviews Caro Emerald about her polyp: