This post started life as a comment on Mary’s recent post “The Return of Creativity”… but it became too long for a comment!

I lost my job, very unexpectedly, almost 3 years ago. The company I’d worked for for many years (decades!) had been acquired by a big, household name company, and they ended up destroying our business rather than enhancing it. Hence they decided to let go of it, lay the people off and ultimately sell the residual assets. I was in the first batch of people let go. Very traumatic, and not helped by the fact that at exactly the same time I had to have major knee surgery that left me incapacitated for some months.

It was late summer by the time I emerged from all that, and looking ahead, I concluded that unless I had something significant to occupy myself, the winter was likely going to be very miserable. I wasn’t sure I wanted another job, maybe I was effectively retired(?), but even if I did, there was no guarantee that I’d get one that quickly. 

Thus I decided to go back to music college for a year, maybe longer. I’ve played guitar since my teens, and violin before that – music has long been an important part of my life. Lots of different projects… covers bands, function bands, original songs, musical theatre, the works. And in 2010 I’d spent an amazing year at a highly reputed specialist college not too far from where I lived. So I decided to see if I could go back there. Some of the same tutors were still there, which seemed a good sign – indeed the guy who auditioned me remembered me from back then.

But… the experience was so different. The institution had changed out of all recognition. Standards were low, work ethic was lacking across the student body (super-frustrating when you’re required to do group work), teaching quality was patchy at best. Those tutors I remembered would, eventually, in private, agree that the place had gone to the dogs, they just stayed because they needed an income. I nearly quit the course just after halfway through, and in hindsight perhaps I should have done.

By the end of the course, in May 2024, I’d lost all interest in playing. I had one gig upcoming with one of my bands, so I did that, and then quit. The other band was kind of on ice at that point anyway, where it remains to this day, even with an album of my songs half-recorded. My gear has not moved from the place I put it the night I got home from that gig. And now 18 months have passed, and I’ve not picked up and played a guitar in that time. Literally, not one note. I’ve barely even listened to any music, though this is finally changing a little. I keep telling myself that the urge to play will return, and that I can’t rush it. But… maybe I’m wrong and it won’t just come back? On the other hand, where would the mileage be in forcing myself to do something that I don’t have any inspiration for, and for which inspiration is actually necessary?

Any suggestions dear Moodscopers?

Orville

A Moodscope member