Mental health and its intersection with music is and always has been a huge passion and interest of mine. Every year, I make a point to attend as many panels as I can to see how the industry is addressing the increasingly visible disconnect between not only artists, but all members of the music community, as people vs products. In the last year, Lola Young and Chappell Roan have been poster children for the burnout and toll that meteoric success can have on a person’s mental health.
The very first panel I attended on Friday was “Tour Support 2.0: How Mental Health is Reshaping Live Music,” featuring Dr. Chayim Newman of Amber Health, Tiffany Kerns of the Country Music Association (CMA), singer/songwriter Wyatt Flores, and his manager William Dyer.
This panel was extremely enlightening to me, even as they said in the panel, as country music is almost the last place you think of as a genre that takes mental health seriously. Tiffany spoke at length about initiatives put forth by CMA to ensure that everyone in the touring industry is taken care of, from the artist all the way down to the roadies. Wyatt and William spoke about their last tour, which utilized Amber Health’s services and changed the entire culture around their experiences. Some members of the touring team had never taken advantage of mental health services, therapy, or anything of the sort. But after the second session, the entire crew was relying on the services and change of mindset. Even when they weren’t receiving formal therapy, they would check in with each other regularly and were very open and vulnerable about their needs. By the end of the tour, William said everyone was actually happy and ready to go out on the road again – which never happens!
I have personally always been of the mindset that everyone should be in therapy, whether you think you need it or not. I love that this panel really put forth the confirmation that the artists are not the only people that might benefit from services, and it only serves to make the ecosystem stronger.
I also attended a panel at the Take Action series at Inn Cahoots on Monday titled “Mental Health in Music: Beyond Awareness.” This panel featured not only musicians and music industry professionals, but also an actual neuroscientist!
Speaking on this panel were Dr. Assal Habibi from USC, musicians Michael Angelakos of Passion Pit and Neil Giraldo of… Neil Giraldo, and businesspeople Cayley Tull, Andrew MacPherson, and Coyle Girelli.
While this was a great idea for a panel, unfortunately, there was not enough time, and there were too many people for this to really get fleshed out. I don’t think they really knew what they were going to say, and Neil especially enjoyed derailing the train.
When the Covid pandemic began in 2020, there was an observable trend in people using music as a coping/healing mechanism. Coyle mentioned a recent trip to the Acropolis in Athens and how the hospital was actually built right next to the theatre because they knew the value of the arts as treatment. Neil talked about having shingles in 2018 and how listening to music at a certain frequency would actually alleviate his pain. Michael talked about the friends that he’s made in the research space and how he’s become an outspoken advocate of mental health treatment. Dr. Habibi talked about studies that she’s performed on understanding child development and the impact of music learning, and how, after following the children for 7 years, they saw results they hadn’t even anticipated in areas such as executive functioning.
Together, I think both of these panels helped highlight the importance of music in mental health and mental health in music. I sincerely hope we continue to take strides in supporting all members of the music community through mental health advocacy and taking these problems seriously because they truly do affect us all.
Officially Stefny 
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