# Has music ever made you physically sick?



## Rodney Money (Apr 8, 2017)

This has happened to me 3 times in my life: in 2000 composing my first piece for live performance which was my home town's new high school's Alma Mater, 2005 at my senior recital in college performing a piece for my mother who passed away in 1988, and just yesterday after giving a lecture on Pythagoras and Music which was more like an hour long performance using various instruments such as a DAW demonstration, percussion, piano, trumpet, and flugelhorn. I know people say leave it all on the stage, give it your all, and put your heart in it, but when I do I end up making myself physically sick with aching pains, stomach issues, and flue symptoms with no appetite. I literally had to lay down for almost 2 days just to feel better again like I do now.

Has anyone ever felt this way after a performance or while working on something? Let me say, for me, it's hardly ever nerves since I feel at home on stage, but it's more like an over excitement before I perform certain pieces. I am only asking wondering if I should see a doctor about this, or I am just being an overdramatic composer.


----------



## trumpoz (Apr 8, 2017)

After I did a hatchet-job on The Messiah at age 16, destroying The Trumpet Shall Sound I was sick afterwards. That was in my head howeber.


----------



## Rodney Money (Apr 8, 2017)

trumpoz said:


> After I did a hatchet-job on The Messiah at age 16, destroying The Trumpet Shall Sound I was sick afterwards. That was in my head howeber.


Oh yes, I know that piece well as most people unfortunately for us. We trumpet players can be hard on ourselves, can't we? I still beat myself up to this day not ending one particular solo for Ease on Down the Road on a high F, because the director made us play all dang day before the performance!


----------



## Arbee (Apr 8, 2017)

Many years ago, I recall being booked to accompany a singer on acoustic guitar for a live national TV show (just the two of us "unplugged"). I made it through rehearsal but managed a massive migraine before the performance, perhaps due to stress and/or dehydration. We ended up DI'ing the acoustic so the audience couldn't hear me throwing up in a bucket off camera behind a curtain while we were performing on air. True story, "the (live TV) show must go on"....


----------



## charlieclouser (Apr 8, 2017)

Public Image Limited at Roseland Ballroom in NYC around 1981 I think? Jah Wobble was on bass, and he had a bass rig that had I think eight of these giant cabinets from Community Light + Sound - with 18" woofers I believe? 

I made the mistake of getting right up front, right in front of his position - and when they started it was as close as I've ever heard to the "brown note". 

I was pressed up to the metal security barricade and the whole thing was resonating. There was no escape! The lighting truss couldn't take the bass, and some bolts shook loose and a piece of it collapsed. Awesome!

A belly full of sketchy street food, unknown pills, and cheap beers didn't help the situation - but I was fine until the bass hit. I didn't recover until the next day.


----------



## Kony (Apr 8, 2017)

Rodney Money said:


> stomach issues, and flue symptoms with no appetite


honey and lemon juice in hot water works in getting rid of stomach issues (the lemon becomes alkaline in the stomach and settles everything down).

I'd say that, if it's only happened 3 times since 2000, you're doing okay Rodney! Music did make me very ill once in 2012. We were headlining a festival in Finland, I'd hurt my fret hand for the first time ever while over-practicing guitar the week before (I was out of shape/practice - hadn't played for ages), and I'd damaged muscles/tendon so that it ballooned like a tennis ball. The tablets the doc gave me for the swelling gave me the worst stomach pains ever, but the lemon fixed that. I had to take plenty painkillers to play that gig though, but ... the show must go on....


----------



## chibear (Apr 10, 2017)

For me, in performance, never the music itself. However playing with musicians whose pitch center deviated from that of the ensemble did produce definite and consistant physical reactions. If the person was consistantly sharp it would set my teeth on edge, if flat I would actually become nauseated. As the pitch of ensemble deviates over the course of a performance due to nerves, acoustics, fatigue, and temperature etc., those musicians who professed "perfect" pitch were often the instigators of those reactions.

I know it's off topic, but there are enough Arnold Jacobs fans responding to this thread they would appreciate his take on tuning (statement given at one of my lessons) "You'll generally find two types of musicians in any orchestra you play in: those with perfect pitch and those who are willing to tune chords."


----------



## Kony (Apr 10, 2017)

chibear said:


> You'll generally find two types of musicians in any orchestra you play in: those with perfect pitch and those who are willing to tune chords


and those who take their root note based on the oboe at the start of any concert


----------



## Jimmy Hellfire (Apr 10, 2017)

Electronic "music" can make me feel physically sick at certain volumes. Especially when the low end gets transmitted through walls. It can really make me go crazy.


----------



## ghobii (Apr 10, 2017)

I noticed when I demo a new synth, and start going through presets, if I do it more than 15 -20min I get kind of, I don't know..my brain starts rebelling


----------



## Desire Inspires (Apr 10, 2017)

Never. Music is a cure.


----------



## Flaneurette (Apr 11, 2017)

Not that I can remember... I have been on stage twice, was a bit nervous. Time seems to stand still on stage. Very weird. I didn't like it though... I am not a performer nor an entertainer, not even a good musician. I'm a composer, so I like being alone.

I do know that a lot of performers get physically sick. Some even throw up before going on stage. Probably the amygdala in overdrive.

When I was young, I worked in traveling theatre as technical support. Setting up Piano's, sound checking and problem solving. I respect those on stage. It's tremendously hard work. Especially if you have to do the same thing every night... seeing the same performance night after night, joke after joke, line after line, in that blistering spotlight coming from a dark abyss where an audience is supposed to be... all this, whilst I was standing there behind the curtains was surely sobering. It was then and there that I dropped any trace of desire, wanting to become a 'famous' musician. Instead, I enjoyed my time preparing the Piano. A few hours before a show started, I was all alone in the theatre, sat down behind the Piano and played my own music on it. Maybe it was then that I decided I was to be a composer.

I do get physically sick of playing video games. Especially violent ones. Nauseousness and stomach pain. My tolerance for violence in movies has also been lowered throughout the years, although it doesn't make me physically sick like video games do.


----------



## givemenoughrope (Apr 11, 2017)

charlieclouser said:


> Jah Wobble



That's kinda awesome. The bass on Metal Box/Second Edition has blown some of my car speakers in the last few years. It's like a mantra of bass.

I've seen Sunno))))) twice (maybe three times?) and have always felt physically nauseous by the low mid swarms and rumbles. I last about 17 minutes each time. The most recent one was at a metal fest in Hollywood. The venue was full of metal B.O. so the side doors were open making it uncomfortably chilly but with zero visibility from smoke (resembled Cheech and Chong's van). The longest and most controlled feedbacking guitars along with subby drones from a moog all through 200w Sunn and Ampeg amps. Just sound and light suspended in time. Intense air pressure. I almost felt physically stuck there. (I was not high except maybe on hot sauce from a taco truck.) I bailed (near crawled out at first) and when I drove away I could see smoke from the smoke machines pouring out of the roof of the Fonda Theatre in my rear view. Crazy sight.

I saw John Adams conduct Respighi's The Fountains of Rome at Disney hall. I like the cheap seats either right behind the basses or percussion/low brass. The opening and various sections were so brooding and intense yet pin-drop p that it just got me feeling like I was in some hybrid sensory deprivation chamber ala Altered States and actually in suspended animation while in full view of the hall and I fought off the worst panic attack I may have ever had for about a half hour, like a plane nosedive level hell in near silence. The trumpet fanfare towards the end was such a gd relief. Almost passed out.


----------



## mwarsell (Apr 22, 2017)

Yes. Whenever I am confronted by a Calvin Harris track.


----------



## Rodney Money (Apr 22, 2017)

Thanks guys for taking the time to share!


----------



## gregh (Apr 22, 2017)

I think you should see a performance psychologist maybe (I know there are people who specialise in dealing with stage fright / performance anxiety - and this seems a variant of that,) I know that the guitarist Karin Schaupp dealt with a struggle over performance - here is a link and you can contact her for info. She did proper clinical type studies into an effective program. http://www.karinschaupp.com/teaching/

My own experience is more in public speaking where at times I have been sure I will die. My first occasion of public speaking was during my honours year at Uni, at a large international conference on cognitive science. My supervisor was talking about our project in the next session and said let's go for a coffee first. We went and ordered coffee, sat down, and he turned to me and said - so what will _we _speak about, I'll talk first and you do the last half (including questions from the audience). Thirty minutes later, waiting to step up to the stage, I thought I was dying.

I became an academic, have delivered hundreds of lectures to audiences from 10 to 500, spoken at major conferences, performed my own music/data sonifications at places like the Sydney Opera House etc etc. Sometimes I feel a nervous, most times I dont. Basically I got used to public speaking because I had to - exposure therapy. One thing is well known though - avoiding anxiety inducing situations never helps in the longer term. Getting help will feel incredibly liberating and there is an enormous amount of knowledge out there to help people with anxiety (if thats what it is).

I understand you do not feel anxious at the time but if you look at the biological underpinnings of anxiety I think there is a link - depending on the situation people may feel anxious or excited and /or focused etc with very similar things happening physically. Your description sounds like it may be an after effect of an adrenalin boost - and it is normal to get an adrenalin boost when performing. But I am not a clinician, hence I think see a doctor, get a referral to a performance psychologist. I have personally found mindfullness techniques (meditation, taichi) incredibly useful for calming the mind and body


----------

