Zoom In/Zoom Out

As I mentioned in my last blog, I've found being back home after my last UK stint quite difficult and it took me a bit of time to recalibrate and feel inspired again. This podcast episode is something that I've been thinking about for ages, and it felt like the perfect timing to talk about it as it's so relevant to me right now. Mishkin and I recorded it a couple of weeks ago but if you check out the podcast (and listen!) we've had a bit of a facelift and switched up our theme music.

Photo by Scott Chalmers

As well as new intro and outro themes, and of course The Weekly Whinge, we have also added a new segment to our podcast called Cronewatch (Mish's idea) which is basically where we talk about embarrassing things that we do now that we're old. It's kind of like Crimewatch, but for witches...

Check out the podcast here wherever you get your podcasts.

Zoom In, Zoom Out: The Two Seasons of the Musician

I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I finally talked about it on the podcast, so now I'm writing it down because I think it might help you too.

As musicians, we don't work the way most people work. We don't have a steady 9-5. Instead, we have seasons. And most of us are living through these seasons without ever naming them, which means if you're anything like me, you spend a lot of time feeling guilty about the wrong things at the wrong time.

So here are the two seasons. I'm calling them Zoom In and Zoom Out.

Zoom In is the quiet time where you do your daily practice, sensible bedtimes, self-care, and all the career stuff that contributes to "sharpening the saw". It's the period where you're recovering, building, and anticipating the work you'll need to do ahead of the next crazy adventure.

Zoom Out is when the big thing arrives. A tour, a major recording project, a music video shoot, a release campaign. You don't have time for the bedtimes or the practice because it's usually an all-consuming burst of activity. So the routines collapse and instead you're firefighting and problem solving and just surviving rather than optimising. That's exactly as it should be.

The problem is most of us don't give ourselves permission to be fully in one season at a time.

When I'm in a Zoom Out season - on tour, or crazy busy with a project - I used to try and keep up my practise routine, and I'd feel terrible when it inevitably fell apart, like I was somehow failing. But I wasn't failing. I was just in the wrong season to be expecting that of myself.

I'm much better at being in the Zoom In season than the Zoom Out. A bit too good, actually. The trap with the Zoom In season is that you can sharpen the sword forever and never swing it. I'll practise something until it feels ready and then practise it some more because it still doesn't feel quite ready enough. It's easy to get so sucked into the Zoom In that you forget to be brave and just do the thing.

What I've started doing instead is giving myself a permission slip. When I'm in a Zoom Out season, I say it out loud: I'm in a Zoom Out phase, the routine is supposed to collapse, and that's not failure - that's the job. And when I'm in a Zoom In season, I keep my head down, do my practice, and try not to worry too much about not being overtly productive.

The transition between the two is the hardest part. Coming back from something massive like a tour or a huge project and trying to reenter normal life can be quite jarring. Your body hasn't caught up, your brain is still in firefighting mode, and everything feels a bit flat and pointless. This is normal, and the worst thing you can do is immediately book something nice for yourself expecting to enjoy it, because you won't - you're not back yet. What you actually need is space.

The bigger point is that you don't need to be practising like a student anymore. All that work you put in already happened - it built you into the musician you are. Your job now is to use it, and to know which season you're in so you can actually enjoy all the parts of being a musician.

This episode of Wingspan — Zoom In / Zoom Out — is out now. Search Wingspan: The Highs and Lows of Being a Musician wherever you get your podcasts.