Music, Mental Health and The Pandemic: Staying (Un)Productive in Times of Confinement

Abstract

This article addresses the relationship between art and pandemic from the perspective of musicians and music makers who work with and live of music. The objective of the study was to understand how conditions of social restriction and epidemiological risk have interfered with the production, creation and subsistence of music professionals. Interviews were conducted with five artists who work professionally with music, which is their main source of income. The answers obtained were problematized with discussions of authors who are addressing the psychological, social and economic issues arising from the pandemic, such as Giorgio Agambem, Boaventura de Souza Santos and Alain Bihr, in dialogue with the theorizations on the processes of creation presented by Lev Vigotski and other interlocutors. The results show the effects of social isolation and mobility restrictions on working conditions and their consequences. The professionals reinvented themselves in presentations via digital platforms, but soon realized the exhaustion of the practice and were forced to develop economic activities other than music to ensure subsistence.