Who am I?
My name is Tiago Carvalho, a professional musician, orchestra Stage Manager and performance scientist aspirant from Portugal, dedicated to music performance, arts, teaching, events management, performance psychology, and performers’ health and well-being.
My professional career started in music performance as an orchestral musician (Bass Trombone). However, due to a performance-related condition called Musicians’ Focal Dystonia, I was forced to take a long-term break in my career as a performer.
I am currently Stage Manager at Philharmonia Orchestra in London; project manager of Through the Process - Educate To Prevent, and on the Master of Science in Performance Science at the Royal College of Music in London.
Three years ago I was diagnosed with Musicians’ Focal Dystonia (Task-Specific focal dystonia) on my embouchure. This condition is characterised by muscle cramps, involuntary movements and spasms that occur while playing a musical instrument. It happens mostly in musicians who have their movements highly trained for a specific task, like playing an instrument. Focal means that it affects one specific region of the body. In my case were my embouchure, tongue and oromandibular region, necessary to play my instrument.
At the very beginning, my feeling was like feeling some discomfort while playing, a tired embouchure and some discoordination. As time goes by, every time I was trying to play or touching with the mouthpiece on my lips, I started to have those contractions.
This condition changed my life, and my career and lead me through highly difficult times, not being able to perform, struggling without knowing what to do, being depressed and with a question constantly in front of each step I was taking:
“Who am I without the ability to perform, to play?”
“Who am I beyond my instrument?”
When I first started to have the first signs of focal dystonia, I didn’t know what it was. Most of the time, when I was talking with professional colleagues or even with teachers about what I was feeling, I didn’t feel I could openly express what I was feeling at that moment without being judged.
So, the fear of losing my musician and professional status drove me even deeper, suffering in silence.
During this time I was working in a professional band/orchestra, teaching and finishing my bachelor's in music performance. At this time, my instrument teachers did the best they could and know, tried to help me and support me according to their knowledge but, unfortunately, none of them knew what were the signs of a performance-related condition like Musicians’ Focal Dystonia - Embouchure Focal Dystonia.
Also during my education, while I was studying in Lisbon at a specific music university, the students’ services didn’t give me any support, rejecting all of my formal help requests regarding my condition. For them, was more important the status and professionalism of the university curricula, not giving space or support to people like me that had a performance-related injury during the period I was studying at that university. So, evaluating some of the facts, the structure of artistic education in music universities doesn’t provide the needs for performance students, either mental or physical support.
Progressively, after the rumination period, I started to see things clearer, making individual research about what I was feeling, and I found great professionals along the way from different places (Germany, UK, Spain, Portugal,...), also people from other backgrounds that were able to help me to overcome some limitations, higher than just focal dystonia but about my artistic identity and what it means to be an artist.
Among rehabilitation and training programs partially successful, I found another purpose over the way: Dedicating my life to raising awareness about health and well-being in the performing arts environment, helping to break taboos about the physical and mental health of artists, giving value to what each one of us feels.
We all come from different backgrounds, we share different perceptions, different perspectives about what we do for a living.
I couldn’t see myself with any other options in life after seeing myself limited by my condition, not able to perform, play and work in an area to which I dedicated professionally 15 years of my life.
Then, I thought “What were the origins and the causes of my limitation?”
...it was many. Even though scientifically we don’t have a concrete and unique origin of focal dystonia, we can already address it in what we live since we start learning until being inside a career.
But this is not just about the artistic environment...performance is present in every domain and area of multiple professions and activities.
Something is missing, and I address the main problem in Education, education institutions, the way we are taught to do things, to concepts regarding perfectionism.
In my perspective, What we do is not the same as who we are.
So, taking into consideration multiple questions, perceptions and perspectives, I have started this project, “ Through the Process - Educate to Prevent”, so we can go into the core to understand better what is going on in each other’s processes.
If we want to change our behaviours, we have to start by resigning our perceptions and our perspectives.
Education is the main key to it.
The students of today are the educators of tomorrow.
Let’s improve EDUCATION
Let diversity unite us.
Let’s give a face to each voice.
Let’s give value to performing artists’ health
Let’s break the silence about mental health.
Let’s care about health and well-being.
Let’s EDUCATE to Prevent, through each one’s processes.
“Out of Adversity comes opportunity”
Though the Process - Educate to Prevent is not just my project, my voice and face but the faces and voices of everyone willing to share their own perspectives about performers’ Health and well-being perceptions.
MRI Brass Repository Project - Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry (Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Chemie - Göttingen
Contact: through.process@outlook.com