r/ParallelArtists

While researching on Ed Sheeran’s wife, i saw this article about Ed Sheeran and his music.
Matthew Zuko shares that Ed Sheeran rose to fame because his music and lyrics are so relatable across race, culture, and age. His themes are simple and universal, making his albums go platinum and reach the top of the charts.
I believe that Ed Sheeran is a creative musical genius.

I studied composition seriously in university and worked really hard for about 4 years. After graduating, I completely burned out and stopped writing music (even though I had gotten job offers from multiple game companies.) At the time, I thought I just needed a break, but that break turned into years away from composing.

Now I’m stuck with this mix of anxiety and regret. I feel like I’ve lost my talent, and I can’t help but think I wasted precious time by stepping away. I don’t hate composition—if anything, I still love it—but I’m scared that if I dive back in, I’ll end up burning out all over again.

Part of me knows that if I put in the effort, I could get back to the level I was at. But the other part of me feels like I don’t have the energy or mental resilience anymore. It’s a sad, frustrating place to be: wanting to create, but afraid of the cost.

Has anyone else gone through something similar? How did you reconnect with your art without pushing yourself into burnout again? Any advice or perspectives would mean a lot.

I’ve always found it interesting how some musicians actually finished college or earned serious degrees before fully committing to music

Let's reason this fam,

Brian May from Queen studied astrophysics and eventually completed his PhD years later while still performing with the band. Tom Scholz, the guy behind Boston, graduated from MIT with an engineering degree before building one of the biggest rock bands of the 70s.

Megan Thee Stallion stayed in school and earned her health administration degree even while her music career was already taking off. Dexter Holland from The Offspring studied molecular biology and was working toward a PhD before the band blew up.

There’s also Childish Gambino (Donald Glover), who graduated from NYU before becoming successful in music, acting, and writing.

Interesting 🤔 right? r/MusicInTheMaking

I think stories like these are underrated because people usually act like artists either become famous super young or give up everything for music immediately. In reality, a lot of them were balancing school, jobs, and life responsibilities before going all in.

Honestly makes the whole music journey feel more realistic.

What’s another artist you know who had a completely different path before music took over?

So A little context I run an online business, and for the past few months I haven’t been able to create anything I’m actually proud of.

Everything either ends up sounding way too generic or way too experimental, it feels like I’ve lost the balance I used to have creatively.

I think work stress might be a huge part of it, the last few weeks especially have been ridiculously stressful and I’m finding it really hard to get into the right headspace to think creatively.

Do you guys ever go through phases like this?
Any advice would help

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I recently read this really interesting research article from SpringerNature https://link.springer.com/ about artistic careers, burnout, and long-term creativity.

The article explores why some musicians and artists stay creatively productive for years while others go through cycles of burnout, perfectionism, inconsistency, or creative paralysis. Instead of focusing only on talent or discipline, the researchers talk about something called psychological capital basically confidence, resilience, emotional stability, motivation, and the ability to recover after setbacks.

One point that really stood out to me was how creativity can become either a positive cycle or a negative one. When artists receive encouragement, financial stability, or even small creative wins, creating starts to feel easier and more sustainable. But stress, pressure, perfectionism, lack of validation, and financial struggles can slowly increase the emotional cost of making art until burnout happens.

The article also talks about late bloomers in music and art creators who improve gradually over time instead of peaking early. That honestly feels way more relatable than the internet narrative that if you haven’t made it by 22 you're finished

Do y'all think that social media has increased pressure on artists productivity? And if so how?

So, for context, my background is in tech (software engineering). I love music and also poetry.

Even with time, due to a bad software engineering market, I find it hard to focus on my personal creative side.

Does anyone have ideas. What did you do when you faced a similar stressor, where you have time, but the motivation just is not there

This is coming from just my own thinking lately, with stereotypes I grew up around, and also seeing AI impact on the creative and technical side of things alike...

So, I just want to know other's experiences, especially those who work in a sciency field or even in tech.

In my own experience, creativity and making art and music are not so different from the logical more concrete side of things. It feels like fundamentally the same thing, and before AI, solving a coding puzzle was often the same as realizing a rhyme that also had meaning in poetry (internally at least). Is it different for you? Do you find that there is a hard line?