They say don't marry a musician...

[laurensherrell]

ONe of my professors at school told me once that he will never let one of his daughters marry a musician..  "They're too unstable."  And that from a director who has a doctorates degree in some sort of music (I think it's band, but nonetheless).  Funny, I think but do you think it's true? 
I'm 24 and sometimes I wonder if it's the music in me, that part of my nature that makes me terribly prone to intense sensory experience (ha ha) and pretty much any kind of intensity whether it's emotional, mental, or relational that has kept me from being really capable of stability yet (and I'll keep this vague on purpose).  I have had struggles that seem to be part of my nature, the CREATIVE part of it.  The part that also makes me capable of musical spontanieity and passion and the sort of emotion that I dreadfully hope radiates from my some of my performances.. 
I heard when I was a little more impressionable, and by that I mean stupid = ), that Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances (op. 45) "are very difficult and very beautiful."  OH, you don't and can't know what that simple statement did to me..  I changed my life in part for that philosophy.  It was like saying to me, "very difficult IS very beautiful."  I wanted to be the kind of difficult that was complexely beautiful...  And really, quite tragically, for awhile I was. 
I have just started to rethink this rather dehibilitating standard and really, I am much simpler now, ON PURPOSE.  Give me the simple things, the things that bring stability and hope and LIFE..   
Does anybody have a similar story?  I'm intensely curious to know how many of you feel that you are drawn to certain lifestyles and philosophies because of the very nature that makes you MUSICAL.  = )

[Bob]

I've heard a similar statement about music.  "Don't marry a musician."  But the person was thinking about money. 

I could see the marriage thing going either way.  Similar personality or very different -- Differrent being financially secure in the case of music.  Music generally not being paired up with making a lot of money.

I think it's not necessarily the person, but the exposure.  If you're put in an environment where art ideas are constantly coming at you, then something with rub off I would think.

[thalberg]

Well, the way you use language sounds so familiar to me--it's like I'm reading one of my own journal entries.  The content is different, but the mode of expression is so similar.

Just the fact that one line "difficult and beautiful" could change your life shows that you are remarkably sensitive--I am the same way.  Tchaikovsky was the same way.  So many musicians are this way.  Things affect us more deeply than others.  The word "passion" literally means "the capacity to be affected."  We notice details, fine shades of meaning, minute differences in things.  We fall madly in love with some people.  We think other people are ignoring us when they're not.  We blow things out of proportion, we tend to be emotionally driven...often self-critical, sometimes demanding toward others.   If we don't watch ourselves, we can get narcissistic.  I think there comes a fork in the road where each of us can decide if we'll live our life this way forever.  In my years at a conservatory, I saw people who had made both kinds of decisions.  My favorites were the ones who had decided that even though they had an artistic temperament, they were going to behave as mature adults....it's tough, I'm still working on it. But your decision in favor of simplicity shows you're headed in the right direction.  You don't HAVE to be messed up to be a great musician.

[m]

ONe of my professors at school told me once that he will never let one of his daughters marry a musician..  "They're too unstable." 

Yeah, PM me and I will give you my wife's cell phone number. You can talk to her about that...

[pianowolfi]

Well I find myself pretty much in the description thalberg gives above. As a musician and person I tend to be extreme in more than one way. But I know also some musicians who are very capable of stability and a regular family life.
     After having been married for more than 11 years, and now living in separation, I can say that I am definitely not. My relationships tend to be rather difficult because of my musicianship, more precisely because of the way I live this musicianship. Just an example: When I prepare a solo concert I am completely focused on that, knowing that I have not very much energy in general. Everything else I shove away. Or procrastinate. Except workouts. And then I am either practicing or doing workouts or eating/sleeping. Not very social after all I need to be VERY inwards often. If I would have a regular, "normal" family life I just would not be able to give concerts. It would just not be possible. Because the time and effort I need to make for getting a concert program ready, besides my piano teacher job (which I love btw) is so much that almost nothing else can exist besides that. And I have the distinct feeling that my life would get completely senseless if I would have to give up my musical goals.
  So either I decide to be a free and a bit freakish happy musician or a frustrated and reluctant bourgeois. A prospective other woman in my life would ideally be a musician and similar to me. So we could freak around together lol  I know I am serving a clichee. But I didn't purposely decide to live like that. My goals were looking for me. Sometimes the "inspiration" just grabs me by the scruff of the neck and drags me to some incredible places and I have to collect all of my abilities to keep my orientation
But that might be more a personal thing and not so much a thing about musicians in general.

So far about my grist to the mill of your professor