‘Fit as a fiddle’: Inconsistent doping regulation neglects competitive music industry
Unremitting practice, ascetic discipline and ruthless competition are ground elements in their endeavours. Some benefit from sports psychologists; others from performance-enhancing medication. Today’s classical musicians represent arts’ living counterparts to top athletes. However, while experts, authorities and musicians disagree upon whether international doping authorities should be involved, the bottom-line remains unchanged: Musicians just don’t piss in cups.
By Tinus Elsig
Imagine the following scenario: The jury for the final round of the prestigious and career-changing Chopin Piano Competition for young talented pianists have decided you will play Sergej Rachmaninov’s second and very demanding piano concert as your final test. This is your chance. If you win this competition you know you will be able to pick and choose whatever job you want. What an opportunity. You didn’t take your pills, so you are all right if they should show up. As a result your adrenalin rushes more than you are used to, but you do well. You go on to win. You bow to receive your well-deserved applause as the curtain falls right before you finally head backstage to deliver a urine test, which will prove your innocence. It is just a routine.
The scenario is imaginary. Although a study from Aarhus University shows that classical musicians use medication as a coping strategy, the absence of doping policies, as we know them from the world of athletics and sports, seems striking compared to the indisputable competitive job-hierarchy of the business. Still, views toward the matter differ.
Chairman at DMF, Danish Musicians’ Union, Anders Laursen, does not report about problems from the society within: “Music is not sports and therefore it should not be judged as if this was the case,” he says. On the other hand, professor in Athletics at Aarhus University and author to several publications on doping, Verner Møller, states that competition no matter the context should be carried out by the same procedures as any other competition:
“There are no good arguments stating why performance-enhancing medication is allowed in competitions within the music industry, when it is illegal in competition in the world of sports,” he says.
Drugs in detail: Musicians on the pill
Whether ‘for’ or ‘against’ regulation, the results in the 2013 master’s thesis from Aarhus University graduate Jesper Kjær Lauridsen on classical musicians’ coping strategies toward musical performance anxiety, shows that ‘performance enhancing medication’ is a commonly used coping strategy towards a less tense and more relaxed performance. The survey, which was carried out on the basis of 136 respondents who were all professional classical musicians employed by one of the seven professional symphony orchestras in Denmark, states that nearly a fourth have experience with the use of beta-blockers as this group used them in ‘rare occasions’. 4,4 percent used them ‘frequently’, and 3,9 percent used them ‘often’.
The results also showed that nearly 48,5 percent thought medication to be a suitable option in some occasions. Judged on the respondents written answers, ‘some occasions’ predominantly meant ‘important solos’ or ‘competitions’.
Being confronted with the fact that almost half of the respondents accept use of beta-blockers, Head of DR’s Ensemble, Kim Bohr, made the following statement: “Our wish is that DR-employed musicians and singers are balanced human beings, and as a vital part of this we do not accept any kinds of drug abuse.” Beta-blockers equal abuse in Bohr’s eyes, and with nearly half of the respondents accepting beta-blockers as a coping strategy this shows that even among the actors within the industry different perceptions about where to draw the line exists. A similar response is made at Odense Symphony Orchestra: “It is a problem, which needs to be dealt with when almost 10 percent of the musicians use beta-blockers often or regularly,” says CEO, Finn Schumaker.
Competition a basic condition and a ‘way up’
Thirty-four-year old Tanja Zapolski knows the environment of the classical music industry inside out as she has practically been brought up in it since she was a child. Being proclaimed one of the most promising piano talents in Europe, the Ukrainian pianist, who has resided in Denmark most of her life and played in the DR Symphony Orchestra, lives a life where prestigious competitions decide how much work she is going to get in the future: “Being a classical musician can best be compared with being an elite athlete or a ballet dancer,” she states. She explains that the competitive aspect of being a professional musician is just as significant as it is when you are a professional in sports, something most people don’t think of. “Winning competitions are the most common ways to start building you a career,” she says. “This is a pressure that can be very demanding and mentally challenging to deal with.” Tanja Zapolski has never taken beta-blockers herself because she has heard from colleagues that it could somehow remove her from her own style and play. However, she knows of colleagues who benefit from the medicine. “And I don’t judge. Classical musicians are professionals under enormous pressure. We can’t deny that,” she says.
Beta-blockers prohibited in dart
Originally beta-blockers are a medication prescribed to lower blood pressure, but they also affect the effect of adrenalin on the body. Swedish professor in medicine and physiology, Bengt Saltin, is one of those who have been very critical towards the use of beta-blockers; a standpoint which he has gradually changed because scientific research within the field today has limited the side effects significantly. “Because beta-blockers interfere with the binding to the receptor of adrenalin and other stress hormones, it therefore naturally lowers the stress level of those who take them,” he writes in a mail. The effects are individual, he states, but generally they can relieve sweating and shaking hands and the feeling of hampering nervousness.
In sports, because of these effects, the international anti-doping authorities WADA has prohibited the use of beta-blockers in 18 different branches of sports including refined disciplines such as dart, snooker, golf and biathlon; that is to say disciplines where a top result requires steady hands and calm breath. From Saltin’s medical perspective there is no difference between what medications are behind the arm that throws the arrow in darts and the arm that makes the bow fiddle on the violin. As long as they both enhance the performance: “beta-blockers are performance-enhancing medication, because you only experience very little side effects, but at the same time you get rid of all the things that obstruct you from performing your best,” he writes.
Doping expert: “International doping regulation is inconsistent”
Clearly the distinction between merits in sports and music, and the ‘aids’ to which these have been achieved, vary tremendously. Throughout history different rules have applied to those acting within the industries respectively, eventually dividing athletes and musicians in extremely differing categories such as ‘cheaters’ and ‘sinners’ on the one hand, and ‘heroes’ and ‘geniuses’ on the other. The big question still seems to be why. Violinists are allowed to use drugs to enhance their performance when their colleagues in the entertainment industry – racing cyclists, dart players and snooker professionals – are not.
At Aarhus University professor Verner Møller shares the wonder of what he describes as the great inconsistency of anti-doping rules. “The only reason why you don’t control for drugs and performance-enhancing medicine in international competitions like the MALKO competition (a famous Danish competition for young talented conductors) is that it is deeply grounded within our norms of society that you simply don’t ask an honourable man in a black-tie to piss in a cup,” he says. The competing elements are affected, he argues, in both camps, whenever you draw on medication that affects your effort.
“Effectively competition in music becomes a question about who performs best on beta-blockers,” he says, stating hereby that the parameters for evaluation change when musicians draw in performance-enhancing drugs. Still, he argues, it is no problem to ask the sportsman to pull down his pants.
“This international lack of control and discrimination is rooted in the ancient idea about the sportsman as an indifferent amateur and the idea of sports as a leisure-time activity. The problem is just that these days are long gone, and that athletics today is just as much a skilled trade as any other business is,” he says.
The historic musician a ‘happy fool’
The number of parallels to be drawn between the actors within the elites of music and sports respectively is numerous. The question is to what extent a doping comparison is valid at all.
According to the German sociologist and historian Henning Eichberg, professor at University of South Denmark and internationally recognized for his contributions to the philosophy in body culture, music and sports have been – and continues to be – treated differently mainly because of their contrasting roles and perceptions within society. Music and sports and the people who uphold their living through these business, he claims, have been connected to diverging rituals and ideals throughout the European history; something which is today causing discriminatory practices. “The athlete is a role model. To some extent he carries his own merit in himself. His body is his achievement, and his performance is mathematically measurable. We have a quite opposite situation in music and arts, where the artist is much more separated from his work. Historically the musician is more like a happy fool, an unstable character and definitely not someone to look up to,” he says.
The idea of the musician as an odd and creative fellow is shared at the Danish Musicians’ Union where there is a deep respect for the explicit traditional culture of music. Although the production of great masterpieces has been carried out under influence of great consumption of drugs and alcohol, this is a natural part of the culture and creation.
“I don’t believe Jimmy Hendrix could have created his works without taking whatever he took,” chairman Anders Laursen says. “In his case it was a good idea to use drugs, but generally there are loads of examples on musicians who have reached higher grounds by ‘doping’ themselves.”
Whereas ‘higher grounds’ in the context of music has been something to strive for no matter the means of success, it has been the quite opposite situation in the world of sports where results connoting the phrase over and over again have appeared to be ticking doping scandals. The most significant in recent times is the scandal of Lance Armstrong in the world of cycling. Although the Danish journalist and poet Jørgen Leth during the 2008 edition of Le Tour de France proclaimed Armstrong to be “a true artist”, the cyclist’s ‘creations’ in the mountains – in contrast to Hendrix’s on the guitar – lost their magical appeal to audiences and experts as soon as his guilt had been confirmed, eventually leaving his place in history a rather blemished one. Verner Møller knows why: “Our western culture has situated the body and the sportsman in a closed reservation,” he says. “Different rules apply.”
Authorities passive to increasing societal problem
Despite a hefty debate in recent years internationally about where to draw the doping line in the world of sports with prominent scientists like bioethicist and professor at Oxford University Julian Savulescu, making the statement that some currently prohibited medicaments should be legalized, it seems that regulation in the remaining parts of the entertainment industry could be useful. However, though recognizing that problems may be at hand, the will to regulate seems far away. Member of the Danish Parliament for the Danish Peoples Party, Karin Nødgaard, agrees that too little is being done outside the world of sports:
“We shouldn’t allow performance-enhancing medication at all,” she says. Despite her attitude she is not going to fight for a regulation. What we can do, the current spokesman for Athletics and Culture says, is to make sure that a better effort is done in terms of making people aware of the risk they take when they decide to use drugs. At Anti Doping Danmark, the supreme institution in Denmark in terms of fighting drugs and doping in sports, they have no opinion about what should be done: “We only regulate sports, and that’s what we are interested in. Actually I think my students use beta-blockers for their exams as well,” says chairman and professor Mette Hartlev.
However, while the authorities seem to await the situation, Heinrich Eichberg warns against a careless attitude. From his point of view doping is increasingly affecting society, and certainly in more aspects than just sports and music. “Competition is everywhere today. With an increasing pressure on employees and students, we see an explosion in the consumption of drugs for ‘brain doping’. It is frightening to watch this development happen. In this regard we a have a general problem in our society, which demands our action,” Eichberg says. His statement is in direct correspondence with an opinion poll from 2013 made by Gallup for DR, which shows that 25 percent of Danes aged between 18-30 years think positively of the use of drugs for exams and challenging situations where the brain needs to think, hands need to act and breadth needs to be calm.
