Sustaining a Healthy Career with Anna Ruddick

[00:00:00] Rosalyn: Welcome to Refolkus, a podcast that helps you find your focus to build a thriving creative career in the music industry. I'm your host, Rosalyn Dennett.

[00:00:28] Rosalyn: Hello and welcome to Refolkus. Our guest today is Anna Reddick. Anna is a graduate of McGill University's jazz performance program and postgraduate studies in arts administration and cultural management at Hamburg College. In her young career, Anna has risen to become one of the most in demand and versatile basis.

In Canada, she has performed on more than 50 studio albums spanning across many genres. Some of her notable recording work includes Randy Bachman's Power Trio album, heavy Blues, Bri Webb's, critically acclaimed studio album, free will and live album Live at Massey Hall. Paul Paul Reddick's 2017 Juno Award-winning album.

Ride The One and Lee Harvey Osmond's 2020 Juno Award-winning album Mohawk. In addition to her session work, Anna has performed live and toured with a who's Who of Canadian and international artists. Most notably city in color, Fifi Dobson, Amanda Raum, Erin Costello, and Ian Burton's Quartet Future Now after over a decade as a full-time working musician, Anna is passionate about advocating for the financial and emotional wellbeing of Canadian music industry workers, and has been working with the Unison Fund, Canada's music charity since 2020 as manager of industry relations.

Welcome, Anna. How are you doing? I'm doing good. It's so nice to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. I know today we are both in the same situation being working music industry moms with sick kids at home. That's fun. Yeah,

[00:01:51] Anna Ruddick: I don't think I've been completely well for about six months. Like I've had some form of a cold or something for about six months,

[00:01:59] Rosalyn: and I'm wondering if we can start by chatting about the unison fondant and your work there and maybe talk a little bit about some of the services that you folks offer.

[00:02:08] Anna Ruddick: Yeah, absolutely. Currently we have two mental health counseling programs that we partner with. One is LifeWorks, which is sponsored by rbc, and this is a free mental health counseling service that is done over the phone. It's free for any unison member, so any Canadian music worker and their immediate family.

The way that it works is you call the toll free number and you are triaged to a therapist. This can be a psychologist, family therapist, or social worker. That's. Right for your needs. And it's really cool because they'll ask you a bunch of questions about what's going on in your life and then actually find somebody that's the right person to assist you with that.

And then you can have just weekly phone calls, just like regular therapy, but over the phone. And I've used it before and it is really, really, really helpful and really specific to your needs actually. So we've seen a massive increase in subscription to this, obviously over the pandemic. And it's, it's, I've, it's just really, really, really helpful to have that because we.

Support 15,000 Canadian music workers who would've otherwise had to pay out of pocket for therapy with this service. And like, you know, it's really tough to afford therapy as a music worker. We don't have health insurance or anything like that, that's gonna cover it for us. So this is really, really amazing resource that we're really trying to get the word out about.

Yeah,

[00:03:18] Rosalyn: I've also used that service through Unison. It was particularly helpful for me postpartum, just needing to talk to someone and I was really, really impressed with how quick the service was. You know, you just call and somebody's gonna answer. They're kind and understanding, and just like ask you the questions to get you the help that you need, like it's done through lifework.

So it's not like you're calling Unison and talking to Anna and being like, Anna, this is what's up. But in my life, you know, there's, it's a little bit more, uh, anonymous. Yeah. It's so

[00:03:49] Anna Ruddick: nice to hear you talk about it, like as somebody that's used the service. That's really awesome to hear that you've had a good experience with it.

And the postpartum thing, I used it for that as well, and I used the service to talk to a family therapist because I have a shared custody situation. And like the, all of the moving parts surrounding that can be really, really stressful when you're a working musician and a working mom or just for anyone.

And I, I saw a family therapist there who gave me a. A ton of tools to use to help myself through that situation. And that's kind of what I was asking for. Like traditional therapy sometimes makes me feel like nervous to be so vulnerable. And so for me at that time I was like, can you just gimme tools to like deal with certain situations?

And she was amazing and that's exactly what she did. And yeah, I just wanted to tell that story about my own use of the program because I think that's helpful for people to hear about it firsthand. They also will send a, you know, when I was. About to have my last child, they sent me, you know, like a bunch of books about parenting and stuff.

It's cute. Like they ask you about your situation and then they actually send you things in the mail that will help you. It's really cool.

[00:04:51] Rosalyn: So is that the same program? Cause I know that in the past you've done some assistance with like, folks who might need to help with groceries or, you know, with their like physical Yeah.

Health, you know, like getting folks Fitbits or, or a certain It's not,

[00:05:05] Anna Ruddick: no. The LifeWorks program is the, is the counseling and, and mental health. They like. LifeWorks will also help with like a bunch of other things that we need, like, you know, just advice about family life finding child and elder care, legal advice, workplace advice, financial management, nutrition addiction, all those sorts of things.

What you were describing is our industry assistance program, so that program, which is the initial program that we had for the first. 10 years before the pandemic where music workers who were in a crisis, something has happened where they can't work or they need emergency financial assistance for are like health related things.

Well, like you were saying, I, I need money for groceries. I didn't have a gig this month. Like that type of thing. There's all sorts of reasons why a music worker will suddenly not be able to work. As you can imagine, there's a just a whole list of things. That can happen. As I was saying before, because we don't have access to the same social securities as regular insured workers.

Unison is there to sort of like help out. So if you break your arm, for example, and you can't play a gig, you know we can, I. Pay your rent for a month or, and so on and so forth while you recover. That's kind of what the Unison Fund exists for. It's just to help out musicians and music workers who are in a crisis or having a mental health crisis or having a physical crisis or a health issue.

There needed to be something there for us. And there is now with Unison, can you tell me

[00:06:21] Rosalyn: a little bit about the financial. Support that that unison has offered and how that works? Yeah,

[00:06:27] Anna Ruddick: absolutely. So as I was uh, explaining before the pandemic, we had an industry assistance program to help people that were in a crisis.

As you can imagine, the past three years we're a crisis for the entire music community. So for the first time, we received money from the, both the provincial Ontario government and the federal government. Unison had never received government funding before, but we did. And. We dispersed financial assistance payments to 7,000 people since July 22 with the Performing Arts Workers Resilience Fund.

Our fund being the live music workers fund that was payments of $2,500 to anyone who had worked full-time in music for at least two years before the pandemic. And yeah, that was 7,000 people and there is probably still more. And it was wonderful to just grow the organization exponentially, hire a whole bunch of new people and just.

Get the money out to everybody who needed it, and it was really great. We are now in between programs because we've been just on all hands on deck, providing that funding to people, and then in the spring we will relaunch our financial assistance programs, which will look the same as it did before the pandemic.

People can apply for financial assistance for various. Things, various reasons why they can't work, if something's happened in various crises, various health issues. And we will also be launching a new program, but called the Legacy Program. And this is a financial assistance program for music industry veterans and people with long-term health concerns.

As we know, music, music workers don't usually retire and when they receive a pension mm-hmm. It's just not usually going to be enough. So we just really want to help our veterans and make sure that people can like live comfortably in their senior years.

[00:08:06] Rosalyn: Oh, that's incredible. You mentioned, you know, 7,000 applications.

Were you the person that was helping administer those payments? Like were you, were you involved in that?

[00:08:15] Anna Ruddick: Yeah, I was involved in the live music workers fund in several different capacities I worked with and we unison, all of us worked with a steering committee of individuals from various provincial music industry associations advance.

The Indigenous Music Summit, five X Festival, just every, every equity deserving group and every provincial group, a committee of people basically was put in place to do outreach for this funding because the Instant fund was quite small. And then, Had a 600% increase in membership, you know, during the pandemic.

So mm-hmm. We had to make sure we reached every corner of the music industry. And so I worked with them to make sure that everybody in the industry knew about this fund and could apply for it to find out what translations we needed to find out, like what barriers are in place for people applying for the funding.

And they were amazing, so indispensable to us. And, you know, we're gonna keep working with, with a lot of those people on our steering committee because it's just so helpful to have that. Outreach and yeah, I also worked, uh, hands on with the applicants. Talked to a lot of people on the phone, did approvals, just tried to help the funding team make sure that we could get through everybody.

But yeah, it was just sort of, it was a sort of all hands on deck approach and I was really lucky to be able to, you know, work in various capacities in this and see how it was working and how it was helping people. I really liked the part of the work that involves speaking to people and like hearing people's stories and.

Getting a real sense of how things were, like really reading the barometer of what was happening on in the music industry. When I say I liked it, I mean it was very challenging because it, it was very clear to me in speaking to our applicants, you know, people that were very, very, very hardworking and successful, if you want to use that word.

I have a hard time using that word because what does that mean? But before the pandemic, but had really lo lost all of their savings and things like that. Not working, you know, people were having housing issues was a big one. That really, really was tough. To hear about housing insecurity, I. You know, as you know, as a musician, it's something that we sort of have to deal with for the first 10 years of our career basically.

Cuz if you wanna be a musician, you're gonna have to like really pay your dues and not make a lot of money. We've all gone through that. I mean, mostly, and hearing that people have like, you know, they, you get older and you start figuring out your career and you make money. And then this pandemic created a situation where, It threw people back into that early phase of their career when they weren't making enough money to pay the rent and things like that.

It's just like backtracking like that is so hard for us. Right. That was tough. Yeah. And

[00:10:34] Rosalyn: that must have been heavy to be the person fielding all that and, and you know, really. In an industry, in, in crisis and in folks in crisis. You, you know, you mentioned that all that financial insecurity, and as you mentioned in your bio, you know, you, you are someone who talks about financial wellness for, for artists, and, and that's, you know, something that you're passionate about.

Maybe you can talk a little bit. About financial insecurity and kind of like the ebb and flow of that lifestyle and some of the tips you might have for strengthening your, your financial wellness and, and literacy.

[00:11:09] Anna Ruddick: It's, that's a big question. And you know, I have to state that I'm by no means an expert in financial wellness, but I come from a place of having experienced a long career in music in every stage of a, of.

Of a career in music. And one thing I like to tell people is that, you know, if you're gonna be a musician, you have to be okay with a certain level of ebb and flow when it comes to finances. You have to not beat yourself up, that your income is so much lower than your friends or family members who have regular quote unquote jobs.

It's a long, long path to reaching financial stability, and you're making a big sacrifice to be an artist or a musician or a music worker, but your passion is, you know, is why you're doing it and your talent is why you're doing it, but you have to go easy on yourself because there's no, there's no two ways about it.

It's a really hard career choice to make money in. Being as informed as you possibly can about, you know, things like doing your taxes as a self-employed music worker, getting a really good accountant, creating a personal budget for yourself, finding a side hustle that is like complimentary to your music is really, really important because, you know, and especially if you live in somewhere like Toronto or Major Center, when you're a bit younger in your career, like you're probably gonna have to have a second income and there's lots of different things that you can do to find something that's compatible with your music.

I'm

[00:12:23] Rosalyn: actually, I'm interested in, in talking for a second about, The side hustle because I think it's something that folks certainly don't often promote that side of, of what they're doing, you know, on social media or whatever. It's all about the gigs and the fun side of it, the music work. They might not be promoting that, Hey, I'm waiting tables, or here's me cleaning floors here, whatever.

You know, the other side of it. And you mentioned like finding that side hustle that's kind of congruous with your music career. Do you have some like. Examples of, of some things that folks may seek out as like side work that you've, you've seen kind of work for yourself or other people?

[00:13:00] Anna Ruddick: Yeah. One thing like I, I sort of, especially post pandemic, want to normalize is the fact that like we're all getting a side hustler.

Not everybody but younger, younger musicians, and it's. Because it's important to be financially secure and you're not always gonna have the same amount of gigs every month. Examples of things that people are doing. And I like what you said about how you don't see what people's side hustles are on social media.

And it's like everything always comes back to that. But you know, half of the, the people out there are bartending or waiting tables. Work, which is very lucrative and there's nothing to be ashamed of. And I mean, that is like seriously hard work. Mm-hmm. And really important work. The service industry is great for musicians because you can kind of come in and out and you can create a community there and like know different people.

You know, some people work at two or three different places or do replacement work. Some people work for back lane companies if they wanna be closer to like a music environment or stage tech work. There's an amazing resource called the Work and Culture Job board where they have temp work. You know, maybe it'll be like handing out brochures at a.

It's concert hall or something like that. Tons of temp work there in culture, which is great. I always tell people about the working culture job board cuz there's just so much temporary employment there that's close to the arts and makes and if that's what's comfortable. Mm-hmm And that's the space people want to be in still when they're not making their own music or creating, it's really, really helpful that that resource is there cuz there's a lot of work there.

Especially in the summertime when there's like a lot of festivals and things like that. There's just tons of extra work that we can look for there. So it's good. I discovered that resource when I was doing my postgraduate certificate in. Arts administration, cultural management at Humbard, that was like a, a resource that they gave us right away when we were looking for internships and things like that.

And I was like, wow, this is amazing. This is something that like more music workers should know about when they're just needing that extra employment. Cuz there's just a lot there. And you know, there's also jobs there within the music industry as well. If people are looking for like a more permanent side hustle.

Like myself, I've got two kids. Mm-hmm. And I sort of stopped touring full-time and you know, I did that program at Humber so I could work for the Unison Fund. And this work, you know, I still work quite. Full-time as a musician when I'm not doing this, but it's very complimentary to that. Just have to find something that, that you, that makes you, that is sort of complimentary to your music work.

Cuz music is always gonna come first for all of us, but it's just about finding something to do for money that doesn't take away from

[00:15:05] Rosalyn: your art. Yeah, and it's an interesting. Balance and it's, it's pretty awesome. Yeah. If you can find a place like, like where you've landed that like, that understands that, I'm certainly like when interviewing for jobs or seeking out different jobs in the industry, sometimes you don't know how, how hard to lean into the, and I'm an artist.

Sometimes it's, you know, I've certainly workplaces where that's like, oh no, they're an, oh no, they're an artist. And other places where they're like, oh my gosh, you're an artist. This is perfect. This aligns with what we do. So I feel like either way, You know, being honest about what your schedule could be like, you know, or making sure that, that there is some.

You know, if you can build some flexibility in, that's really important. And then also like, like advocating for the value that artists bring to whatever they're doing. You know, whether it's, you know, working in a desk job or shoveling gravel. It's like, you know, we're hard workers, we're, we're entrepreneurs, we're, you know, folks that quite often have.

Have had a hand in every aspect of our own business, we can give ourselves more credit than sometimes we

[00:16:13] Anna Ruddick: do. That's for sure. That is like, that's such an excellent point about it's kind of hire a musician, you'll get a hardworking person, but it's that's absolutely true. I mean, we, we are all sort of entrepreneurs and self-made people and like as, as an independent artist, we know how to do a lot.

We know how to like, Really rise to an occasion and really hustle and, yeah, it's, I, I know what you mean about some, like some workplaces being really, really apprehensive about hiring musicians because again, it's that thing where we are assumed to be people that are not in a serious profession or it's not a real job or something like that.

And, but then there are places that are like, wow, I'd love to hire a musician because they see the value. This job is one where it's very frustrating. People are, might think that we are not. In a serious profession where people might really appreciate us or really, really value us because we're musicians and we're very interesting to them, but there's a lot of like prejudice there too, because.

Maybe we are seen as people that aren't taking like the way the real world works seriously or something like that. It's just, yeah. Add to

[00:17:06] Rosalyn: that also the stress or or responsibility of caring for others too. It's like a whole other level for folks who are in, in that sort of situation as caregivers at whatever type of stage of life they're at. Can you share a little bit about your experience of being a touring artist while, while having a family?

[00:17:26] Anna Ruddick: Yeah, absolutely. In my non unison work, I am a touring and session bass player, so I always work in a capacity where somebody is hiring me to play bass for them and play their music and make them sound good.

So it's, it's a different perspective than, than, you know. Being the artist themself, having children and dealing with that. I am somebody that is being hired by people and I also have children. So I've had a lot of experience with just having to separate the two. And it can be really hard, it can be really lonely, you know, sort of being out there and like leaving your family at home.

But I've found a way over time to sort of like pick. Work where there'll be some sort of understanding of the fact that I've got kids at home. Like I haven't historically brought my children on tour that much. I have absolutely. When I had one child, my daughter Lenny, who's almost five when she was a baby, I was able to tour with a few people that would allow me to bring her, which was so incredible.

That felt really good to be valued enough that I could bring like my baby, and it was kind of nice for everybody. She was like a really, I do, I do have a disclaimer. She was a very easy baby and did not. He sort of cry a lot and slept very well at night. So, I mean, I wouldn't bring a baby once were as a, as a hired gun that was gonna scream and make everybody not get any sleep.

But anyway, that was really lovely and I've, and I, most of the touring I did obviously wouldn't have been appropriate to bring any of my children on the road and things like that, but it is doable. The main thing there is you need a support system, right? So if you have, if your parents are nearby and they're willing to help and things like that, that makes it easier.

I was leaving my daughter with my mom and she was, Happy to look after Lenny. I was a single mom with my first child, so that was part of it. And now like my partner stays home with them when I go away, but I don't go away for very long when I go away, you know, I just, I just tour people that are, you know, less than a week and things like that.

It's tough for sure, and it's the main part of it that's tough is when you've got kids and you're going away on the road is the guilt. It is just, you know, it's that crippling guilt. What, well, I'm a mother. I shouldn't be the one that's leaving my kids at home. This is not what women do or whatever. Like this isn't fair to my partner.

Every spiraling thing. So what I can recommend is in those situations like you really just keep the lines of communication with whoever your caregiver for your children is. While you're not there open, keep the lines of communication open. How can I help? Does this make you feel a certain way? It's a lot of communication because you've gotta just really, like you're out there doing your job and you have to.

Focus on it. And it can be frustrating to be constantly distracted by those kind of feelings when you're gone. But it's normal. Your kids know that you're their mom and or you're their dad and that you're gonna come back and they get used to anything cuz children are very adaptable and throughout history, like so many touring artists had children and had to leave them behind.

And it's about what you do when home and being present. And you know, we have little traditions around like when mommy comes home from the road, we do this and like she'll, I always bring them presents or you know, we have a special dinner or you know, and we talk before I leave about like where I'm going and I tell them about the different cities that I'll be visiting and I FaceTime four times a day.

Stuff like that. Just do your due diligence and it's really not that detrimental to them. We have to work, but we also deserve to have children. And it's not like if you're a musician, you shouldn't have kids because we make really good parents. As you know, like you're a musician who has had children, you probably found it easier to get up at three in the morning cuz you've been awake at three in the morning so many times.

[00:20:40] Rosalyn: Very true. But I like the, also like touching on the, the feminist issue of women working and, and being the non-male caregiver and the. Extra expectation that's on you to, to be the parent at home or you know, not to be the person that's leaving. It's, um, think that there is like an extra, an extra pressure on women to, to be the first to sacrifice their career.

You know,

[00:21:08] Anna Ruddick: I was playing a gig the other weekend and one of the individuals in the opening band. One of their musicians was talking about how she was replacing somebody who had had a baby. And I was like, how old is the baby? Or six months old? Or whatever the case may be. And it was just, I was, I just thought to myself, why isn't she playing this gig?

Because she has a baby? And it's just, I keep hearing that over and over again. And like that is also perhaps her decision, which is. Great if it is. Mm-hmm. But I hear a lot about women just, you know, taking a lot of time off from their music because they have a baby. And I'm just like, how can we help this situation?

How can, how can I explain to people that there are, there are things you can do, how can we make it normal for, I. Her to bring that baby. Cuz I'm like, we're playing a rock show. But like the baby would probably just sleep backstage. Like, it's always, it's like, it's an unbelievable how much they're like, you're like, how are they asleep?

It's like so loud. I don't know. But anyway, I, I, and I'm coming at this from not a place of judgment, but just a place of being like, I want this woman to be able to play this show. How come she can't because she had a baby? I just, I think there just has to be more conversations about this because people have children and women are musicians, and I'm, you know, we're getting to a point where we're seeing so many more female and non-binary musicians when it used to be like a lot of dudes up there all the time, right?

So with that information, there's gonna be more children around and more people are gonna have babies and that are musicians, and we can't just expect them to sort of like stop playing because of that. So, I dunno what the answer is, but it's, I, I want people to just know that it's possible. I really enjoyed bringing my family to the f o conference this year and doing the worklife balance panel and like having my kids there.

It was so, Awesome. Like I have to tell you, it was a really great experience. I felt really, really comfortable having my children there with me and they really loved it and it was like really nice to bring them to showcases and it's so nice to have them with me when I'm working so that they can see what I do because that is one thing, like that's why I think it's.

Great when you can bring your kids around what you're doing for work, like I often bring them to the studio just for a visit and things like that. It's so nice for them to know what their parents are doing and like what, what work it is and what it is to be a musician. Lenny, my five year old came to my sound check with Future now the other day, this is like an extremely loud metal band and she like fit under the table with ear plugs in under my jacket, but she was like, that was so cool.

After. And it's just, it's, it's just, it's cool. Like it's good to let them, to show them what it is. I'm like, you know, it's gonna be loud Lenny, and it's really probably not your thing. But she's like, no, I wanna

[00:23:30] Rosalyn: see what you're doing. That's so neat to be able to create spaces that you can include your family or, or loved ones in, it's neat in that way too.

That's like a whole other thing. But it that's, you know, kind of the, the nature of, of the beast in some ways is that, you know, folks can. Are so participatory in what you do. Right? Yeah. I

[00:23:49] Anna Ruddick: have to say, like, just for anyone listening to this, that's an artist that have has to hire musicians like myself to play in your band.

One thing I would suggest, you know, I've, I've seen this a lot. Somebody saying, yeah, this person was gonna hire you, but like, cuz you have kids, they, you know, went with somebody else. I. Instead of asking if I tour, like ask somebody if who's a parent and like if they're a dad too. Like, you know, people usually are like, well, he has kids.

Obviously he can still tour. But the, you know, hiring women and non-binary folks and people that are parents like isn't necessarily a bad idea. This is somebody that is hardworking and responsible and has to support themselves and their family. Mm-hmm. It's not a bad idea if you, if you like somebody the way that.

Somebody plays and you wanna hire them if they have kids, and you're nervous about that, just it's really okay to ask questions of that person. If you're an artist that maybe doesn't know what that's like or what that, what that looks like, instead of just assuming that because somebody has children that they, they're not able to work or travel or go to a studio all day.

Ask, always ask. And that is how conversations happen and that is how things get normalized. And it's just really, really important. I just, there's just so many moms now that are musicians that need to be hired and you know, there it's, it's normal to have women on stage and a lot of that has really, really changed and that's great, but you know, that means there's gonna be moms and the parents and things like that.

So it's not rude to ask like, how does this work? I don't know. If you're not a parent, you can ask somebody how that works because you don't know, and that's totally fine.

[00:25:12] Rosalyn: Yeah, and just normalize the conversation. People are open to talking about it and advocating for your needs and your, and your family's needs, and just having the conversation, I think is such a amazing first step to have.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. When we're talking about carrying that extra responsibility, but even just kind of going back to the glow of financial health and, and in general and, and the kinda income instability that precarious workers have, can we. Just dive in for a minute into some of the advice that you would have for budgeting and cash flow and that sort of thing.

As I

[00:25:51] Anna Ruddick: said before, I am by no means an expert in this. It's funny, I, when I did my post grad certificate at Humber, I had a financial management class, which involved budgets, spreadsheets, financial statements and all that kind of stuff, and it was like, So interesting to learn about this. And it got me thinking, you know, and also we talked about tax brackets and like writeoffs and all that kind of stuff.

Some of which I knew as a, as a self-employed person for many years. But it got me thinking about that education piece. It's like I went to McGill for the jazz performance program. You know, it's a sort of prestigious music university program in Canada at McGill. You know, really hard. Jazz program. Mm-hmm.

And you, you go through this program and become, you know, great at your playing and, you know, knowing the history of this music and playing it and nobody's teaching you how to get gigs. You figure that out because you have a community and you know, you kind of hustle and figure out what, what you need to be doing to get, kind of make some money, but there's no class.

I don't know if there is now, but like 20 years ago when I was in university, there was no class about financial management in my music program. Obviously there's one in my, there's one in my arts administration class, but like in the, the performance program, which is training musicians to go out there and be musicians, it, it, there, it should exist.

It's so important that you know how to do your taxes and how to write things off and like what you can write off and like how to make a personal budget, things like that. Like how much, how much. Money you need to make per month to be able to sustain yourself and like how you can do that. And just getting organized, like, you know, a lot of us are disorganized people, we're artists, we're musicians, we're creatives, half of us are neurodivergent.

I am, it's so important to like learn all this stuff and it's, you're a young musician studying or coming up. It's just there's not a lot of stress on it. And I think like that's the biggest piece of advice I can give is just to have a really good accountant and learn a little bit about how to, how to make a personal budget, how to do your taxes, what your needs are.

It's obviously messy in the beginning of your career and you know, it's just so inconsistent. That's what we were talking about before, about why didn't exist because it can just all sort of go away and for no reason you'll have nothing and there just won't be a gig. It's just it. It's all dependent upon so many different moving parts that have nothing to do with you or your talent or how hardworking you are.

So it's things like, Hey, how much money do you think I should have put aside a very difficult task, obviously with like this gig economy, but like, If you can a couple months of a safety net, which many of us had before the pandemic, and obviously none of us have now because we've needed our savings if we live in any kind of bigger city.

Mm-hmm. But those kinds of things are just, it's just something to think about. It's so easy to ignore it and just kind of put the blinders on and forge ahead, which is also good. It's just, you gotta do what you gotta do. But yeah, I just recommend sort of spending a little bit of time with that. And fortunately we have the internet and finding resources for that is fairly easy.

But yeah, just, you know, personal budgets. Making sure you do your taxes every single year so you know what's happening year to year. Because unfortunately, we're at the mercy of the CRA and we have to play their game. It's very important to do so. You can get into some sort of sticky situations, but if you have a really good year, if you switch to a new income bracket, if you need to collect H S T, all of that stuff is really, really important to be aware of cuz you can get into real trouble if you kind of don't do your taxes for a couple years, make too much money one year you're gonna owe the CRA back.

And then how do you get on a payment plan to do that? It's just, um, we have enough going on in trying to organize a career in the arts and music. It's just important to do your due diligence for yourself to just take that extra layer of stress off. Financial wellness is just tied to every other aspect of our personal wellbeing.

Unfortunately, in this like world that we live in, it's just, it can really like affect our health. Hmm. And be stressed out about money. So it's important to just try to be kind to yourself and just try to, you know, take it slow and figure out a way to just personally budget your, your month. Just put a little bit of money aside and to just know how your tax situation works.

It's just all those like little things. It doesn't have to be, you don't have to be an

[00:29:36] Rosalyn: expert. Well, speaking about. Being kind to yourself. Do you have some perspective to share? Yeah. About, you know, kind of the general wellness for folks that are working in the music space and whether that's like health or mental health and how people can support their own wellbeing.

[00:29:54] Anna Ruddick: What we do have in the music community is that sense of community, and I think talking about what's going on and like finding like-minded people, being able to express yourself, being able to be vulnerable and just, you know, talking with people in your community about how you're feeling is really, really important.

As I said, I'm very happy to tell you guys about the free counseling that we have at Unison. Talking to somebody who's a professional over the phone in this case is so helpful. It's just, it's really important that like that music workers take the time to take care of their own mental health because, It's just a really, really hard career and people need to know that they're deserving of that, of that health.

It sometimes it feels like we're not deserving or we're not used to deserving basic things because we don't get a paycheck with like our pension taken off of it. We don't have access to EI if like we can't work, we don't have access to maternity leave if we wanna have children. So sometimes we can feel like we're not members of society who are appreciated, but music workers are incredibly necessary because.

The economy makes millions of dollars off of music, live music, the live music space. Like all of all of it, it's, we are deserving of wellness, financial, and otherwise. So talk to people, talk to a professional, talk to your friends. Keep the conversation flowing so that things can be more normalized cuz the more mental health struggles, financial struggles and all of that.

Even that thing you said before about like, we don't know what people do as their side work because nobody posted on social media. Be authentic on social media. The more people are authentic and the more people talk about what's going on, really the more this will work and the more that the community will be in a more positive open space.

I really just wanna impart that, that knowledge, that things will get better as long as they're normalized and we all go through the same sorts of struggles and we all only post the cool gag that we have on social media. But unfortunately, social media is just this, this superficial thing that can showcase to.

Our audience and our fans what we're doing, but there's also our community of other musicians and music workers and we, we, we should be real with each

[00:31:50] Rosalyn: other. Yeah. I really love that part of like, connecting with other musicians about it. I think sometimes people are scared too because I think it's hard to admit that you're struggling and, and especially when you also have kind of like a working relationship with people.

There's almost that like office type vibe where you might not, you know, wanna get into, you know, you kind of might be. Trepidatious about sharing a struggle with, with someone who's like a potential coworker in some ways, because, you know, you might feel weird being that vulnerable, but I think that you're right, this is a industry that's built on community.

It's refreshing to be able to have those conversations. I think that the neat thing about emerging out of the pandemic is that some of those barriers have been, have been taken down a bit, or at least you know, there's. There's more kind of open conversations now about mental health and, and people's struggles.

We can all know that we were struggling because we were all doing it. So, yeah, I think that that that conversation's becoming hopefully a little bit more normalized for some folks. And also, you know, I don't do it too often, but I, I will say that that's one of the nice things about. Fmo, if I can give a little plug for, or any kind of conference.

Really like any of those kind of big gatherings of musicians, that's always a, a big highlight is getting to have that kind of bigger community connection. You know, when we did the, the refocus wellness sessions at the conference where we had, uh, Cindy and doing group therapy sessions and that room was, was full, you know, she was talking about the.

Emotional impact of being able to open up with a, a group of people who are experiencing similar things. And it was, it was a really neat program to have happen at the conference.

[00:33:30] Anna Ruddick: The conference was wonderful. It was a sense of community, I don't think I've ever seen, and I, it was my, this past season has been my first time going to conferences as a delegate, not as a musician who's just playing a gig there.

So I really like threw myself into the mix. You can see that the energy has shifted because, I mean, some, honestly, like a conference like that would've made me just really nervous and like, Oh my God, what's gonna happen at this thing before the pandemic? But you could, the, the sense of community there was just like inspiring.

Like honestly, it was, it was incredible. Things have changed. The pandemic is, was horrifying and a lot of people got sick and, and you know, we lost a lot of people. We also lost a lot of people in the community. Because of the pandemic and cuz of their mental health and not being able to, to hang onto their mental health, um, a lot of people.

And so enough is enough. We have to just have these conversations about mental health. We have to not hide behind like a persona that is not ourselves in that moment because we're scared that we won't get hired if there's something wrong or if there's something that that's bothering us. Because one thing the pandemic has taught us is that that community and that that is really, really important and mental health is really, really important because we lost people and we can't keep losing people because they feel like they can't be helped.

[00:34:40] Rosalyn: So can you tell me about, uh, together All, um, which is new program that Unison is offering, which I think kind of, uh, applies to this, this chat about, about community support.

[00:34:51] Anna Ruddick: Yeah, absolutely. And so one thing that's like I. Obviously daunting is talking to your actual peers face to face about things that you're going through.

And it's funny, like we're having this conversation, I'm like, oh yeah, we have to mention together all because together all is like an online community. It's a peer to peer mental health support community. It's a, it's like people support each other and it's anonymous. And it improves mental wellbeing. You can express yourself creatively on there.

You can find others who are having the same feelings and thoughts. You know, on good days you can support other people. On bad days, you can get support and giving back can be so positive in any recovery situation or crisis. So you find an anonymous name and you go on and you can find, like there's a, there's a music worker's page on together all, and you can go and speak to people and talk about what you're going through.

It's completely anonymous and safe and it's monitored 24 7 by mental health professionals. So it's nice, it's like a place where you can go be yourself and talk openly about your struggles with the, the rest of your community, like similar community. As I said, there's a music workers section in together all, but there are those mental health professionals like, uh, they're called wall monitors cuz you're sort of like posting on a wall, overseeing things.

So if there's something that's really wrong or you're feeling like you're in a crisis, they will intervene and like help you. You know, they're keeping you at arm's length and they're letting people discuss, but it is being monitored. So it's a really nice thing. You can feel really safe there. It's like the whole thing about together also be a safe space.

Space to meet others like yourself. Um, and I love that moderation aspect of it because you know that like if things escalate with you, that somebody that's a professional is gonna be there to like come in and be like, Hey, what's going on? Are you okay? And I really love that. It's, it just feels like a really safe space.

And we're at unison, like we're, we're partnered with them and we're just really hoping that it, like, it takes off a little bit. We have some subscription to it from members, but I wanna encourage more people to get on there just to start it, just even to. Start that conversation. You just to start being able to express yourself and it's anonymous is really, really good because it's super hard to express yourself to people that you know.

Mm-hmm. And sometimes that anonymity can help you. I know, like I've been in therapy before even, and been like, oh, I, I don't wanna tell the therapist like, I, I wanna seem like I'm okay and seem impressive and like I have my whole like shit together, but it's like mm-hmm. You know, that's why you're there is cuz you don't, and it, it just can be really daunting because as music workers we are just so good at putting our best.

Self forward and like burying all the other shit. We're masking all the time. And that's part of our work. Like we're part of our work is being charming and like being a literal product, right? Mm-hmm. And what I like about Together all is that anonymity and that like, that knowledge that it's there, it's being moderated.

And I think, like, I think it could be really cool for more music workers to use this platform. Um, it's just an online form, so it's not, um, it's kind of like, I wanna say it's like Reddit, but it's very different cuz that's a whole other thing. But if anybody's interested in using that and just checking it out, it's really cool.

And I think it'll be cooler the more people use it and the more people in our community use it. And it's, uh, it's, yeah, it's free as a unison member. So if you go to the website, uh, unison men.ca, you can get all the information about

[00:37:43] Rosalyn: it there. Great. And we'll link to that in the notes as well, so people can.

Find out more about it and where can people find out more about you?

[00:37:50] Anna Ruddick: I have a website. It's just retic.com and I, you know, I post all my gigs up there and all my discography, and I try to remember to actually update it. I was on there the other day, like, I should write my gigs down. I'm like, oh my God.

Like the last thing I listened on here was six months ago, and I've played like 50 shows since then. So, But I'm a mom and sometimes I'm disorganized everyone, so Well, thank

[00:38:12] Rosalyn: you. Thank you so much for being here and taking time out of a busy day to chat with us. I really appreciate it,

[00:38:18] Anna Ruddick: Anna. Anytime.

[00:38:26] Rosalyn: That's it for this episode of Refolkus. Please subscribe, rate, and review on the podcast app of your choice so you never miss an episode. For more information, you can visit us at folkmusicontario.org. And follow us on social media at Folk Music Ontario. This refolkus session is brought to you through the generous support of the Department of Canadian Heritage.