Jessica Chicce Hindman dreamed of being violinist. He was born in 1981 in West Virginia, in the United States, and he lived his entire childhood there. The lack of available teachers meant that he could not study music until he was eight.

But a birthday gift he changed his life forever bringing it closer to his dream: a violin. From then on, Jessica began traveling long hours by bus to perfect herself in the art of classic music. She studied, became an expert, and during her school days participated in student acts demonstrating her craft.

Hindman moved to New York to study music at Columbia University, but ultimately decided to become a Middle Eastern affairs major. The high competition and quality of the other students made her decide to set aside the goal of him. However, for those things of fate, Jessica would end up playing in a orchestratraveling the world and selling million records.

A famous musical orchestra

In her last year of college, she needed money to pay for her education and life in New York, one of the most expensive cities in the world. The situation has become very difficult. Jessica had two jobs and there was too sold They egg at a fertility clinic. He was looking for a third job when an advertisement on the internet changed his life.

He was looking for an “award-winning orchestra”. violinists AND bagpipers. She was 21 and the pay was very good, double what he was making then. I couldn’t let this go opportunity. By then, Jessica had been taking violin lessons for 13 years, but she had never done it professionally.

hired to mime

He got the job without a single interview and without playing in front of anyone. Something sounded strange. During his first tour of the state of New Hampshire he realized what was really going on. As they pretended to play live, a CD with recorded music played in the background. It was all staged, his job was to pretend he was making music in front of art-hungry spectators.

Although Jessica admitted that she felt degraded and didn’t like what she was doing at all, the job paid well and she necessary He money. In addition to “playing” on tours and attending presentations, the violinist had to sell THE disks of the band to win a Extra money.

“There were some really good musicians who did it because they were having a hard time finding work elsewhere,” Hindman says in an interview with the BBC. And he adds: “Because we were just imitating the songs, we had time to think about what was going on, and the fakeness of it all came back to me.”

Drugs, tours, maelstroms and mental health

Sure, he was doing something he wasn’t really prepared for. His dream was another: to play the violin, for real, in front of an audience. On the other hand, the pace and the vortex touring has also taken its toll. To address the long days constant work and travel developed an addiction to amphetamines Yet the cocaine.

He had played violin in a fake orchestra for four years, from 2002 to 2006. He toured auditoriums, shopping malls and even television programs. They have toured all over the United States and have also played in China on several occasions.

Start over and tell your story

He was 26 and felt the world was falling apart. What she was doing, and how she felt about it, coupled with the use of strong drugs, ended up weakening her mental health. Hindman was diagnosed I disturb From anxiety after having strong attacks From panic on tour. He dropped everything and went back to his parents’ house to start over.

She received counseling and psychiatric help, and was later hired as an admissions officer at Columbia University, where she majored in creative non-fiction writing. From this moment her life took a 180° turn.

He accepted a position as an associate professor at Northern Kentucky University and began writing to tell his story.

In 2019 he published the book “Looks like Titanic“(Sounds like Titanic) which more than a denunciation is a biography where no names are given. For example, it is called the architect of the scam”The composer“. His goal was not to single out anyone, but to make literature.

“My story wasn’t about The Composer,” Jessica says. And she adds, “It all boiled down to the fact that I needed the money.” Her memoir was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography and one of Amazon’s Best Books that same year.