I would like to firstly apologize for this lengthy post. I just want to give a background to my question.
I am not, by any means, a professional pianist. I do not have a Music Degree to boast of, all I have is 8 years of piano lessons under my belt when I was younger. Currently, I am a musician at our church and a fledgling songwriter & arranger. I'm taking online lessons for it, and I have to say, I find a lot of things very hard to understand but oh so worth the time and effort to learn.
I've been a pianist/ accompanist in my church for 16 years now ( I started when I was 14 years old). Around 5 years ago, my pastor told me to try my hand at creating orchestral arrangements for choir songs. I still do up to this day, hence the need for lessons. I've just noticed that I've been having a hard time being creative in composing & arranging, ever since my Music Director told me not to accompany our singers and/or the congregation anymore during church service. Even during choir and orchestra rehearsals, I am not allowed to accompany them anymore. The reason she said was, "... so you can focus more on arranging, and not be tired from rehearsals."
I do not have a piano or keyboard at home anymore, since it was donated. So, the only place I could practice or play piano was at my church. But ever since she "banned" me from playing, even for practice or just a simple personal jamming session, I have not had the opportunity to actually play the piano for several months now.
And now, I've been constantly suffering from creativity block. Arranging songs used to be exciting, I always looked forward to applying the new things I learned. But now I feel frustrated and pressured because I have to release arrangements weekly for the choir. And I've just felt more burnt-out then before when I still used to play for the choir/ congregation. Sure, it was tiring but I always felt happy and inspired after.
So does my lack of piano playing have anything to do with my creativity block? I've tried asking this to other musicians I know, but they just said to heed what my Music Director says. Or maybe I've just been asking the wrong people..
I hope someone can shed light on this and provide both subjective and objective answers. Thank you so much and God bless us all!