on blogging

I’m going to be away from the computer for a couple days, but I just read a thoughtful post on the state of classical blogging over at Musical Assumptions, and it inspired a few observations of my own.

I’m finding it difficult to find my blogging voice. There is a movement towards making music blogs either more journalistic in the writing-a-concert-review sort of vein, or writing a long-form, New Yorker style essay. I don’t make it a habit of writing any reviews (other than of concerts that I take part in with the OSO), because I’m not separate from the musical community, I’m part of it, and that could get awkward pretty quickly. And, though I’d love to write 3000 word essays on tremolo styles in the music of Anton Bruckner, I simply don’t have the time or energy to devote to that pursuit.

So, I’m in a bit of a stylistic quagmire. If the blog were anonymous, I suppose that I could dish some snarky gossip about this and that, and about what we really think about some of our guest conductors and soloists. But I was the kind in school who always got caught if he broke the rules that he (mostly) adhered to, so that’s out, too.

I guess my problem, like Elaine’s, is that I don’t have anything to sell. I’ve tried having some associate program ads on the blog, but they just clutter it up and I’ve never seen a cent from any of them. People don’t come to a blog to buy stuff, they come to read and think. At least I hope that’s what they come here for.

Oh, and about tremolo in Bruckner: varying speeds mixed amongst all the players produces the best results (and it’s totally old-school, too).