Friday, April 23, 2010
Just asking
I may well be missing some activity, but judging from the blogs I follow, there has recently been a aggregatel decline in the frequency and volume of independent classical music blogging, with the number of institutional music blogs increasing. The pace on this blog has slowed due to some large projects elsewhere and a share of some serious self-doubts about writing. I'm not altogether certain that the slowdown here won't be more permanent, perhaps by way of transition to some other format. I've often thought that sharing a magazine-like format with some mix of like- and contrarily-minded colleagues might be interesting, but that starts to smack more of conventional column journalism than of the free-form made possible by the blog medium and composition, mostly a solitary activity, tends to attract folk like me who did not necessarily get good marks for "plays well with others" in elementary school. Your ideas about this would be welcome. In any case, how do you perceive this trend — as an Adagio between fast movements (the lull before the next storm) or a general ritardando (the great fade-out)?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I suppose that the musical blogosphere, like any other ad-hoc social entity, has to have its ebbs and flows. Writing just for the fun of it loses its spark for some people, but for those of us who are physically isolated from the places that seem to have bustling musical activity and discourse, it is a necessity and the musical blogosphere (in whatever form it finds itself) is godsend.
Sure. I miss Matthew's Soho the Dog posts, and I miss his cartoons, and I sincerely miss Caroline's Crayons. It was nice of them both to drop in for a while (or a year) and offer their take on the world. Other people have fallen out the rhythm of writing too. The very nature of this specialized corner of the blogosphere has caused me to consider these people friends.
Living in a small university town with a great deal of population turnover, I'm kind of used to people stopping for a while on their way to points elsewhere. People do it "professionally" as well, and some people consider the act of keeping a blog a professional step in a certain musical direction, but they stop doing it when something professional actually comes around.
I do hope that you continue to keep this blog. I always read every post.
Good question. Facebook sucks up some of the creative energy that used to go to my blog, but for me the biggest blog-killer has been my venture into writing science fiction. So it doesn't make sense to extrapolate from my experience.
Yes, there are a number of people who are blogging less than than used to, or have stopped altogether, and I certainly miss them.
Matthew is working on a book, and he has a second blog via a publication of some kind. I predict his return within six months after he turns in the book manuscript.
Daniel, you are absolutely correct with this post. I too have noticed a slackening of activity across the music blogs.
The advent of the institutional music blogs must be a factor in this. At one time the classical music blogs were free thinking and exciting. Today many of them are promoting commercial agendas just like the mainstream music media and the readers know it. So the music blog is no longer a 'hot' format.
The institutionalisation of the music blogs is inevitable. But there is little evidence that Twitter and other newer formats offer a viable alternative.
I'll be blogging for a while yet. But I do have the feeling that classical music blogs will soon be joining newspapers as another media dinosaur.
Post a Comment