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 Artist Logs: Musical blogging hits the mainstream // Websites for musicians and artists

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Musical blogging hits the mainstream

22 February 2005, by Andy Hume

The best of the classical music bloggers hit the mainstream last week through some interesting words by Richard Scheinin on MercuryNews.com. His writing (which requires signing up for an account - so 80% of you probably won’t bother) explains how classical music writing in the media has ‘gone underground’, to the blogs of Alex Ross, Lisa Hirsch, Helen Radice, and the like.

It’s quite a cute introduction to the blogosphere (or is that blog -osphere/blog0-sphere?), but one thing that Scheinin does describe very clearly is the potential for this kind of writing to infect the industry.

Suddenly, a whole new world of writing about classical music has cropped up. Not everyone agrees, but some plotters of this revolution predict the blog- osphere will create an entry point for new listeners, because blog writing often is informal, energetic, underground-ish—without the deadening preachiness that infects much classical music writing, driving people away.

A conservative estimate recently put the number of classical music blogs at approximately 45. Now, in the blogosphere that I originate from, that number would probably read more like 45,000; which means I am certainly one of the ‘plotters of this revolution’ that predicts a large increase in the number of classical music blogs.

I also believe that a large number of these blogs will be on websites born from the promotional needs of artists.

I wonder how the current blogosphere will react to that? Helen Radice, for example, is a British harp player who writes the popular blog twang twang twang. From what I can glean from her site, being a semi regular reader, she does not blog with the intent of increasing her professional profile and gaining more work. Perhaps she is even offended by that notion. However, I wonder how many of the people that read her blog have decided, purely on the basis of her writing, that they would attend one of her recitals or concerts? Or even more pertinently, how many fixers/agents/managers have considered her to be more marketable because of her popular blog?

If that’s not the case yet, it almost certainly will be soon. Helen writes so passionately and personally—hence the success of her blog and the community around it—that she is building an audience for her work without even the merest twang of a string. The question is, how long will it take the industry to realise this?

So how will the classical music blogosphere react to bloggers that are in it only, as it were, for the money. Well, anyone with experience in blogging for business can help out with that one.

If the blog is sincere, personal, and passionate then it can be as successful as any other ‘personal’ site. People who are blogging solely as a means to an end, will be routed out as quickly as Mazda and McDonalds have been in the corporate blogosphere.

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