As many of you know, I recently launched a new website, MusicEdMajor.net, geared towards providing news, resources, and tips for music education majors. This has been an incredible experience for me, and I have been fortunate enough to have seen the website receive a very warm reception by the community. The new site, however, has also created an additional time commitment for the blogging component of my life, which brings me to my point.
I began this site almost two years ago, and have published nearly 300 posts here. This had been my only home online, and has been a source of great growth in my thinking, my voice, and my writing. In the past weeks, however, I have been concentrating almost all of my blogging efforts on MusicEdMajor.net. Part of this is understandable–this site has been around for two years, is personal, and already has a readership (albeit small), while the other site is brand new, is more professional in purpose, and is still developing a readership. Does that, however, give me the right to almost completely neglect this site?
I really should clarify that statement–I am not neglecting this site, at least intentionally. I have been reminded multiple times by multiple people that I should not shift my focus entirely away from here, and have even started writing posts here a few times since the launch of MusicEdMajor.net. I don’t want to stop posting here. However, my philosophy towards blogging/writing has been that it must be something that comes from the heart, something that I’m motivated to do. Recently, that motivation has come on the professional side, and been channeled to my new site. The reason none of the posts I began were finished here over the past few weeks was that they all felt forced, they didn’t feel as though they were being written from the heart, as I feel each blog post deserves.
So how do I find the balance? I don’t want to stop writing here, by any means, but I really do enjoy my work at MusicEdMajor.net as well, and want to continue to see it grow. Will my motivation to write here increase as the school year begins in just over a month, or will the beginning of my Music Ed methods classes in the fall motivate me to write more on my new site? I don’t know the answers to these questions, and would invite your suggestions, if you have them, on what I could do about this. For now, I will make it my effort to share any exciting goings-on from my life with you here on as consistent a basis as I can.
Thank you to those of you who have been with me from the beginning for your continued readership, and thank you to those of you newcomers for taking an interest in what I have to say. Until next time…
Recently, I have done a lot of traveling, both on the road and in the air. I have become very familiar with the contents of my iPod-consisting of over 80% music and the other 20% videos, apps, and other files-during these travels. One feature of the iPod, however, that I hadn’t explored much in the past was the option of listening to podcasts. Despite the large volume of music I have, I have been listening to spoken-word podcasts almost exclusively during my trips. I subscribe to and download the podcasts using iTunes, and have configured the software to transfer the five most recent episodes of each podcast whenever I sync my iPod. The podcasts I currently subscribe to are:
GeekBrief with Cali Lewis (the only video podcast)
All of these podcasts share fantastic thoughts on their specific subjects, and explore their niches with excitement and vigor. Many of these presenters also have blogs in their niche, which are the premier blogs on the subjects. The content is fresh, exciting, and extremely useful to the target audience.
This got me thinking, though. What makes these blogs and podcasts so successful is the appeal they have to their target audience. This is not a surprise; most successful ventures in any field are successful because they cater to the audience that they are designed for.
My blog, however, is unique in the fact that it has a few target audiences: namely music educators and people just generally interested in my life. Perhaps my blog’s readership isn’t as high because I don’t have a specific focus, but I like it this way; I have the opportunity to write about whatever comes to mind, without having to worry about turning away readers by writing an “off-topic” post. Another unique feature of my blog, especially the Music Education Blogger side of it, is that some of my posts discuss aspects of teaching music, while I haven’t ever actually held a job as a teacher! I try to bring as many ideas and thoughts as I can to the table considering my lack of experience, but I can’t by any means be considered an “expert” in that field, like Dr. Pisano could in the field of music technology, for example.
So what am I an expert in? Realistically speaking, nothing, but I feel I have a lot of experience at actually being a collegiate Music Education student. I’m not claiming to be an expert at the content we learn in our collegiate courses, but instead I am referring to my knowledge of the experiences that Music Education students have in the collegiate level, and my involvement in the field from a collegiate perspective. Is there a market for collegiate Music Educators who are interested in more information about opportunities to take advantage of, or other suggestions for their specific demographic? I think there is; there is a even professional organization dedicated to this-the Collegiate Music Educator’s National Conference (CMENC). CMENC is the collegiate sub-organization of MENC-The National Association for Music Education, and is the umbrella organization for the FCMENC chapter at UMiami, on which I currently serve as President-Elect.
I don’t want to add another “category” of posts on my blog, though; I fear that writing on too many more subjects increases the risk that people interested in one specific topic will be turned away by the likelihood that a new post will not be on the topic they’re interested in. How, then, can I share my so-called “expertise” on the topic of being a collegiate music educator with other like-minded people?
My idea: I am thinking about starting a podcast on collegiate music education. The podcast would have an extremely loose schedule of being updated once a month, with the decision on when to do a new one being dictated by me and my schedule. Included in the podcast would be tips for college music education students on subjects such as time management and choosing a school, interviews with professors or other professionals with information to share about the music education degree process, and updates on opportunities for music education majors. Each episode of the podcast would be roughly 10-15 minutes in length.
One concern of mine is the time commitment that this would entail, but I am confident that the flexibility of the schedule, and the fact that I could post on my own time, will allow me to share my experiences with everyone while still taking care of my other obligations.
What do you think? Do you have experience publishing a podcast? What advice would you give? Are you a college student? What topics would you be interested in hearing discussed? Please leave your thoughts in the comments!
I have a bad habit of procrastination (I should be writing a Music Theory paper right now), and one action that I have been guilty of procrastinating for ages has been updating my Music page. This page, which was intended to showcase recordings of myself and ensembles I have performed in, did nothing more than showcase broken links for months. Finally, I sat down and fixed these links, as well as adding another recording (some solo work I did with the UM Symphonic Winds this fall on Persichetti’s Symphony No. 6 for Band). Be sure to check out these recordings on my Music page!
Also, I have updated my “About” page, putting my biography in the first person (at the request of a friend–I agree, it feels more personal now!) and including a short section about how my blog came to be what it is today. Feel free to read this as well, and leave any thoughts you might have about me or my blog in the comments of this page!
Do you have any other suggestions for the site? What would you like to see more of? Less of? I’m interested in your opinions-leave your thoughts in the comments to this post!
As I’ve become more active with blogging, and specifically blogging about Music Education, I have had a few opportunities open up for me. The first, of course, was when I joined Joe Pisano of MusTech.net as one of his 100 ME Bloggers in December. Another one of these opportunities has recently come up, and I am absolutely thrilled with the potential it has!
Last week, I was approached by Chad Criswell of MusicEdMagic. He sent me a Twitter message (find him at @musicedmagic) saying that has been looking to expand his writing staff, and he was wondering if I was interested in joining his staff to write about Music Education-related topics, and share my experience as a brass player and a future teacher with the site. MusicEdMagic is one of the most highly-trafficked websites for Music Education articles, so I feel truly honored to be a part of it! I will be aiming to write at least one article per week over there.
What does this mean about my Music Ed blogging here at my personal website? I will focus it mostly on personal experiences in music education, rather than the more “general” subjects I have blogged about in the past. I will try, though, to make a quick post here anytime I make a post I’m particularly proud of at MusicEdMagic. In the meantime, I would highly recommend you check out MusicEdMagic, and consider subscribing to their feed to stay updated on the latest articles on Music Education!
As I reach an interesting crossfoards in my blogging carreer (I’ll explain more later…), I have found myself going back to thinking about why I started this blog to begin with. As I’ve said many times, I write this blog for the readers more even than for myself. After all, without people reading what I have to say, I would be blogging to myself! As such, I would like to get a better idea of where the active readership of this blog comes from. I’ve created a poll below, so please respond with the answer of what first brought you to my site. If you have any specific explanations of how you came to find the site, please feel free to leave a comment!
Entries (RSS)