When I’m not practicing, designing, compulsively making pages of lists in my Moleskine, or reading actual books, I’m most likely spending useless time reading blogs of some interest or other.
I’m slightly ashamed to say that I’ve explored a vast section of the blogosphere. My obsessive blog-reading phases follow a sort of cycle that goes like this:
1. Be slightly curious about one thing.
2. Google that thing.
3. Discover an endless web of blogs and websites dedicated to people who are incredibly discerning about that one thing. Follow every single link on these pages to even more blogs and websites.
4. Spend an embarrassing number of hours reading these blogs and sites.
5. After some time, decide belatedly that I should stop.
6. Start all over again.
So far I’ve gone through different obsessive phases: fashion, makeup, paper products, pens, art, food, typography… I am a walking treasure trove of all the information you will probably need to know about these things.
Anyway the reason why I blog about this is that an innocent internet foray into finding out how to make my apartment look nice has spiraled into an obsession with interior design blogs. I’ve spent the last couple of days looking at different organization systems, reading about paint, learning how to refinish wood, and finding out how to “dress up” a space.
It made me realize that I have yet to go through a professional-classical-musician phase. Sure, I keep up with Alon Goldstein’s insightful musings and Jeremy Denk’s witty essays, and I follow Yuja Wang and Hilary Hahn’s violin case on Twitter, but none of them post with the frequency or regularity of style bloggers who post several outfits a day. My Google Reader is inundated every day with photos of Jeffrey Campbell shoes and photos of the newest eyeshadow from some high-end brand, but months will go between Alon Goldstein’s updates.
Why don’t classical musicians blog more? Surely there’s an audience—I’m sure there are more people like me.
And then the answer hit me. Classical musicians don’t blog or tweet incessantly because they’re practicing. And performing, and having actual lives.
Here I am, writing pointless blog entries about nothing at all, and Twittering endlessly, and reading blogs about anything, when I could be practicing more. And I call myself a pianist.
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