All of that is great, but my brain is always churning with new ideas.
1)Bass news
This is one of the core components of the blog. Concert, school and audition information, recordings, repertoire, advice, and other such content pertaining to the double bass community will continue to come out every day.
2)Continued sharing of user-submitted content
Keep sending me your links, concert announcements, bass videos, MP3s, sheet music, and the like, and I’ll keep posting it. Send me articles, gig stories, and bass advice, and I will put it up and credit you with authorship. Making this into a community site was one of my goals when I started getting serious about the blog (during the summer of 2006), and this kind of sharing gives the site a vibrancy it would likely lack otherwise.
3)Growing the Contrabass Conversations podcast
Contrabass Conversations is already quite popular in the bass community (download numbers are very good and growing each week), and I will only become more so. To me, it is a natural extension of what I am trying to accomplish on the blog, and it is a way of bringing the bass community together in a way that was not practical or possible a decade ago. Each week, a new episode comes out, and these episodes remain online and accessible for future generations of musicians.
4) Developing and publishing more free, downloadable content
I really like free stuff that is useful. Scale sheets, accompaniments, technique routines, practice tracks and the like are being added all the time to my downloads page. The offerings will continue to increase as time passes. You can help. Just e-mail me (jsh177@yahoo.com) any appropriate files that you’d like to get out to the bass community.
5) Weekly original written content (my long form writing)
My own writing (gig stories, Road Warrior series, educational articles) is just a component of this blog, but it is an important component to me. In addition to daily bas news and a weekly podcast, I try to put out one long-form piece of prose each week. I try to alternate between something more serious (Road Warrior) and something more lighthearted (gig stories).
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What will not be in store:
1) Gushy, diary-like posts about yours truly
That’s not my style. I’ll write reams about the business, and I’ve got no problem with any wacky or embarrassing involving your truly, but you’re not going to hear about how great I thought Lost was last night or how weird these new pants I bought look.
2) Posting any material under copyright
I am happy to post any topical user-submitted content sent to me—-provided that it is not under copyright. Mucking about in that morass is only going to get me in trouble, and I therefore try to make sure that I am 100% (or reasonably close to 100%) legit with what I put up here.
3) Crass commercialization of the blog
I have monetized the site to an extent, but I am trying to do so in as unobtrusive a way as possible. I will try to keep the monetization features to a minimum—no pop-ups, no animated ads scrolling across the page. I hate that kind of stuff and I’m sure you do as well.
Related Posts:
- 1000th bass blog post
- Taking the bass community to the next level
- Including user-submitted content
- Going back in time on my site
- Bass blog sheet music store
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Enough of this bass stuff! I demand “gushy, diary- like posts” about my personal hero, Jason Heath!
hehehe
McFoolery
OK–well, maybe I’ll let a few of those slip out. Especially if they’re about cats or nasty bits about life as a freelance musician.