The February 2008 edition of International Musician, the monthly publication from the American Federation of Musicians, contains a feature on this site and the various satellite projects that I have developed during these past few years of blogging and podcasting, including Arts Addict, Inside the Arts, and Contrabass Conversations.

This feature contains several references to bloggers that I work with and have been influenced by, like Drew McManus (Adaptistration) and Patty Mitchell (oboeinsight).

International Musician staff writer David Allen writes:

Jason Heath of Locals 8 (Milwaukee, WI) and 10-208 (Chicago, IL) has been a fixture of the online classical community since launching his website, doublebassblog.org, in 2003. In November 2007, he added another online writing venture with the site Arts Addict, hosted by the popular blogging network Inside the Arts (www.insidethearts.com). As readership has grown, so has his playing career.

” I loved writing in college, so I started writing and it started getting popular with other bassists and my classmates,” he says.

” It’s less about me, and more of a community site. For nonmusicians it’s fascinating to get a glimpse of what’s going on behind the scenes.”

Heath launched Arts Addict through Inside the Arts, also home to the popular orchestra management site Adaptistration by Drew McManus. Arts Addict’s subtitle, ” on life as a classical music bottom feeder” comes from, as Heath puts it, ” playing all the low notes and not being the number one player in town—running around, working all the gigs that other people don’t want to do or are too busy to do.” He transmits stories, links, videos, and the occasional bit of breaking news—people starting new jobs and winning auditions.

American Federation of Musicians members can log in to the AFM website below to access the rest of the feature–the online version of International Musician is only available to AFM members:

afm.org/im/2008/february/upbeat/heath-built-a-fan-base-from-the-bottom-up

The complete article is also posted at Inside the Arts through this link:

 insidethearts.com/International_Musician.htm

Though I am of course thrilled to be featured in such a prominent publication, I also think it’s great that the emerging cultural blogging scene is getting this kind of press. I sincerely believe that what people like Patty Mitchell, Drew McManus, Bob Shingleton, Charles Noble, John Grillo, Elaine Fine, Josh Nemith, and many other fine arts bloggers are doing is revolutionary, and I will be very interested to see what changes these new technologies will bring in the near future. These days, individuals can create their own daily digital newspaper, radio show, or video program (I do all three) and reach people across the globe for virtually no cost. Talent, ambition, dedication, and a sincere interest in a niche topic propel motivated individuals into the public eye, the only limiting factors being one’s energy and imagination.

Every few days, I open the Chicago Tribune (my local paper) and read despondently about impending layoffs for reporters and staff. I then flip a few pages and read more bleak news that the Sun Times (the other Chicago daily) is likely to disappear in the very near future. As traditional media publications continue to flounder, young voices of new media are rising to take their place, and I am pleased to be grouped in with this new generation of content creators and disseminators.

I’ve written extensively about these topic here in the past. Some good places to start reading more about traditional versus new media include:

I firmly believe that new media (blogs, podcasts, wikis, social networking, etc.) is challenging and will continue to challenge all of our assumptions about communication, information dissemination, education, entertainment, and community. These new forms of media tap into the knowledge of the masses and empower individuals to collectively build information architecture that helps everybody. Check out what’s happening at Contrabass Conversations, and just wait until we get another few years of content in our archives. Check out all the current resources at doublebassblog.org, and think about what this project will look like 10 years from now. With new media, one can have a daily double bass online newspaper, double bass radio station, and double bass television channel–things that could simply never happen without these new forms of communication, and with full editorial control to boot! If this can be done for a niche content area like the bass, imagine what can be done for broader topics.

Drew McManus also recently started an excellent new series titled How to Connect With New Media. Drew outlines the new media clearly and concisely, and I highly recommend checking this post out for a primer on the topics I’ve been discussing in the above paragraphs.

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