Ever since starting my new orchestra director life, I’ve found precious little time to write about the topics I was exploring on Arts Addict, and while I’m certainly not ruling out getting back into writing gig stories and reflections on a life in music performance (I still do both, though less frequently than I used to), my blogging is more community-based, podcast-focused, and dedicated pretty much to the bass. For now, at least.

Therefore, it seems to make sense to nix the Arts Addict blog and just incorporate DoubleBasBlog.org itself as a part of Inside The Arts, as the only blog in this network dedicated exclusively to one instrument.

At some point, I may return to the themes I explored on Arts Addict, but we’ll see. I’m finding a lot more career satisfaction in my “new life” than I did as a freelancer, which is great for my psyche and leaving me a lot happier at the end of the day. The only downside (if you can call it that) is that a happy, angst-free life doesn’t make for very interesting blogging! Instead of driving all night and making a few bucks here and there in ludicrous and shameful ways, I go to my great job and do things I like, then come home and hang out with Courtney and the cats. Much more enjoyable, but it doesn’t make for very interesting reading!

So… I’ll keep it to the bass for now. Videos, podcasts, “Top 10″ articles, and that sort of thing. And enjoy life. Nothing wrong with that, is there?

Here’s a video of Tony Osborne’s Intrada Duet with Barry Green and David Murray (another former Contrabass Conversations guest):

For classic bass blog posts, check out this page–it’s a list and summary of the lengthier posts here on the blog.

What I enjoy most about these kinds of events (such as the International Society of Bassists Convention), however, is the opportunity to connect with colleagues from other areas of the country. Though I’m new as an orchestra director, I seemed to run into dozens and dozens of people I’ve met through my university work, gigs, and blogging.

I had the chance to grab a quick breakfast with Joe Pisano, a music technology professor at Grove City College who runs mustech.net, a site dedicated to new happenings in the field of music technology, and Andy Zweibel, a music education student at the University of Miami who also has an excellent blog dedicated primarily to music.

It’s always great to meet in person people that I know well from the blogosphere. If you haven’t checked out mustech.net before–please do so. It’s an amazingly comprehensive site, laid out magazine-style in a very appealing fashion. Highly recommended reading–I’ve been checking out Joe’s posts ever since I began blogging five years ago.

You can find Joe and Andy (and me as well) on Twitter if you’re that type of person.

• Joe Pisano on Twitter
• Andy Zweibel on Twitter
• bass blog man on Twitter

Here are a few that I connected with:

• What Music Can and Cannot Do
• Hocking a Hooey at the Concert

Great stuff all around. In addition to working with John Adams while I was in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, I played the Chicago premiere of Nixon in China a few years ago, with the dynamic and always captivating baritone Robert Orth playing the part of Nixon.

Incidentally, I also played a new Michael Daugherty piece called Letters from Lincoln with the Elgin Symhpony, and Robert Orth served as the voice of Abraham Lincoln as well. I wonder what the next presidential-themed piece featuring Robert will be? Truman? Roosevelt? Or how about James K. Polk?

Speaking of James K. Polk (man, is this blog post wandering!), I Googled “James K. Polk” in order to snag a clip of the fabulous They Might Be Giants tune of the same name, and I stumbled upon this funny/strange performance of TMBG performing said tune at a Borders Books & Music with a pack of children dancing. Not what I was expecting…

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This weekend’s episode features an interview with James Knabe, a Chicago-area trumpet performer and teacher who also runs musicianadvice.com, a web consulting company for musicians. James helps musicians develop websites and market themselves and provides advice on using social networking, iTunes, and other traditional and new media avenues to build a career in this rapidly changing 21st century landscape.

Next weekend, we will be featuring an interview with David Cutler, the author of the new book The Savvy Musician. David’s book actually ties in quite nicely with our interview with James and is pretty much a handbook for success as a modern-day musician, with chapters devoted to entrepreneurship (and what this term means in the world of music), getting gigs through the web, personal finance, and even an in-depth look at all the possible avenues for employment available to musicians. Written in a clear, engaging style, this book should be in the library of every student and professional musician. David has also started a very fun blog as an outgrowth of The Savvy Musician, which I also recommend checking out.

The following week will feature the last of my 2009 International Society of Bassists Convention audio captures (sigh… until 2011). This episode features a panel discussion on the future of music (heavy stuff) with Frank Proto, Mark Dresser, and several others. All in all, it was an interesting discussion on a topic that we all should be thinking about.

That’s not to say that I have quit writing–far from it. Nor have I quit blogging. In fact, I’ve typically put out a minimum of one item a day for the past 5+ years. That is something that hasn’t changes, and I don’t see it changing any time soon.

But in terms of writing longer-form essays on the music business or other such topics, I find myself, well, less interested in putting fingers to keys and doing any actual writing.

It’s not that I’m sick of writing. I’m not. Maybe it’s the fact that I was in school from 2007-09 and am still somewhat burned out from all the papers I had to churn out for my degree. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m a lot happier at my new job than I was freelancing and therefore don’t feel the need to rehash these tired old topics I covered previously.

Or maybe… just maybe… it’s that I continue to evolve as a teacher/musician/blogger/podcaster, constantly shifting shape and finding new avenues of exploration.

I’m still extremely active online, but I’ve gotten more focused on the podcasting side of things, which I think it the most constructive thing I do on the net. I’m also busy as a teacher and organizing events in the area (more on that later!).

While it certainly seems that I’m less active as a creative writer than I was a few years ago, I have been feeling the writing bug lately, so we’ll see what results from that. Not being a student anymore certainly seems to be helping!

Classical_Music | blog-rank

Check out Lynn Harrell’s new site–you won’t be disappointed–and be sure to add Inisde the Arts to your bookmarks. I always find something interesting on these blogs during my daily perusal of the blogosphere.