This is very cool.
Peabody Institute bass faculty members Jeffrey Weisner (National Symphony Orchestra), John Hood (Philadelphia Orchestra), and Paul Johnson (Baltimore Opera Company) have started a collaborative blog. This new site, which can be found at peabodydoublebass.blogspot.com, is really a great idea. What an excellent way to let students (current, former, and prospective) know what’s going on at Peabody. Their introductory post states:
We hope to use this space to share our thoughts, experiences, and views on a wide range of subjects related to bass playing, learning, and teaching. We’ll also be posting about what’s going on bass-wise here at Peabody. And, given our natures, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few posts on some random topics only marginally related to music. We’ll also be having some student guest bloggers from time to time.
Giving students a chance to blog as well is really an outstanding idea. This site has the prospect of being hugely beneficial not only for the Peabody bass studio but for the greater bass community. It may also well prove to be a great recruiting tool. Peabody is a top-notch music school with outstanding faculty already, and a compelling blog with real content (rather than a standard institutional website with static information) could easily help to both demystify the faculty and give prospective students a window into what conservatory life is really like in Baltimore.
These three bloggers appear to be thinking along these lines, stating:
Our goal in starting this blog is sort of twofold. From our direction going out, we want to share what we do and think about here in Baltimore, and share it with folks. But we also hope to get some flow from the outside in as well, hearing from you about what we write, or just sharing your thoughts and questions with us. Conservatory faculty traditionally have a stuffy and sort of unapproachable quality – that classic ivory tower feel. Perhaps we can use this blog to demystify ourselves a bit and let you all see what we’re about.
This is a great idea, and I will definitely be checking in regularly with this site. Jeffrey Weisner also has a blog of his own, which can be found at www.peabody.jhu.edu/2736.
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I wonder why the heck it is that there are so many good blogs from bass players? You, Matt Heller(“Hella Frisch”), Hovnanian, Jeff White, and Oppelt and now these Peabody folks! Is there a concentration of this quality of blogging in any other orchestra section?
Ouch. What about Michael Formanek – totally unbelievable amazing incredible (insert more superlatives here) bassist – who is on the Peabody faculty? Man, I would love to hear (read) from him.
Best,
Rick McLaughlin
Hello Rick –
Mike Formanek is not listed as a member of the PBDB blog because he operates in a different department (indeed, a totally different part of the school) than the classical bassists and we wanted to focus on the area where our work overlaps. However, I agree with all your superlatives regarding Mike – he’s an amazing musician – and we hope to have him involved with the blog in the near future. Or perhaps we can talk him into starting his own…
Thanks for the clarification.
Rick