metablogging

Beethoven does not appreciate lies

I made the above image for my bloggie birthday. It is some of my finest work, I think, and as such I think it deserves a place on merchandise. Perhaps you might be interested in a tote bag for your sheet music? Or a sheet of stickers for your instrument case and music folder? A magnet for your fridge? A mug would make a great present for your music teacher. Think about it. (I can put it on other things too, but I went for the less expensive items.)

Which is a great segue into the main topic of this post; namely, how will Ain’t Baroque grow as it enters its third year of existence? Well, I want to try to expand the store, for starters, in conjunction with my new blog layout, which benefits greatly from pictures. Sometimes I’ll need to create those images myself, and the good ones can go into the store. Let me know if there’s anything in particular — a hoodie, a postcard, a travel mug — that would interest you.

Oh, right, the new layout! I implemented it last night, and so far the reaction has been positive. I still have some work to do, but I’m relatively happy with it. I also purchased the domain name, so aintbaroque.com will work for you.

I’m also looking into expanding content, including podcasts, interviews, guest posts, and potentially even vodcasts (I’m thinking video versions of concert reviews a la the gala could be fun!). Feel free to make suggestions.

Oh, and one last order of business — I would like to award the indomitable Chris McGovern a coveted Medal of Violar for his consistent support and commentary. Mr. McGovern, you are much appreciated. Check your bad self out on the wall of (dis)honor!

So there you are. Where is the cake?

The terrible twos

Today Ain’t Baroque is two years old, and with age comes wisdom, yes? So for the past couple of weeks I’ve been pondering my mission.

As you may have read, this blog was begun as the cornerstone of my thesis for my arts management masters; at the time I was interning for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and I centered a large chunk of my content around the BSO. When the project ended, I found that I enjoyed having this forum, and so I carried on.

Sadly my official association with the BSO came to an end last year, and as such the my direction has had to evolve. I still mention the BSO quite a bit, but I have — out of necessity and desire both — shifted the focus. And I have wondered — what is AB for? *

To educate? No; I like to think that I dispense interesting factoids here and there, but I am not a professional musician, musicologist, or otherwise qualified for such a goal. To promote? Kind of, but I have found that the posts that prove most popular are the ones where I ramble on about my own opinions.

That is my answer, I think — I am here to think about classical music and how it has shaped my life, and in so doing, ask you to do the same. And because my approach is whimsical by nature, well, irreverence it shall be!

I hope you like it. I hope you’ll stay on, and encourage others to join the party. I hope you’ll ponder my queries and add your own stories. Because I love doing this, and I’d love to do more of it — but I can’t without you. I seem to recall saying this before, but I still believe it to be true: a blog cannot exist within a vacuum.

So subscribe! Tweet! Like AB on Facebook! Because one day AB is going to rule the world, and you want to get in good with me while you can, don’t you?

Bee tee dubs, do you like the new layout? Hang tight, because I’ll be posting a State of the Blog address later today.

* Did you know that there’s actually no grammar rule that forbids ending a sentence with a preposition? Thank God, because sometimes the “proper” way sounds twisted and weird.

Concert Roundup: The Reckoning

Hey, guess which blog has its second anniversary tomorrow? No, no, you have to guess.

While you’re thinking, here are this week’s concerts:

• The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is trying to fake me out by titling this week’s offering “Rachmaninoff’s Third,” but I’m way too sharp for that. Rather than dismiss it at face value, I ripped off the mask and said “AHA! It’s Rimsky-Korsakov‘s Capriccio Espagnol under there!” And, admittedly, Rachmaninoff‘s third symphony. And the first Liszt piano concerto. But everyone knows I have a soft enough spot for Capriccio Espagnol to carry me through. Vasily Petrenko conducts, Barry Douglas pianates, and you can find it October 28 and 30 at the Meyerhoff, October 29 at Strathmore. See it!
• The National Symphony Orchestra counters with a different handful of the Mighty Handful and offers up Mussourgsky‘s Pictures at an Exhibition. Talk about carrying you through. If you’re not already convinced, the Exhibition is augmented with a Grieg piano concerto and a Berlioz overture. Solid. Lorin Maazel conducts, Simon Trpčeski pianates, and you can find it October 27-29 at the Kennedy Center concert hall. See it!
• Update to add: @TerpsMusic tells me that there’s a concert at The University of Maryland on October 28 featuring Jonathan Richards, winner of the 2010 UMSO Concerto Competition. He’ll play Shostakovich‘s first violin concerto; the program also includes some Tchaikovsky, Ravel, and Takemitsu. See it!

Time for a tune-up; also Medal of Violar nominations

Hee… tune-up.

AB is approaching its second birthday, and I’m embarking on a series of improvements — including new stuff for the AB store, a site re-design, and other tweaks. I went with the vague “other tweaks” instead of something more precise because I haven’t yet decided what these tweaks will be. You have to tell me what they’ll be.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be putting up some polls now and again asking you to tell me about your AB experience. Please do answer them so that I may continue on my undying quest to make you happier every day. I promise they’ll be easy!

The first one is below, but first: in honor of our second Baroquen year, I will award up to three Medals of Violar on the blog’s birthday. Nominate a friend or yourself! You have until October 22. All you really need to provide is a name, but your nominee will stand a better chance of winning if you offer an explanation. Go!

All right, now for poll no. 1:

An honor, I guess?

It’s a holiday week, there’s no BSO concert, and I feel like being generous. I want to give someone a Medal of Violar.

I’ve made some attempts in the past that were not well received, I think because I was asking the potential recipients to do some work. Well, you’re still going to have to do some work, for yourself or on behalf of somebody else, but it should be fairly simple. Tell me who deserves a Medal of Violar, and why.

The best answer as I see it wins. You have to make a legitimate case — you’re not going to sell me on your dog unless you can explain to me how musically enriching and into this blog he is — but you can nominate anyone you like. If you CAN sell me on your dog in that regard, he’s eligible! And I’d be impressed. Does he want to be my mascot?

Entries may be accepted in comments, via email (although I’ll be publishing the winner and potentially finalists, so if you go email don’t think you’re keeping it between us), through a tweet, or on Facebook.

The winner goes on the wall! And can buy themselves a mug. Or something. Honor and glory await!

If it Ain’t Baroque, buy it

You may have noticed a new feature pop up in the sidebar: the Ain’t Baroque store. It’s nothing fancy, but I like to think there’s some fairly clever stuff floating around in there — you can heavily imply without outright saying that violists are idiots, reassure everyone that though you may leave you’re Offenbach, point out that you, too, have tenor, and more.

Medalists of Violar (or pretenders to the crown) may want to emblazon their name on a mug, or declare your allegiance with a Team Igor t-shirt. Question to Composer Cagematch! fans: would you like more of these? For every composer featured? For all the winners? Or just for the composers with particularly hardcore fandoms?

All products have been put together  with colors and cut that I think look nifty, but Zazzle gives you the option of going in there and switching things up — you can switch a unisex cut to a ladies cut and vice versa, make a long sleeve tee short, switch to a tank top, swap out the colors, etc. And you can do it all secure in the knowledge that you’re helping fund my concert tickets. I’m going to NEED it — next year’s BSO season looks killer (more on that next week). Take a look!

(Suggestions, critique, general feedback, and ideas for new products welcome.)

Updated (twice) to add discount code from Zazzle:

$5 off ALL T-SHIRTS!     Use Code: 5OFFSTPADDYS

Show off your shenanigans! 25% off ALL T-SHIRTS!

So’s your face!

Okay, so initially I planned to have this extensive beta testing period wherein I tried out various post times and types and added lots of pictures and video and garnered reactions, but I have decided after some thought that this is stupid — far better to throw it to the wolves and see what comes out alive. (Or something. This metaphor isn’t quite working but I’m not sure why so I’m just going to move on.) Therefore, I present to you in its infancy:

THE AIN’T BAROQUE FACEBOOK PAGE.

Excited? I thought so! Posts will go there, so if you’re not on Twitter or don’t follow it regularly or just lose posts in the shuffle, here’s another way to keep track of your favorite blog. It’s also that much easier to share with your friends and family, which I’m sure you do all the time, right? Right! And there will be exclusive content. There already is — check out the photo albums for Never Before Seen Pictures!

So yes. Go be an Ain’t Baroque fan. Or I will cry. You don’t want to make a girl cry, do you?

P. S. So’s your face always makes sense.

You look like a monkey, and you smell like one too

Ladies and gentlemen, today Ain’t Baroque is one full year old! I’m at a conference this week and my Halloween post is time-sensitive, so I’ve postponed some of the celebratory new stuff till next week. In the meantime, though, run to the store and buy some cake and ice cream and then feast your eyes on these one-year stats:

• This is Ain’t Baroque’s 304th post.
• As of this writing, there have been 301 comments.
• There have been 13,027 hits.
• The busiest day so far is August 27, 2010, which garnered 1,126 views (mostly due to a rash of StumbleUpon hits for the day’s post).
• Not surprisingly therefore, the top referrer is StumbleUpon, followed by Twitter and Alpha Inventions.
• The top search term that leads people here is “funny kittens.” Look, I don’t know. LOL Friday is powerful.
• The top post, not including the home page, is “Schooled!” Wouldn’t be my top pick, but whatever floats your collective boat.

So in other words, Ain’t Baroque is still a baby. But for starters, nifty, huh?

(But where is the cake? I was told there would be cake. The cake is a lie!)

Getting oriented

Firstly! WordPress has offered another new sharing goody. If you don’t want to “Like” a post, maybe you’d rather tweet it? I know you would! Post pages (that is, entries on their own individual pages, not on the main home page) now offer a “Tweet” button that enables you to tweet a link to the post to all your Twitter follows without taking a cursor off the blog. Sweet, no?

Secondly! Loyal reader and awesome name-owner Gretchen Saathoff sent me the following:

First, I would like to invite you to find out more about my new E-book!  It’s called Goal-oriented Practice: How to Avoid Traps and Become a Confident Performer.

Goal-oriented Practice

My book was written with both teachers and students in mind.  In it, I discuss how to make steady progress without getting stuck.  There is absolutely NO JARGON used.

NEW:  Now, for the first time, there is a volume purchase rate available!  So, if you are a private teacher, a class participant, or a school administrator, this offer is for YOU!  To find out more, just reply to this email.  Please use the subject line:  “Book”.

Enjoy!  Any questions you have prior to purchase are most welcome.

She certainly LOOKS like a piano teacher, don’t you think? The erect posture, the sensible black dress. I definitely think she can orient your goals with efficiency and aplomb. Show your fellow Aintbaroquer (Aintbaroquian? Aintbaroquette?) some love!

Housekeeping

Just a few notes to help us maintain order.

• My email address on here used to be my BSO intern one. If you’ve been using that, stop it – it’s not me anymore. I mean, I guess you can keep using it, but you’re going to make some poor new kid very confused. Maybe torturing newbs is your thing; I don’t know. All I know is, if you want to reach me, you may do so at j.leigh.german@gmail.com. Holla!
• There is now a “like” feature on WordPress posts. To access it, click on the individual blog post, scroll down to the bottom bit just before the comments, and click the “like” button. It’s got a great big ol’ star on it. You can’t miss it! Then, on the gray bar at the top of your WordPress screen, you can quickly access all of your liked posts via the “You like this” menu. A great way to keep all the most fabulous Ain’t Baroque fabulosity organized in one place.
• And just so this is a truly music-related post, let me note that if you buy BSO concert tickets between September 1 – 3, you get 10% off. Whee! As far as I can tell, no concerts are exempted, and the Gala Celebration concert is coming up! Astor Piazzolla, guys! You want to be there! I know I do.