Announcement: Musicology Now guest post!

Although I haven't updated the blog recently, I've spent a lot of time writing about it. This week, I wrote a post for Musicology Now (yes, the same Musicology Now that I criticized in a previous post, now with a new editorial board). In it, I reflect on my experience with this blog and what I've learned about doing public musicology on the internet, in the hopes of passing along some advice to others who want to try it for themselves. I don't debunk any musical myths in this essay, but if you're interested in learning about my process and goals, please check it out! Here's a preview:

• Your job is to stimulate enthusiasm, not quash it. Since I threw myself into the business of debunking myths, I’m at risk of being the pedant who derails an interesting conversation with, “Well, actually…” Sometimes I worry I’m so caught up in correcting misconceptions about music that I give the impression I don’t actually like it. That’s motivated me to write more than just corrections, to explain why the history matters and hopefully replace the warm fuzzies of a feel-good false narrative with an awed appreciation for history.

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Also, in the wake of articles celebrating Beethoven's birthday on December 16th, I've been working on a post about myths pertaining to his deafness. That post will probably be published early in the new year.

Have a merry Christmas, happy new year, and marvelous any other holiday you're celebrating! I look forward to busting more musical myths with you in 2017.

What is unique about classical music? (Snobbery in Classical Music, Part 4 of ?)

This blog is almost exactly five months old, and in that short time I’ve noticed a bit of mission drift. I started this blog with the intent of correcting mistakes, acting like a classical music Snopes to inform people that no, Salieri didn’t murder Mozart, and Tchaikovsky didn’t commit suicide after writing his Pathétique symphony. But as I started thinking about what gives these myths their staying power, I found myself explaining my view of history and articulating how I practice musicology. This morphed into a defense of the discipline, calling out misunderstandings, misapplications, and snobbery.

I bring this up because it’s important to point out that my definition of “musicology” is not shared by everyone, even fellow musicologists. Fortunately, the internet is a big place, and there are plenty of other musicological bloggers out there doing their own thing and showing the world how they do musicology (I list a few of my favorites at the end of this post). Anyone can read these blogs, which makes blogging a powerful activity in the practice of “public musicology”—another term on which musicologists have yet to achieve a consensus.

Many musicological blogs are like mine in that they’re the independent musings of one (or maybe two) scholar(s). This blog is not affiliated with any institution; the views expressed are mine alone. While I’d like to think of myself as a good example of a musicologist, I don’t speak for the discipline. However, there is an American Musicological Society (of which I am a member), and in addition to publishing a prestigious research journal and holding a huge academic conference as its annual meeting, it has an official blog: Musicology Now. Given that the blog’s header describes it as “lively facts and opinions on music, brought to you by the American Musicological Society” and is hosted on AMS’s website, one might assume that it’s representative of the discipline, and it’s the way the society chooses to present musicology to the public at large.