Cello Blogiversary

It's been a year since I started this blog. So, it is time to reflect on its history. I first discovered blogs about five years ago. I was indexing a periodical on information technology, in which the author mentioned blogs, cautiously, as a source of business research. He said you could find weblogs on many subjects. So I searched for weblog + cello, and found only AMK's cello log (at that time he had a blog entirely devoted to his cello lessons; now cello is only part of what he writes about). I found it fascinating, as he working on Suzuki pieces that I had recently worked on. His blog was not interactive though, so you couldn't communicate with him.

Nevertheless, inspired by his weekly summary of his lessons, I decided to start an offline lesson diary, to keep track of my own progress, or, rather, to facilitate that progress. Sometimes it seemed that my teacher was telling me the same thing every week. Oh, yeah, I would remember, we have talked about this before.

I was not successful in writing after every lesson, but do have entries through last March. It became more of a music diary than a lesson log, detailing struggles and accomplishments, frustrations and goals. I will try to reactivate it, now that I have remembered it again, as it serves a different purpose than this blog.

I can't remember when I discovered the Internet Cello Society's cello forum, but that was the next step toward this blog. I have never been a very active poster in that forum, but it was fun, occasionally, to join in the discussion and "meet" other cellists.

It was probably in December 2006, I discovered three very informative and entertaining cello blogs, Cellomania, If at First You Don't Succeed, and Cello Dreams. These bloggers also find other cello bloggers and have built a wonderful cello community online. At the same time, I was thinking about writing. I index books, and have co-authored/co-edited a book, but I really wanted to write one. I thought maybe blogging might be a step toward writing more regularly for publication (more in the sense of feeling comfortable about making one's thoughts public than as a means of finding a publisher).

So, since I read only cello blogs, I decided to start a cello blog. An excellent idea! Now, a year later, I have contributed regularly to this blog, communicating with family and friends, as well as the "unknown reader" through it, "met" many interesting people, written a "novel" for National Novel Writing Month, gotten interested in photography and re-interested in art, and I work for the local newspaper. A newspaper is not a book, but I quite happy with it, and the publishing process is much shorter. Getting involved with Drawspace.com and being part of National Blog Posting Month introduced me to many other blogs, even, non-cello blogs!, and that has been enriching. It's been a good year. Thank you for reading, for commenting, and for blogging.