A music friend of mine who reads my blog asked me the other day whether it was a good idea to host such a “frank and open” discussion of my music thoughts and experiences on my music website. He was concerned that I might be “doing a disservice” to myself by making those thoughts so available. Whether and where to blog on my experiences pursuing a music career is definitely something I’ve thought about – so it’s not an accident that these thoughts appear on my music website. But I’d be curious what others think. I’ve had a lot of positive feedback about this blog – primarily from musicians. And its honesty seems to be a big part of that. I get a lot of “yes – I’m struggling with that too!” messages or “here’s how I’ve responded to that sort of thing” blog comments. I do get feedback from non-musicians (and also those who present music) who are interested in my experiences or sometimes appreciate the insight into what it’s actually like to try to do music professionally. And although I try to be honest, it’s really just my thought process I’m posting about. Sometimes it’s about my fears or lack of confidence, but sometimes it’s about my successes or joys. I used to host the blog on myspace, but myspace is (thankfully) mostly a thing of the past for the folk music world, so it didn’t make sense to keep it there. Facebook, which has mostly replaced the role myspace used to play (but does it better) doesn’t really have a blogging platform. So although I could have created a stand-alone blog, doing that gave me less control, and I liked the idea of keeping all the bits of coverage of my music life in as few places as possible. The other logic, of course, of having it on my music website is that it might serve to drive people to that website, which gives them (you!) information about what else is going on with my music career. If you’re interested enough to hear my thoughts on songwriting contests or what it means to call music “folk,” you’re probably someone who might consider seeing a show of mine or buying a CD, and bringing you to a place where you can find that information is a useful start. The broader question may be, why blog in the first place? I don’t have a clear answer to that question except that, at the heart of it all, I’m a writer. That’s what brings together most of the things I care most about. I wrestle with the world – what I think about it, how to make sense of it – through writing songs, journal entries, articles, books. So I will always be writing. And conducting my writing process in public is also part of who I am. I sing my songs for people, and publish academic works (a new book of mine just came out earlier this week!) for people to read and interact with. Knowing that something I write will be experienced by other people increases the seriousness and honesty with which I approach it, and therefore helps me focus on figuring out what I actually think. So, will being this honest and forthright in my music blog lose me potential audience members or opportunities to play? There’s certainly a chance that it might; the bigger question is will it increase the positive attention at least as much as the number of people it turns away? I don’t know the answer to that question and would love to hear thoughts from others. I do know that I read a lot of blogs – both by musicians and by others (and the ones by musicians are most often – although not always – hosted on their music sites). And the ones I like are the ones that have personality. That admit weaknesses and quirks and curiosity and excitement. Since that’s the kind of blog I like to read, it’s the kind of music blog I like to write.