Blogging the News

https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/facesofreflection/?p=51

https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/facesofreflection/

  Mission Statement

One eye catching form of entertainment we usually come across is music, my idea is to capture this in a whole new light of capturing who is behind creating the music. I want to introduce my readers to new musicians and the “The Day In The Life Of…” talking a walk in their shoes for a day. However, we know that the life of musicians aspiring to make it big is never easy. Perhaps they feel that entertaining people in New York will get them some exposure or promote them a step ahead towards attaining their own dreams.  The truth is that many of these new artists in the making are young and confident, and talented, but that won’t get them far like they would have hoped out here. The City is huge, and can make anyone feel small and alone and that’s exactly how these young musicians feel, but its also because the city is full of great competition and its hard to gain recognition.  Yet why would they leave everything they know behind countries or states away? How could they survive on nothing and be so confident that they will become famous in the city instead? What keeps them going and not packing up to go back home to their old life? What daily struggles do they go through day by day just to make a little money? There’s always a darker side to something, before it gets any better after all.

This blog will give us insight that will dig deeper into these aspiring musicians’ lives, not only will it help promote new musicians, but also help give these new artists a voice of who they truly are when they aren’t performing to make a little cash. I want my blog to be a source that people can turn to when they are feeling lost themselves or sucked away into the city life with struggles of their own. I also want them to become inspired by the experiences of other musicians I will write about in my blog posts.

Furthermore, non-musicians will be able to relate to artists as I show the day in the life of new musicians from all over New York. I will seek to interview musicians in all five boroughs. I also envision doing stories of how far they’ve come to get to this point, what sets them apart from others struggling musicians perhaps in their home states, and what long term goals they hope will happen for them staying in New York. All the content my blog will provide will be personal one on one interviews explaining how they got to where they are and why.

The difference between my blog and other music blogs is that I will be covering a more intense truth behind a musician and actually get to know who they are as a person rather then just look at them as another entertainer begging for money on the streets. Most music blogs are created strictly to help expose and promote musicians. Although I also will be in a way helping them with the same reasons, I’ll also be showing people who follow my blog a completely different side of the day in the life of these musicians and the hardships they go through in their daily lives to make something of themselves. Being a photographer, I will also add slideshows and music clips of them performing maybe even a podcast of the actual interviews I will be doing. I feel like these things will capture my followers attention, and keep their focus because they will feel like they are actually there themselves, making them want to read more about these people I cover.

In any case, just like any other blog would I want my followers to be able to have easy access to be able to read my blog whenever they want to, every blog should want to take full advantage of using technology to provide all this information with people around the world. Everyone is so consumed with their smart phones, Facebook accounts, Twitter, Instagram that getting the word out there in order to expose ones own blog shouldn’t be a big problem. It would be useful for me to use this as my own advantage to advertise the musicians I cover maybe by simply sharing content from their own pages or websites they may have created. This is also a good way to help expose and promote them as a step more towards their goals since my blog will be giving them more publicity to maybe even managers of music companies.

Like I stated before, there are endless music blogs out there, the list goes on and on. Some blogs may be bigger than others depending on how much they promote, and how many followers they have gained from the coverage they provide. I am not certain as who would be big time competition when it comes to music blogs, but I do understand that in order to create a music blog one must first understand music and what they are really talking about. Straying off topic for example, could have an affect on my readers and they will automatically lose interest and  stop following the blog.  It is important in any blog to gain the popularity you think it deserves, without pushing it too far and making it something its not. I feel as though I’ll make it far with my blog, only because I never actually seen other music blogs get to know a person other than just being an entertainer or performer. I like the whole idea of “A Day In The Life Of…”  theme because it truly shows the other side of a musician a side that not many people perceive because they are always too preoccupied with what they see rather than what they know.

    Eventually, I’d like to see my blog grow and become something amazing people can enjoy reading. I want to provide an entertaining, insightful view and recognition of these musicians to the public in hopes that it will be helping not only them, but my readers too.

Editorial Plan 

Types of content: 

I of course want my target audience to be people who aspire to be musicians themselves one day, or people who enjoy music in general. In order to gain that type of popularity and actually get people to follow my blog, I will have new and interesting stories/interviews on new musicians as much as possible. My goal is to make my readers see the other side of a person behind the music, at a more personal and deeper level.  I want people to know what its like to take a walk in someone else’s shoes for a day and become inspired by how far they’ve come today as musicians in New York.

  Q&As: Because  the topic of my blog is focusing on music, I have a lot of potential for finding easy interviews on the streets or trains. Aspiring musicians are everywhere constantly entertaining and trying to expose themselves so I know I’ll have a lot of people to strike up conversations with and that they’ll be willing to talk. I’ll be focusing on all different types of artists performing different types of genres in the music world, and from all around New York so to get an interview should be simple

Possible interviewees:  I’m not entirely focused on any specific group or person to interview, like I said before the city is big with constant new street/train performers waiting for exposure so I feel like I’d always have new choices to pick from.

Number of updates/Time to create post:  I plan to update my blog at least once or twice a week. Each post I make on my blog will cover one article of a new musician, band, performer I come across. longer stories will be 500 words and up while my shorter stories will be about 200-300 words long. Since I’m going to be getting a lot of information on in order to keep my readers interested, I will need about 2 hours to get some kind of interview and then about 3 hours to piece the entire thing together into a story.

Multimedia:  I will be doing a bunch of things in this area, visuals are an important part of my story considering I want my readers to experience the performances as if they were there themselves. So in order to do that I’ll be attaching slideshows of the music scene and people I interview, as well as maybe a podcast to some of my stories of the interview as well. I also want to attach music clips to the stories of the musicians in action.

Story Ideas: For the moment I’d have to think more deeper into my stories but I think I can create an interesting story on what makes the musician want to perform in a particular music genre, like perhaps it has to do with their background such as their culture, their family back home, or maybe because that specific type of music is famous back in their home states or country. I seen  bands perform in the trains that were actually pretty famous back in their home land. So I could  maybe come across another band like that and strike up a story of how they came to be so famous and why struggle with it in New York when the city is filled with competition.

One of the main things I wanted to stick with this semester is creating my blog revolving around music, but to be more specific I wanted to focus on the train and street performers of NYC.  I know that many music blogs have aspiring musicians following them, and I think it would be a good idea to get a lot of stories out of these new breakout artists trying to make it big, and I can even interview some underground bands I know. Some of the things I can get out of it is defining who they are exactly, where did they come from and why do they feel the need to get inspiration from NY to get anywhere?  

A better idea would be to create news stories that will help these aspiring musicians in New York City, like the professor gave me the idea to research venues, practice spaces, and do interviews maybe with a manager about what they look for in up-coming artists. I can definitely get somewhere with doing that, and I think it could be really interesting to meet these new artists along the way. As for a second idea, I’m not so sure yet but I want to stick with the whole arts scene because I feel that I’d be better off doing something like this or related to it.