Why did you launch your blog?
Amusicology was founded after we realized that the kind of interaction that scholars have at conferences — a mix of serious and playful — was energizing but also in short supply. Our goal was, and still is, to provide a fresh perspective on research, issues within the profession, and the concert scene in Boston.

Who reads it?
Our readers come from across the country, and, increasingly, across the world. We now average more than 2,000 visitors a month.

What’s been your favorite post so far?
We’ve been really happy to feature guest bloggers in recent months, such as GSAS students Matthew Mugmon and Frank Lehman; we’re looking to expand on that in the future. Ryan’s personal favorite is an entry on the Bowed Piano Ensemble, which has been linked to and referenced on various sites beyond ours.

You’ve done some interesting blogging about the musicology job wiki and the state of the job market.
The job wiki is a clearinghouse for information about full-time academic appointments in music history, music theory, and ethnomusicology. Over the course of a hiring season, users contribute anonymous updates about the status of any given search, so you can track specific positions and broader trends as well. Despite the wiki’s limitations, it offers the best available information about the state of the academic job market in our field. And we hoped both to bring that information to light and to generate a dialogue about it — which we’ve been pretty successful in doing.

Most fun blog-related development?
Last November, at the American Musicological Society meeting in Philadelphia, we hosted our first-ever conference reception. It was an intimate gathering of about 15 people, and we’re hoping to meld the real world with the blogosphere at future meetings of scholarly societies. We’ve also been happy to see that there are larger ramifications to having a virtual presence—being the “Amusicology guys.” People tend to relax and become more engaged with the conversation at hand when they connect our physical presences to the corresponding virtual ones, as if they are already familiar with us and our work.

How does this work fit in with, or distract you from, other scholarly pursuits?
Blogging is in a transitional state within the academy. We see Amusicology as a platform for short essays that elaborate on our interests. We don’t consider it a distraction. If anything, it has been a beneficial place to release thoughts on subjects separate from the dissertation, or to process through concerns relevant to our current status as graduate students (teaching, finding a job, etc.) — a kind of public filing cabinet of ideas.