Does your blog sing?

My son is preparing for his music history exam. As I looked through his textbooks, I was struck by how similar blogging is to making music. The melody and the harmony.

The melody is the song, the string of notes across time that tell the story. Each blogger sings his or her own melody. Each song is an improvisation. It is the primary voice that carries the thought and the theme. It is the horizontal dimension.

The harmony is the combination of notes that support melody. The chords. Each blogger can call upon other blogs and voices to support his story. These chords are simultaneous notes that support the primary voice. They add color and depth. It is the vertical dimension.

Like a good song, there must a balance of resonance and dissonance. Resonance so we are willing to listen, dissonance because we need to return, reread or comment in order to resolve the tension.

Each blog entry is just the prelude, the introduction to the fugue which follows with comments, trackbacks that answer or imitate the previous voice... a rich and complex mingling of improvisations from unexpected quarters.

Just as good songs are imitated, shared and elaborated over time so do great blogs. And sometimes in our haste to put words to blogs, we forget that each entry no matter how long or short can sing. We have that power.

All songs, great or small start with one note or one chord.

So do all blogs...