Like our new, slimmed down issue, I’ll be brief.
It’s the end of an exhausting, turbulent, frightening month. To our many readers who have had been cut off from the very heart of their work—making music with children—I hope you have found some comfort in the strength of this community. Virtual concerts and song swaps and meetups have popped up across all available digital platforms. The CMN website now hosts an extensive calendar of livestreamed performances, classes, and sing-alongs offered by CMN members; the fun continues on the CMN Facebook page. Though Instagram and YouTube can never truly replicate human contact, they’ve become essential to keeping us all connected in these unprecedented times.
On top of all that, welcome to the latest incarnation of Pass It On! Our editorial team came to realize that although the great digital migration of 2014 resulted in a beautiful new look and a much wider audience, PIO! still largely followed the format of a print journal. While hundreds of nonmembers were accessing our most popular feature articles, other aspects of the journal felt outdated and unsuited to the twice-yearly publication schedule, especially as CMN’s website, Facebook page, and e-newsletter can deliver content immediately. So we decided to focus our energies on providing our members, and the world, with excellent articles on children’s music, empowering those who teach, write, perform, share, and produce it to strengthen their craft and their advocacy. And members will still have exclusive access to songs, lovingly shared within the community.
Here’s the lowdown on PIO! 3.0.
What’s new:
- For the first time ever, publishing QUARTERLY—four issues each year instead of two
- Article tagging, linking each article to others on the same topic (coming soon)
- Sleeker, more digitally friendly design
What remains:
- Feature articles on theory, business, pedagogy, profiles, and exciting news relevant to children’s music
- Magic Penny interviews, conference announcements, and other important CMN news
- Songs
What departs or moves elsewhere:
- Columns
- Reports
- New Sounds
- Letter From the Editor (leaving me more time to develop amazing content!)
I want to express my boundless gratitude to our PIO! team: webmaster Carl Foote, designer Kim Ziolkowski, songs editor Val Smalkin, and copy editor Heather Taylor. Thanks also to Alina Celeste for providing fantastic guidance on the new direction, and to former editor Brigid Finucane for unflagging support. Our columnists—Alina, Monty Harper, Maureen Conlin, Stuart Stotts, and Peter Alsop—have promised to continue contributing now that their columns are retired (some of them after very long and successful runs). Huge thanks to them, as well as to Barbara Rice for her years of steady effort to share your fresh releases in New Sounds, which appears one last time in this issue.
Please share your feedback on the new issue with me at ginger.lazarus@gmail.com. We continue our efforts to improve the journal’s accessibility; comments on that aspect are most welcome. Stay home, wash your hands, and make lots of music. And look for our next issue in summer 2020!