Table of Contents
PREFACE 1–WRITING ABOUT MUSIC
Words About Music: Why?
Choosing an Audience
Kinds of Writing
History and Biography
Style Study
Analysis
Performance Study
Organological, Archival, and Source Studies
Criticism
Marxist Criticism
Soviet Pseudo-Marxist Criticism
Cultural Criticism
Gender Studies in Music
Postcolonial Criticism
The Author’s Opinion: Clarity and Restraint
2–WRITING ABOUT MUSIC BY, AND FOR, THOSE WHO
CANNOT (NECESSARILY) READ IT
What You Can and Cannot Do
The Concert Review
Reporting on a News Event
Artistic Evaluation
Promoting Community Interest in Music
Popular and World Musics
Crossing the Cultural Divide
3–WRITING MUSIC ANALYSIS
Analysis and Its Uses
Analytical Content vs. Play-by-Play
Analysis Without Musical Examples
Technical Terminology
Two Analytical Excerpts with Commentary
Organizing Analytical Writing
4–THREE KINDS OF PRACTICAL WRITING
Program and Liner Notes
Biographical Background
Cultural Context
Style and Affect
Summaries and Abstracts
The Summary
The Abstract
The Press Release
5–BELIEF INTO WORDS: OPINION AND THE WRITING
OF AN EFFECTIVE ESSAY
Presentation and Tone
Organization
Confrontational Writing
Stylistic Excess
The Writing Process: From Outline to Final Draft
“Benefits of the Suzuki Method,” by Jessica Mosier
“Skryabin’s Mystical Beliefs and the Holographic Model,”
by Jeff Simpson
Hints on Beginning
6–RESEARCH IN MUSIC
The Purposes of Research
Choice of Topic
Locating Sources
Kinds of Written Sources
Non-English Sources
Reference Sources
Books
Journal and Magazine Articles
Other Web-Based Sources
Recording Liner Notes
Musical Scores
Use of Sources
Optimizing Research Time
Don’t Believe Everything You Read!
Scholarly vs. Textbook Sources
Relative Age of Sources
Authorial Perspective
Dependability of the Source Itself
Special Difficulties in Using Musical Sources
Citing Your Sources
To Quote or to Paraphrase?
Turning Research Into Writing
The Foundations of Your Research
On Being Derivative
Whose Ideas?
Choice of Sources
The Opening Paragraph
Conclusions
7–A SAMPLE RESEARCH PAPER IN MUSIC
“Gershwin’s French Connection,” by Amie Margoles
Commentary on the Margoles Paper
8–STYLE IN WRITING
The Meaning of “Style”
Academic Style Traits
Complex Sentence Structure
Obscure Words
First Person Plural
Passive Voice
Traditional Academic Organization
Fashioning Clear Sentences
Taste
Gender-Neutral Wording and the Pronoun Problem
Transitions
Variety
Punctuation
Colon, Semicolon, and Comma
A Note on Hyphens and Centuries
Specifically Musical Uses of Punctuation
Accuracy in Wording
Ill-Advised Upgrades
Beat, Meter, Rhythm
That and Which
Accuracy in Spelling and Punctuation
Aggregate Titles
Awkward Wording
Toward a Personal Style
9–THE FINAL MANUSCRIPT
General Format
Binding, Paper, Duplication
Word Processing
Copies
Title Page
Spacing and Margins
Block Quotations
Bibliography
Abbreviations
Latin Abbreviations and Terminology
Musical Abbreviations
Titles of Musical Works
Musical Examples and Captions
Production of Examples
Captions
The Citation Process
Footnotes or Endnotes
Parenthetical Citation Format
Incomplete Citations
Abbreviated Citation Form
Sample Citations
Explanatory Footnotes
Musical Scores
Last-Minute Corrections
INDEX
