A Short Guide to Writing about Music

by Bellman, Jonathan

• ISBN13: 9780321187918
• ISBN10: 0321187911
• Additional ISBN(s): 9780321015778
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-04-20
• Publisher: Pearson
• More Book Details

Summary

A Short Guide to Writing about Music correlates the skills acquired in music composition, playing, and studying to the skills needed for successful writing-commitment, practice, revision, balance, and control. This writing guide offers clear instruction and a wide range of writing tasks-from reaction papers and concert reviews, to program notes and abstracts, to persuasive essays and research papers. Many student and professional writing samples are included to illustrate these assignments, with accompanying commentary and suggestions for students. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
Writing About Music	1	(20)
Words About Music: Why?	1	(2)
Choosing an Audience	3	(1)
Kinds of Writing	4	(5)
History and Biography	4	(1)
Style Study	5	(2)
Analysis	7	(1)
Performance Study	8	(1)
Organological, Archival, and Source Studies	8	(1)
Criticism	9	(8)
Marxist Criticism	10	(1)
Soviet Pseudo-Marxist Criticism	11	(1)
Cultural Criticism	12	(1)
Gender Studies in Music	13	(2)
Postcolonial Criticism	15	(2)
The Author's Opinion: Clarity and Restraint	17	(4)
Writing About Music By, and For, Those Who Cannot (Necessarily) Read It	21	(19)
What You Can and Cannot Do	24	(1)
The Concert Review	25	(4)
Reporting on a News Event	25	(1)
Artistic Evaluation	26	(3)
Promoting Community Interest in Music	29	(1)
Popular and World Musics	29	(11)
Crossing the Cultural Divide	35	(5)
Writing Music Analysis	40	(16)
Analysis and Its Uses	40	(3)
Analytical Content vs. Play-by-Play	43	(3)
Analysis Without Musical Examples	45	(1)
Technical Terminology	46	(1)
Two Analytical Excerpts with Commentary	47	(4)
Organizing Analytical Writing	51	(5)
Three Kinds of Practical Writing	56	(16)
Program and Liner Notes	57	(8)
Biographical Background	59	(1)
Cultural Context	59	(1)
Style and Affect	59	(6)
Summaries and Abstracts	65	(3)
The Summary	65	(1)
The Abstract	66	(2)
The Press Release	68	(4)
Belief into Words: Opinion and the Writing of an Effective Essay	72	(20)
Presentation and Tone	73	(4)
Organization	73	(1)
Confrontational Writing	73	(3)
Stylistic Excess	76	(1)
The Writing Process: From Outline to Final Draft	77	(13)
``Benefits of the Suzuki Method,'' by Jessica Mosier	77	(6)
``Skryabin's Mystical Beliefs and the Holographic Model,'' by Jeff Simpson	83	(7)
Hints on Beginning	90	(2)
Research in Music	92	(24)
The Purposes of Research	92	(1)
Choice of Topic	93	(1)
Locating Sources	94	(1)
Kinds of Written Sources	95	(7)
Non-English Sources	95	(1)
Reference Sources	96	(1)
Books	97	(1)
Journal and Magazine Articles	98	(1)
Other Web-Based Sources	99	(1)
Recording Liner Notes	100	(1)
Musical Scores	101	(1)
Use of Sources	102	(7)
Optimizing Research Time	102	(1)
Don't Believe Everything You Read!	103	(1)
Scholarly vs. Textbook Sources	103	(1)
Relative Age of Sources	104	(1)
Authorial Perspective	105	(1)
Dependability of the Source Itself	106	(1)
Special Difficulties in Using Musical Sources	106	(3)
Citing Your Sources	109	(1)
To Quote or to Paraphrase?	110	(1)
Turning Research Into Writing	110	(2)
The Foundations of Your Research	110	(1)
On Being Derivative	111	(1)
Whose Ideas?	112	(4)
Choice of Sources	112	(1)
The Opening Paragraph	112	(1)
Conclusions	113	(3)
A Sample Research Paper in Music	116	(19)
``Gerswin's French Connection,'' by Amie Margoles	116	(17)
Commentary on the Margoles Paper	133	(2)
Style in Writing	135	(26)
The Meaning of ``Style''	135	(4)
Academic Style Traits	139	(6)
Complex Sentence Structure	139	(1)
Obscure Words	139	(1)
First Person Plural	140	(1)
Passive Voice	141	(2)
Traditional Academic Organization	143	(2)
Fashioning Clear Sentences	145	(7)
Taste	147	(1)
Gender-Neutral Wording and the Pronoun Problem	148	(1)
Transitions	149	(2)
Variety	151	(1)
Punctuation	152	(3)
Colon, Semicolon, and Comma	153	(1)
A Note on Hyphens and Centuries	154	(1)
Specifically Musical Uses of Punctuation	155	(1)
Accuracy in Wording	155	(4)
Ill-Advised Upgrades	156	(1)
Beat, Meter, Rhythm	157	(1)
That and Which	158	(1)
Accuracy in Spelling and Punctuation	158	(1)
Aggregate Titles	158	(1)
Awkward Wording	159	(1)
Toward a Personal Style	159	(2)
The Final Manuscript	161	(28)
General Format	161	(3)
Binding, Paper, Duplication	161	(1)
Word Processing	161	(1)
Copies	162	(1)
Title Page	163	(1)
Spacing and Margins	163	(1)
Block Quotations	163	(1)
Bibliography	164	(1)
Abbreviations	164	(1)
Latin Abbreviations and Terminology	164	(1)
Musical Abbreviations	165	(1)
Titles of Musical Works	165	(1)
Musical Examples and Captions	166	(3)
Production of Examples	167	(1)
Captions	168	(1)
The Citation Process	169	(4)
Footnotes or Endnotes?	170	(1)
Parenthetical Citation Format	171	(1)
Incomplete Citations	172	(1)
Abbreviated Citation Form	173	(1)
Sample Citations	173	(14)
Explanatory Footnotes	186	(1)
Musical Scores	186	(1)
Last-Minute Corrections	187	(2)
Index	189