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A short guide to writing about music / Jonathan D. Bellman.
Van Pelt - Albrecht Music Library ML3797 .B4 2007
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Bellman, Jonathan, 1957-
- Series:
- Short guide series
- The short guide series
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Music--Historiography--Handbooks, manuals, etc.
- Music.
- Musical criticism--Authorship--Handbooks, manuals, etc.
- Musical criticism.
- Musical criticism--Authorship.
- Music--Historiography.
- Genre:
- Handbooks and manuals.
- Physical Description:
- xiv, 193 pages : music ; 21 cm.
- Edition:
- Second edition.
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Pearson Longman, [2007]
- 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.
- Contents:
- 1 Writing About Music 1
- Words About Music: Why? 1
- Choosing an Audience 3
- Kinds of Writing 4
- History and Biography 4
- Style Study 5
- Analysis 7
- Performance Study 8
- Organological, Archival, and Source Studies 8
- Criticism 9
- Marxist Criticism 10
- Soviet Pseudo-Marxist Criticism 11
- Cultural Criticism 12
- Gender Studies in Music 13
- Postcolonial Criticism 15
- The Author's Opinion: Clarity and Restraint 17
- 2 Writing About Music by, and for, Those Who Cannot (Necessarily) Read it 21
- What You Can and Cannot Do 24
- The Concert Review 25
- Reporting on a News Event 25
- Artistic Evaluation 26
- Promoting Community Interest in Music 29
- Popular and World Musics 29
- Crossing the Cultural Divide 35
- 3 Writing Music Analysis 40
- Analysis and Its Uses 40
- Analytical Content vs. Play-by-Play 43
- Analysis Without Musical Examples 45
- Technical Terminology 46
- Two Analytical Excerpts with Commentary 47
- Organizing Analytical Writing 51
- 4 Three Kinds of Practical Writing 56
- Program and Liner Notes 57
- Biographical Background 59
- Cultural Context 59
- Style and Affect 59
- The Summary 65
- The Abstract 66
- The Press Release 68
- 5 Belief Into Words: Opinion and the Writing of an Effective Essay 72
- Presentation and Tone 73
- Organization 73
- Confrontational Writing 73
- Stylistic Excess 76
- The Writing Process: From Outline to Final Draft 77
- "Benefits of the Suzuki Method" / Jessica Mosier 77
- "Skryabin's Mystical Beliefs and the Holographic Model" / Jeff Simpson 83
- Hints on Beginning 90
- 6 Research in Music 92
- The Purposes of Research 92
- Choice of Topic 93
- Locating Sources 94
- Kinds of Written Sources 95
- Non-English Sources 95
- Journal and Magazine Articles 98
- Other Web-Based Sources 99
- Recording Liner Notes 100
- Musical Scores 101
- Use of Sources 102
- Optimizing Research Time 102
- Don't Believe Everything You Read! 103
- Scholarly vs. Textbook Sources 103
- Relative Age of Sources 104
- Authorial Perspective 105
- Dependability of the Source Itself 106
- Special Difficulties in Using Musical Sources 106
- Citing Your Sources 109
- To Quote or to Paraphrase? 110
- Turning Research Into Writing 110
- The Foundations of Your Research 110
- On Being Derivative 111
- Whose Ideas? 112
- Choice of Sources 112
- The Opening Paragraph 112
- 7 A Sample Research Paper in Music 116
- "Gershwin's French Connection" / Amie Margoles 116
- Commentary on the Margoles Paper 133
- 8 Style in Writing 135
- The Meaning of "Style" 135
- Academic Style Traits 139
- Complex Sentence Structure 139
- Obscure Words 139
- First Person Plural 140
- Passive Voice 141
- Traditional Academic Organization 143
- Fashioning Clear Sentences 145
- Taste 147
- Gender-Neutral Wording and the Pronoun Problem 148
- Transitions 149
- Variety 151
- Punctuation 152
- Colon, Semicolon, and Comma 153
- A Note on Hyphens and Centuries 154
- Specifically Musical Uses of Punctuation 155
- Accuracy in Wording 155
- Ill-Advised Upgrades 156
- Beat, Meter, Rhythm 157
- That and Which 158
- Accuracy in Spelling and Punctuation 158
- Aggregate Titles 158
- Awkward Wording 159
- Toward a Personal Style 159
- 9 The Final Manuscript 161
- General Format 161
- Binding, Paper, Duplication 161
- Word Processing 161
- Copies 162
- Title Page 163
- Spacing and Margins 163
- Block Quotations 163
- Latin Abbreviations and Terminology 164
- Musical Abbreviations 165
- Titles of Musical Works 165
- Musical Examples and Captions 166
- Production of Examples 167
- Captions 168
- The Citation Process 169
- Footnotes or Endnotes? 170
- Parenthetical Citation Format 171
- Incomplete Citations 172
- Abbreviated Citation Form 173
- Sample Citations 173
- Explanatory Footnotes 186
- Musical Scores 186
- Last-Minute Corrections 187.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 0321187911
- OCLC:
- 62732865
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