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Researching a topic
Where
do I begin?
The world wide web is a rich resource for music research. It is possible to gather resources such as live interviews, articles, scores, analyses, reviews, audio excerpts and even movies to support a musicology research assignment.
However, it is also easy to become confused and lost in the process.
The first step is to find a link to material that relates to your topic. If you have no idea where to begin, then select a keyword and enter it into a search engine called Dogpile at http://www.dogpile.com. This search engine will bring up and rank results from quite a number of other search engines. Browse through the first few results from each search engine, then select the titles that most closely reflect the theme of your research.
When is a page useless?
Quite often you will find that the links lead to a lot of useless information. You need to recognise this quickly and select another link from your page of results. Sites that contain journalistic CD reviews, concert dates, fan club information, and messages such as "Welcome to my home page. This is my collection of ...." will be of little use to your research.
When is a page useful?
Things that you need to look for in a good site are: background information about the topic, interviews with the composer or the performer, articles and reviews, audio files of musical excerpts, image files of score extracts, short movie or video clips where relevant, and information or links to related topics. Always check to see if there are any useful links to other sites on the page before you leave it.
What
is a web ring?
Many sites are part of a web ring, for example, The Celtic Music Web Ring. If you cannot find the information you need on the first site, select the "next site forward" button, or "previous site" button, to go to another site on the same ring. In this way you can visit a series of similar or related sites without returning to the search engine results each time.
How do I play audio files?
Once your computer is set up with the necessary plug-ins, you usually have only to click on these files to hear them. You need to consider the size of the file you select before you begin the download. Most wave files are very large and take a long time to download. Mp3, real audio, MIDI and movie files can be played without downloading if you have installed Quicktime4 or Winamp on your computer.
You
can download QuickTime7 player free of charge from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/ 
and Winamp from http://www.winamp.com
To download and play audio and movie files do the following.
Step 1: Shift-click on a PC, and option-click on a Mac. A window will appear asking where you want to save the file.
Step 2: Select the folder into which you want the file saved and click OK.
Step 3: Once the file is downloaded, double click to play it.
How do I select audio files?
The quality of audio and movie files varies quite markedly from one site to another. Look at the description and the size of the file before you begin. If there is more than one of the same file, select the smallest to download first. If the file did not take too long to download, then try one of the bigger files to compare the quality. MIDI files vary the most, and many sites have several versions of the same title. The best way to check the quality is to play the file first. Often the files are graded, so always select the best quality, because MIDI files are very small and take only seconds to download.
Can
I download music scores?
If an article has an illustration or a music score that you want to use, right click on the image and select "save image as" from the menu that appears. You can then select the folder and click OK. Image files take just a couple of seconds to download.
How do I use this material?
A good organisational procedure is to create a folder on your desktop during your research period. Name the folder research. Create three more folders inside that folder: 1. Articles 2. Audio 3. Images. Whenever you find something that may be useful, for example an article, select the text you need and copy it into a new word document. Name the document with the title of the article and save it into the folder marked Articles in your research folder. Be sure to include the publisher, copyright and author information if it is available. Save all audio and image files directly into their corresponding folder within your research folder.
Whenever you are searching the world wide web, remember to bookmark any sites or pages that contain interesting material. Even if they are not related to the current research topic, you will be building a library of research links for future use, thus saving a lot of time.
Music search engines
MusicSearch
http://musicsearch.com
Music-seek
http://www.musiksuche.org
Music
at UCC: Web resources for study and research in music
http://www.ucc.ie/ucc/depts/music/online
Music Library
http://www.gardnermuseum.org/music/library.asp
The
Classical MIDI Archives
http://www.prs.net/midi.html
The
MIDI Farm
http://www.midifarm.com
The
MIDI File and CD Music Finder
http://www.windowsaudio.com/midifind
Music
Video Clips
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Backstage/6003/clips/a.html
Movies.Com
http://www.movies.com
Movie
Trailers
http://www.movie-list.com/nowplaying.shtml
MovieSounds.com
http://www.moviesounds.com
Billboard
Online
http://www.billboard.com
Rolling
Stone Magazine
http://www.rollingstone.com
Sony
Music Online
http://www.sonymusic.com
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