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Tips for writing a musicology essay
Structuring your essay
Like most essays, a music essay should include an introduction, body and conclusion. In addition, you may find it useful to include score extracts and audio examples. These extracts and audio examples can be positioned within the body of the essay, or at the end. It may be appropriate to include subheadings and tables in your essay, but remember, the structure needs to be cohesive.
Here is a one essay format to consider:
Introduction
The introduction concisely outlines your intentions. It states what you are going to do and how you will achieve it. You should name the works you are referring to and set the limits for the discussion.
Body
The body of the essay presents the issues and weaves the ideas together. It expands upon the argument outlined in the introduction and examines the musical proof behind the statements you are making.
Each paragraph should make one main musical point with appropriate and sufficient musical evidence to support it. It should include a sentence that links what you have just said to your main argument. It should also flow on logically from the preceding one.
A really good essay will not just present a list of musical observations, it will draw out the ideas and work out the relationship between the observations.
When including score extracts, consider annotating them to pinpoint your observations.
Hot tip: Once you have made a point, move on! Repetition of material uses up valuable space that could be used to make a different observation.
Conclusion
The conclusion should sum up the discussion with similar language to that found in your introduction. It should neatly outline the conclusions you have drawn from the points discussed in the body of the essay.
New material and arguments should not appear in the conclusion of your essay.
Footnotes and appendices
If you need to provide further explanation of a term or a musical concept but don’t wish to do so in the main body of the essay, then include it in a footnote or appendix.
If you quote from another book, article or interview, you must acknowledge it.
Bibliography
The bibliography should include a list of the relevant books, articles and scores that you used in the preparation of the essay.
Only include sources relevant to your topic, don’t write a list of every musical book you have ever read!
Discography
This is a list of the pieces of music you have listened to while preparing, researching and writing your essay.
They should be relevant to the topic area, not music for pleasure and not irrelevant examples put in to make your list appear more impressive.
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