Research a bibliography before settling on something. The project won’t come to anything worthwhile if there isn’t good literature on and around the piece.
Good literature means serious, specific, academic analytical writing, (NOT programme notes or biography). Some of your literature should be about your piece directly, but some could be about other related works. Try looking in –
· Articles from peer-reviewed journals such as Music Analysis, C19th Music, Journal of the Royal Musicological Association etc. Much of this literature can be accessed from JSTOR.
· Articles/essays from scholarly collections in books. Look for books with titles or subtitles like ‘analytical studies’ etc. Also look for ‘ . . . University Press’ on the spine.
· Analytical books or monographs devoted to the piece itself (eg. The Cambridge Music Handbooks) or the music of the relevant composer, period or style, from a which a chapter or section might be relevant
· By all means try the Internet, but beware – you need material of a high standard of scholarship. That does not include Wikipedia (although this can point you to other things). If in doubt, ask your teacher.
Having found a good book or article, look through its bibliography which may lead you to other useful sources. You can also find a bibliography at the end of every article in Grove Music Online
2 Assemble the project
a) Essay
This must contain two elements –
i) Literature Review
ii) Analytical Response
You could therefore separate the essay into two distinct sections, but you may prefer to wrap the two elements into one continuous essay. Either way, each element should account for approximately half the word count.
i) Literature Review – explain how other people have approached the work. What topics seem particularly important? Do some writers comment on others? This sense of a continuing dialog can be particularly useful. You can (and should) state your own critical opinions at this point, but remember these writers are often writing in serious journals that are peer-reviewed and selective, so just saying ‘X’s analysis of Beethoven Op.59/1 is rubbish because Beethoven can’t have been thinking about that’ isn’t likely to go down very well!
ii) Analytical Response – this needs to have a focused analytical question, such as ‘How does the introduction to the 1st movement of Mozart’s Quartet K.465 connect to the rest of the movement?’ This question can (and should) arise from what you’ve learnt about the piece through preliminary analysis and your study of the literature.
This takes us back to the literature search described above. It may help you a great deal if you can find at least one source (article, book etc.) with a considerable amount of detailed analysis connected with your own analytical question. You can spend much of the Review section explaining its thesis, maybe passing relatively briefly over less relevant literature. If you can find 2 or more sources with opposing views, your Response could be to make a judgement between the two, explaining why, with detailed analysis of your own, or maybe come up with a third or hybrid view of your own.
There are a number of ways to tackle the essay, but it is essential that you show a deep engagement with the ideas in your selected literature and a deep analytical engagement in the score of your piece.
Presentation is also very important. This needs to be word-processed and conform to the RAM Style Guide (BMus Handbook pp 86-87) including correct formatting of footnotes and a comprehensive bibliography.
