Techniques of Music Research
F06
Ronald Anderson
We perform music. We compose music. We record music. We enjoy music. But how many musicians can write about music? Few among us need to command the prose style and vocabulary of Ezra Pound to write a concise term paper. We do need to discuss strategies for answering musical questions and to assemble a vocabulary (or repertoire) of research tools. This class will help the student develop a kind of logic of searching out solutions to a musical problem. The class will decipher the hilarious “alphabet soup” of music reference sources, i.e., DTO, RILM, GD, QL, KV, JAMS, etc. We learn to glean information out of non-English reference works without reading or speaking that language fluently. This class will help musicians to easily write an article, a term paper, CD liner notes, or concert program notes. Students will write various exercises in the above four categories—one of which will be more substantial.