Home > Free Essays > Music Essay

Music Essay, Research Paper Examples

Aspects to Cover in a Music Essay

Whether you understand the subtleties of terminology or are taking a course to begin your journey, writing a music essay requires more than the knowledge of various musical pieces.

Tackling different topics, ranging from contemporary to classical music, is possible if you can explain a few cornerstone moments to your readers. To begin your essay, make sure to:

  • Research your assigned piece in different ways, from listening to reading about it;
  • Immerse yourself in the material;
  • Search for additional insights by watching live performances when possible.

These actions ensure that you have a good grasp of your material from different sources. Creating an outline before beginning to write will also save you time, as you will gain a better understanding of the topic.

Finally, you can get music essay ideas from reading examples of other’s work.

Avoid plagiarism, as this will immediately disqualify your paper from academic merit, as music essay examples should inspire your writing, rather than become the basis for it.

After your initial research and the execution of the pre-writing stages, you can start focusing on the details of your assignment. Straightway, music appreciation becomes an essential prerequisite to your essay.

You should find what elements resonate with you in your task and focus on developing them into factual statements.

For example, if you like the sound, then elaborate this feeling into a coherent thought that explains why. Conversely, if you do not find any part enjoyable, then do the same, but remember to remain academic and respectful.

Another important aspect of your essay is the history of the assigned piece, which you can address after your introduction. Doing so will help your readers be on the same level of knowledge as you, the essay’s writer.

Without a historical backdrop, jazz becomes just another funky-sounding genre, not a monument to America’s 20th-century rebellious tendencies.

Thus, explain how a particular piece came into existence or why was it created to increase its importance in your audience’s eyes. Furthermore, you may even compare it against other sample music of its time.

Understand that music essay topics need to be technical and explain any occurring background processes, from composition to execution.

Therefore, your bibliography should include a variety of book and journal titles. These have to demonstrate the level of your research and support your ideas with credible references.

This advice may be especially relevant if you are writing a highly technical or instrumental essay, as it allows explaining complicated concepts with ease and trustworthiness.

After you have covered technical, perception-related, and historical aspects of your subject as per your initial outline, you can integrate information about its impact on future compositions.

The continuous flow of history from the past to the future should help you support your work and uphold its importance in the broader context. Additionally, doing so enables you to lead your essay to a well-rounded conclusion.

Finally, from music essay titles that have to grab your readers’ attention to grouping paragraphs with a single theme under one subheading, you can begin finalizing your essay.

Remember the importance of explaining the different sides to your problem and tie them all together in your conclusion.

This action makes your work a comprehensive study on your subject, educating your readers, and correctly presenting information in an easy-to-read format.

Want to know other aspects of writing about music? Go to IvyPanda to find out more essay samples!

Classical and Modern Music

The Role of Music The world is constantly evolving and the world of music is no exception. Music has always been with people as it does not simply entertain, but it provides “insight into human experience as it extends over time” (Kerman & Tomlinson xxvi). From tribal dances to medieval clerical choirs and from refined […]

Hip-hop music

Introduction Hip-Hop is perhaps the form of music that has attracted the most controversy. Many people have blamed hip-hop for a number of societal issues like violence, promiscuity, bad language, etc. Whether or not these people are right in blaming hip-hop for these societal problems is still a matter of heated debates among interested parties. […]

Music and the Construction of Personal/Social Identities

Introduction Music is seen an essential communication channel. It offers a means through which individuals and groups can share their aims, values and emotions even though the spoken languages might be mutually incomprehensible. Music further provides dynamic links for human interactions, particularly individuals whose distinctive wants make other communication means rather difficult or demanding. Nowadays, […]

How music can influence our behaviour

Introduction Music shapes the way people interact with another, how they define their identities and how they respond to their surroundings. DeNora (2004, 5) explains that “instead of using music to understand people, one should focus on how music constructs them”. Indeed, music has the capacity to shape and affect behaviour owing to its effect […]

Teaching a musical instrument in school

Introduction Music education is a study field that deals with training of individuals interested in music. It entails all spheres of learning including psychomotor, cognitive and the effective domain. Psychomotor domain deals with ability development while cognitive domain deals with knowledge achievement. Effective domain is the most significant and entails the positive reception of music […]

How does jazz the music and its story reflect the American experience?

Jazz is acknowledged around the globe for its rich cultural legacy entrenched in the African-American experience. Ever since its initiation in the early 20th century; jazz has greatly contributed to the American culture and has been a reflection of American experience and is also extensively believed to be the only truly unique American art form. […]

Internet marketing: Use of Social Media by Artists to Market their Music

Introduction Music is big business in Australia and the music industry contributes millions of dollars annually to the Australian economy. Music provides a source of livelihood for a wide variety of people ranging from the performing artists, producers, publicists, and event managers to name but a few. The huge contribution that music makes to society […]

Introducing Children to Music

Introduction “A rich sensory environment”, that is the term most experts use to describe environments inundated with music and opportunities for children to move to the beat of what they hear (Lock, 2006). In fact it is this very type of environment that various studies show is conducive towards the development of a child’s mind […]

Kiwi music cultural event in New Zealand

Exegesis The content, structure, form and major elements of the commercial on the cultural event were intended to ensure the success in achieving the main advertising purposes. The application of the audience-focused model to designing the commercial, incorporation of the elements aimed at evoking the imagery processes in the consumers and increasing the speech rates […]

Effects of Music in Advertising

Music has been recognized as a powerful stimulus affecting people’s mood and even health since times immemorial. Realizing the potential of using the music elements in advertizing for affecting the consumers’ perception and purchasing behavior, marketers use music in supermarkets and as a background feature in commercials. The findings of the latest empirical studies have […]

School Music Festival Concert

Music festivals are important components of society because they encourage people to bring out the best of their abilities in songs and dances. The festivals allow the participants and the audience to interact in an environment where entertainment as well as values can be exchanged freely. Scholars have argued that music is a vital component […]

Chicano Music

La Huasanga (Los Rogacianos) La Huasanga is performed by the ensemble including traditional Mexican violins, guitarrons, and guitars. There are two violin solos. They are characterized by the deviant bowing, and the active strumming is a distinctive feature of the ensemble parts with references to guitars as it is used to emphasize the final parts […]

Canuck Rock: A History of Canadian Popular Music

Numerous writers have come up with chronicles on the Canadian popular music. The latest book documenting the Canadian popular music is by Ryan Edwardson. The book dubbed “Canuck Rock: a History of Canadian Popular Music” focuses on demonstrating the history of rock music in Canada. Edwardson brings out the relationship between rock music and Canadian […]

The Music Industry

Introduction The music industry is dealing with many issues that are affecting how it operates. The industry is among the many that have endured the most of technological and social changes in the last three decades. The forces of globalization have changed for good how people access, use, and distribute music. In addition, there are […]

Influence of Heavy Metal Music on Adolescence (Behavior, Identity, Mood, Regulation, Psychology)

Studies on adolescence and teenage culture are confined to understanding of teenagers’ needs. Because adolescents have similar concerns and needs and create similar peer groups, music performs the same goals for all of the groups. Being a source of peer group identity, music contrasts either with working class street subculture or with conformist culture in […]

Choral Music Review

Choral Music. Choral music is written for a particular group of people to sing. Therefore, a choir of six to three hundred and sixty singers sings the music. This kind of music is commonly practiced in schools and by church choirs and has special arrangements of voices to enhance its quality. One singer singing the […]

Choral Music History

Choral music entails the music sung by a choir. In this case, a choir is a musical assembly of singers. The size of the choir varies from a dozen of singers to a considerably large number of individuals as long as they can sing. Two or more voices sing each musical part to create a […]

Popular Music in Uzbekistan

Before looking at the popular music of the Uzbeks, it is important to understand who they are and their origin. Most of them live in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic while the rest live in Northern Afghanistan. They were not originally part of Central Asia since the region was inhabited by Iranian-speaking people. They emerged […]

Music Therapy Effectiveness

Music therapy is “clinical and evidence-based use of music intervention” to achieve certain goals within a therapeutic relationship by a certified health expert who has successfully completed an approved music therapy course (American Music Therapy Association). Music therapy is a well-established medical care vocation in which highly trained and qualified healthcare experts use music to […]

Music and Healing

Music is the notion that makes people think about the tunes they really adore. There are different genres and directions in music that help it to be in favor of different people. There are many specific qualities which apply to music. Thus, it may help think about something important, remain happy or remember something sad […]