Short Paper #1 Instructions
For this first paper, you will work on building skills both in historical primary source research using digital resources and in writing about musical sound from your own listening experience. Toward that end, this four page paper will consist of roughly two pages of information regarding a specific artist, song, genre/style, technological development, industry practice, record label, or time period drawn from historical primary sources and an additional two pages of discussion of a specific musical recording. For this first paper, we will focus on, and limit ourselves to, material from before 1980.
As you build research and critical listening skills, writing this paper will also to help you work on make compelling connections between the contextual information you find and the sounds you hear and on communicating your discoveries and ideas in written form in a compelling way. An important note: though you want to be as accurate and careful as possible in your reading and listening, know that especially at this stage, some educated guesswork, conjecture, pondering, and wondering is just fine so long as you frame it as such.
With these goals in mind. Follow these instructions and guidelines to produce your paper:
Phase A: Doing the research
Step 1: Choose a point of entry
Decide whether you are interested in starting by exploring a particular timespan (e.g. 1953-1955), a record company (e.g Motown), a specific artist (e.g. Big Mama Thornton), a particular song (e.g. “The Hucklebuck”) or a style or genre (e.g. “calypso” or “mambo.”)
Step 2: Survey primary sources
Use these two resources to find source material:
**NOTE: limit yourself to material from before 1980.
Proquest Historical Newspapers (requires ASU login):
https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/
—Above the search bar, select “more” and then “historical newspapers” from the dropdown menu.
—Enter your search terms (tip: use Boolean operators, specifically “AND” to search for two things together, like an artist and song, and place song titles and artist names in quotation marks. For more on Boolean operators: https://libguides.asu.edu/c.php?g=264286&p=4312479#s-lg-box-13409255)
—Sort your search results by “oldest first,” and you can limit your date range to help organize your results.
—Browse away!
Billboard via Google:
https://books.google.com/books?id=XikEAAAAMBAJ&source=gbs_all_issues_r&cad=1Links to an external site.
—Either browse by issue (organized in five year increments with a horizontal scrolling bar for individual issues)
—or use the “search inside” feature and see what comes up (BE SURE TO CHECK “search all issues”). When you click on an issue, the vertical scrolling bar will have small yellow highlights, and clicking them will bring you to “hits” on your search results.
—You can limit your date range to narrow your results.
—Browse away!
Rock’s Backpages curated resource collection (requires ASU Login):
https://www-rocksbackpages-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/
—You can use the search box in the upper righthand corner (and I recommend using the “advanced search” link under that box to limit your date range to before 1980)
—You can also brows by artist, genre, etc. using the site’s various navigation options. Notably, it also includes a collection of audio interviews, and you may use any of these interviews from before 1980 as a source.
—Browse away!
The material you find could be anything you find interesting that’s related to popular music and to the specific subject you’ve chosen (or to a new subject you decide upon based on what you’ve actually found.) Types of material you’re likely to encounter include (but are not limited to):
—Advertisements for records and live performances.
—Critics’ reviews of records and accounts of live performances.
—Gossip columns featuring news and rumors about musicians. or record labels.
—Radio and TV schedules.
—Charts of record sales or radio airplay, and a range of related ranking systems.
—Interviews with musicians.
—Articles and advertisements featuring the latest technological developments in music technology (for both producers and consumers.)
Choose three or four related items to feature in your paper.
Step 3: Choose a recording and listen critically
Choose a specific musical recording produced and released in roughly the same timeframe as the primary source material you’ve found. Your recording should be related to your primary source material, and that connection can be quite obvious. Perhaps it is the very same recording whose chart position you’ve been tracking across several weeks or months of Billboard issues, whose reviews you’ve read, and/or prominently featured in the advertisements you’ve collected. It could also be one example of an artist whose touring schedule you’ve followed through advertisements and accounts of live events in newspapers or with whom you found an interesting interview. Maybe you’ve chosen to focus on an interesting development in recording technology or in the music industry, and this recording features a particular new technique or comes from a new record label profiled in a couple articles you found.
Listen to this recording multiple times, and think about why you find interesting. Does it exemplify a particular genre or a specific artist’s unique style? Was it a major hit that has since faded from memory and whose popularity is baffling to you? Does it feature a new production technique or technology? As you listen multiple times, approach each listening with a particular goal. For example, you might choose to focus on the guitarist’s use of pitch bending and then specifically on pitch bending during the song’s bridge. You might want to really dive into the call and response between a singer and instrumentalist. Perhaps, there is an influence of another musical style that you want to identify and explore (e.g. clave rhythms in rock & roll music).
Phase B: Write your paper
Everyone’s writing process is a little different, so I won’t offer the same type of step-by-step instructions here. Rather I’ll offer you a few pieces of advice:
—Use your introduction (your first paragraph, for a paper this size), to explain the theme and the connective threads that tie your paper’s two sections together. In addition, try to avoid opening your paper with a very broad sentence like, “Since the dawn of time, musical sound has served compelling purposes.” Rather, start with an interesting quotation, anecdote, or element that is specific to your paper and will peak readers’ curiosity.
—Organize each of your paragraphs around a single topic or claim: the paragraph’s “controlling idea.” Present this controlling in the paragraph’s first sentence (its “topic sentence”) and then explore it more fully by presenting the primary source material you’ve found, listening observations you’ve made, etc. Then, connect this specific paragraph’s focus back to your paper’s overall topic, ideally in a way that sets up a smooth transition to the next paragraph.
—If you’re not used to writing about musical sound, use the listening guides in your book as a model*. What sorts of analysis and description in these listening guides do you find most evocative and compelling? What parts of the authors’ language do you find accessible and which parts are confusing and alienating? Learning to write about music, like learning to play it or produce it, involves a lot of repetition and a lot of trial and error as you gradually develop your own style and your own voice, so don’t be too discouraged if you struggle with it at first. We’ll spend class time over the course of the semester discussing strategies for writing about music, and getting a sense of what each of your writing is like through this paper will help me decide what aspects of writing we should focus on.
*One exception: your textbook will at times give a chronological “blow-by-blow” of an entire song, and I would discourage you from doing the same. Instead, synthesize your thoughts on specific aspects of the song that you find interesting (e.g. vocal style & timbre, unusual instrumentation, allusions to an older style or artist, a particularly striking section or a notable repeated riff, etc.) Your discussion of these aspects of the song need not be in chronological order but in any order you think makes the most sense for the flow and clarity of your writing.
The Technical Stuff:
—Paper should be a minimum of four full pages in length. Double spaced, 12-point font (Times New Roman, Arial, Cambria, or anything else reasonable and readable is fine,) 1-inch margins.
—There is no need for a title page, but please place your name, and “Short Paper #1” in the header (please actually place this in the header at the top of the page rather than in the paper body).
—Please include page numbers.
—Citations should be in Chicago Manual of Style format. Here is a link to the 17th edition through ASU Library:
Here’s also a helpful link with advice on citing contemporary social media (which includes 17th ed. Chicago formats)
https://gouldguides.carleton.edu/citation/socialLinks to an external site.
Writing Resources:
Here are links to some very helpful handouts on writing mechanics and style from The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (note: I used to work there and made extensive use of these handouts, so these will give you particular insight into my perspective on the craft of writing.)
If the writing advice I offered above feels insufficient, these handouts will delve further into the concepts I mentioned. You’re also always welcome to work with me during my office hours to improve your writing.
Introductions
https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/introductions/Links to an external site.
Paragraph Development
https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/paragraphs/Links to an external site.
Transitions
https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/transitions/Links to an external site.
Conciseness
https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/conciseness-handout/Links to an external site.