A piece of music

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Independent Essay Music
Independent Essay Music

(4 pages double spaced/1200 words)
You will conduct an in-depth study of piece of music of your choice and write a 1200 word paper to demonstrate your knowledge of the artwork. In order for your study to have meaningful depth, you are expected to gain the first hand experience of the chosen artwork. You may go to a live concert or listen to a recording. If these are not available to you, you can go to the one of the on-line resources listed. (See reference at the bottom of this page). Remember any genre is acceptable. You could choose from classical, regae, jazz, modern rock, african tribal music. etc. As long as it is meaningul to you and you can make a relationship between the music and the humanities.

Through studying an artwork of your choice, you are expected to gain both general knowledge of the discipline and specific knowledge of the artwork. Your paper should demonstrate a clear understanding of the language of the discipline, the genre that the artwork belongs to, and social, cultural and artistic significance of the artwork. While the artist(s) is another important topic that you should include in your study, keep in mind that your focus is on the artwork/discipline rather than the artist’s personal story. Therefore, only choose the most relevant details about the artist(s) and incorporate them into the paper. Open your paper with a thesis statement describing the main theme and brief outline of your paper. Considering the following questions when searching the theme for your paper: Why is the artwork significant and worth writing about? What have you learned from the artwork? What contribution does the artwork have to the discipline itself? Then, you may begin discussing the artwork itself. Consider and perform the three important tasks when writing about the artwork: responding, interpreting and evaluating art (see chapter 2 in Writing about the Humanities). Here is where your first hand experience pays off. Your first impression and emotional response can help you write a meaningful response and evaluation of the artwork. This means that a large part of the paper should be based on your own subjective response after analyzing the work objectively.

Other Requirements:
1. A total of three resources in your works cited. One may be the text.
2. Use reliable resources such as journals, crtiques, and non-fiction from the library. I will not accept unreliable internet resources.
3. The piece you choose needs to have a significant personal, artistic, social, historical or cultural value.

This essay assignment can be viewed by every one in this course. As an optional learning activity, you are welcome to use the Assignment Discussion Space in this module to provide feedbacks to others. Good luck with this assignment!
Check your Course Schedule for Due Dates.

Please right click on these links and selet to open in new window:

SUNYConnect

http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org/WebZ/FSPrefs?entityjsdetect=:javascript=true:screensize=large:sessionid=fsapp14-53955-foiz3jli-fw68rj:entitypagenum=1:0

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/;jsessionid=8283990D732C5EA2AE5957D085287078

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=EMH

http://www.ipl.org/div/mushist/#midages

http://www.youtube.com/