Writing for
Music
WRITING SERVICES - UNCW - DEPAOLO HALL, 1ST FLOOR - 962-7857
Basics
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
Style manual: Turabian A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and
Dissertations, Seventh Edition,, 7th ed. & How to Write About Music: The RILM Manual
of Style, 2nd ed.
Music style guide: Writing About Music: A Style Sheet by D. Kern Holoman
Style Basics
 Spell out notes, keys, and chords
 Use a hyphen in adjectival forms
 Italicize foreign words unless they are familiar in English usage
 Titles:
o Italicize titles of operas, motets, tone poems, and long musical compositions
o Put titles of songs and short compositions in quotation marks
o Capitalize titles that are generic terms
o Capitalize movement titles
o Italicize specific titles given by the composer
o Put names of individual movements from larger compositions in quotation marks
Basic Format/Organization of a Paper
 Introduction
 Body
 Footnotes/Endnotes
 Bibliography
Suggested Databases
 Arts and Humanities Citation Index
 Classical Music Library
 Contemporary World Music
 ERIC (vis EBSCOHost)
 IIPA Full Text
Links for Handout References
th
 Turabian Style, 7 ed.
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/turabian/manual/index.html
 RILM
http://www.bartleby.com/141/index.html
st
 Writing About Music: A Style Sheet, D. Kern Holoman (1 Chapter available online)
http://www.ucpress.edu/content/chapters/2266001.ch01.pdf
 Western Libraries resources for citing music sources
http://www.lib.uwo.ca/music/citemus.html
 A Guide for the Preparation of Music Papers, UNCG
http://performingarts.uncg.edu/sites/default/files/mus-guide-rev-f2011.pdf