Write a 2000-word article of the type that might be published in an online academic journal such as Educause Review or Digital Humanities Quarterly with a wide readership outside academe. You should use author–date referencing (as described in Music in Words, pages 78–80, 83–5).
Your brief is to provide a well-balanced argument on the subject, ‘Digital humanities and the transformation of musical scholarship’.
Guidance notes
Your essay should be given the title ‘Digital humanities and the transformation of musical scholarship’.
It is important to bear in mind that in this essay you are not looking to present condensed information about the music you choose to write about, but rather to survey and assess the ways in which digital methods and resources allow your subject to be scrutinised from several directions and perspectives, thus transforming musical scholarship.
The emphasis here is on making a critical assessment. You might think about the accessibility and huge range of resources now available to a researcher and the ways in which digital tools for organising and searching data have provided different ways to approach familiar problems as well as new research methodologies and paths of inquiry.
Within your argument you should focus on two case studies as your main examples. The case studies might look at repertoires, genres, styles, composers or performers. One case study should be drawn from the Western classical tradition, and one from outside that tradition (that is, from some form of popular or folk music, or another ‘classical’ tradition). For example, you might pair bluegrass with Beethoven, music in New Orleans in the 1930s with 14th-century French song; or the Classical string quartet with Louis Armstrong. When making your choices, do ensure that you choose two case studies that allow you to talk about appropriate digital musicology.
Within your essay you can include references to any of the broad areas of digital scholarship covered in Block 2; for example, databases, crowdsourcing, using statistics and suchlike. You can mention any of the resources introduced to you, such as RILM, and can also use materials included in Block 1, where you covered a wide range of digital resources including Naxos and IMSLP. Equally, you can draw on other evidence of your own choosing. You need to show that you have read and understood the module resources, but also that you have researched independently.
A good essay would move beyond generalities to some specific and critiqued examples of how digital scholarship has changed the exploration and understanding of your chosen case studies. You should draw some comparisons between your two case studies (focusing on digital scholarship issues), and finish your essay with a concluding paragraph drawing together the strands of your argument.
You should use author–date referencing (as described in Music in Words, pages 78–80, 83–5).
In addition to the links within your essay, you should provide a full bibliography at the end that includes all of the print and electronic sources you have consulted or used.
We expect submissions to:
meet the criteria for the submission of TMAs, stay within the word limit and observe referencing conventions as instructed
provide a clearly written and convincing argument that directly addresses the topic
make reference to at least three different scholarly books and/or articles (other than Grove) that are relevant to the topic
include reference to some relevant resources which take on the digital humanities
