Research Guides: Music Research Process: Selecting a Topic

Getting Started

Your topic is the foundation of your research, and it guides your choices through the entire process. When choosing a topic, consider the following:

Are there any guidelines that I need to follow from my instructor?
What do I know about that I want to know more about?
Would this topic be interesting to others in my field?
Does this topic answer a question or make a conclusion about the information available?

Identify Umbrella Topics, and Research Background and Context

Make a list of nouns: geographic locations, time periods, musical styles, musicians, or other concepts that interest you. Refer to your course readings, lecture notes, or draw upon prior knowledge.

Examples:

Mozart, women, opera
Lady Gaga, identity, religion

For ideas, look up your genre, musician, geographic area, or social concept in the library's online music encyclopedias, such as Oxford Music Online. Your research is starting NOW, as you can pull good sources from the bibliographies of each article.

Oxford Music Online
Good for looking up terms, people, instruments, locations, and styles within Western art music, jazz, American popular music, musical theater, and traditional and folk music from around the world.
Contains: New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, New Grove Dictionary of American Music, New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, New Grove Dictionary of Opera, and the Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Articles on musicians, styles, instruments, genres, geographic areas, and more.
Bloomsbury (Continuum) Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World
Good for researching popular music from America and around the world
v.1 Media, Industry, & Society -- Look up social phenomena, such as death, gender, record collecting
v.2 Performance & Production -- Look up names of performance techniques, ensemble types, production roles, equipment, instruments, and harmony, melody, and rhythm terminology
v.3-7 Locations -- Look up names of countries, regions, and cities
v.8-11 Genres -- Look up names of genres/styles
The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music Online by Ruth M. Stone (Editor)
Good for looking up locations and cultures when researching world traditional and folk music
This standard music reference source is organized geographically into ten volumes and also has accompanying sound recordings. Browse content by continent and country.
Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Encyclopedia by William Forde Thompson (Editor)
Good for looking up terms related to music within the broader interdisciplinary frame of anthropology, communications, psychology, linguistics, sociology, sports, political science and economics, as well as biology and the health sciences. A Reader's Guide groups related entries by broad topic areas and themes, making it easy for readers to quickly identify related entries. A Chronology of Music places material into historical context; a Glossary defines key terms from the field; and a Resource Guide provides lists of books, academic journals, websites and cross-references.

Form Your Ideas into Research Questions

After reading some background information, start grouping the nouns and ideas together to formulate a question.

Ideas: Mozart, women, opera

Question: Many women played important roles in Mozart's life. How did these relationships affect the themes of his operas?

Ideas: Lady Gaga, identity, religion

Question: Lady Gaga's newest album has many songs that relate to her personal identity. What is her religious identity, and how does she express it in her lyrics and videos?

Read, Read, Read! And Adjust Your Topic

Do more preliminary reading to get a sense of the amount of information available on your topic. You may find that there is too much information (or too little) to thoroughly cover for the time you have to research or for the length of paper to complete. So, consider making your topic more (or less) specific.

Ideas: Mozart, women, opera

Question: Many women played important roles in Mozart's life. How did these relationships affect the themes of his operas?

Refined Question: How is the theme of forgiveness portrayed in Die Entführung aus dem Serail within the context of Mozart's relationship with his wife Constanze?

Ideas: Lady Gaga, identity, religion

Question: Lady Gaga's newest album has many songs that relate to her personal identity. What is her religious identity, and how does she express it in her lyrics and videos?

Refined Question: How does Lady Gaga's use of Catholic imagery (both lyric and visual) express her religious identity in the song Judas?