Students have to write a great variety of essays, which are devoted to various topics. Each can be challenging or relatively easy. One of the most captivating themes students like to discuss in their essays is undoubtedly the music.
Students like to write essays about music because they all like at least one genre. Even if you are not a real melomaniac, you indeed listen to a few songs that may be interesting and important for you or simply help to relax. When a person listens to music, he or she experiences various feelings and emotions. It may encourage, relax, improve your mood, and make you sad. Music is a great power, and everything in this world sounds. Even when you type your college essay about music on your laptop, your keyboard makes sounds that can be called a definite sort of music.
Of course, not all people can properly describe topics in music. Thus, the experts from Writemyessays.com want to help them. This blog post was created to show the right way to create an essay about music. Read on to find out 9 effective tips you’ll definitely like!
Choose a Specific Aspect of Music to Focus On
How to write college essay about music? There are several keys you need to follow and fulfill. Everything surely begins with the selection of a good topic. It is crucial because it predisposes the whole progress of your writing project. You already have a major direction, which is music. It has various angles that can be disclosed. Therefore, your choice is rich and vivid.
We can call it the blessing and curse in one. Why is it so? A rich choice means you won’t be limited. Meanwhile, it means you may not be able to choose the right angle for a long time. This is when you need to narrow down your topic. It makes your focus visible.
What do we want to tell by stating the last sentence? The subject of music is too vast. You cannot cover it on and on because your essay has a word limit. You are supposed to focus on a more specific issue in the music industry. Thus, you won’t have to cover too many points in a single essay.
Here are a few great examples of specific topics that students can write about:
- What does music mean to you?
- How can music help people?
- The main curing effects of music therapy.
- My favorite song and its meaning to me.
- What is the best music genre?
- Why is it good to listen to classical music?
- Linkin Park is the phenomenon of alternative rock.
- African music and its growth in cultures.
- The history of rock: The main stages.
- Can music lead us to suicide?
- What genres of music negatively impact the brain?
- The day I decided to listen to music.
- Can the right music make us better?
- Why does music make us sad or happy?
- Tips on how to find the best musical genre for you.
Now, we will explain how a narrow focus can make the essay more focused and compelling. When you cover a vast topic, you will have to study many things and try to cram them into a pretty short essay. It will be a real mess about everything and nothing simultaneously.
Just imagine that a writer makes an awful mistake and selects a too-broad idea. It may be like this – The history of music. If he or she selects it, it will be necessary to delve into ancient times and track the development to the present day. It’s even larger than a dissertation!
That is why you need to narrow it down. How to do that? Review our list once again and try to identify a good solution there. If you cannot, we’ll help you. The correct answer to this issue is this one – The history of rock: The main stages. As you can see, we have narrowed the history to a single genre. Thus, your timeframe is sufficiently shortened. You will need to check about 90 years instead of several centuries. Use this example for other topics that seem to be too broad.
Conduct In-Depth Research
The second stage is to carry out in-depth research. It is of huge importance for every essay and writer. If it’s not a personal essay about your own experience, then it must be scientifically based. This means you need to find evidence to confirm your theories and assumptions.
When you research any topic, you must use only verified and reliable sources of information. If you use a standard blog post of a blogger, your research will be irrelevant because you’ll just use the ideas without proof. It’s just another thought of another person. Your task is to find already checked and proven articles, surveys, experiments, etc. For example, you can use the result of an experiment when you write about the curing effects of music therapy. The opinion of a simple blogger will not be counted.
Here are several good tips on how to find credible sources of music information:
- Dash through local libraries.
- Verify every site you visit.
- Double-check your sources.
- Use primary and secondary sources of information.
- Make notes and bookmark the most remarkable sources.
- Divide all the data you’ve managed to find into logical categories.
- Refine your notes to leave only the most convincing facts.
Incorporate Musical Terminology
When you write an essay about music, you ought to use musical terminology. It’s very significant for a writer and his or her audience. As you cover a concrete field (music, in our case), you are simply obliged to use specific words that belong to it. Otherwise, your text will lose relevance.
The proper terminology serves 2 primary purposes. Firstly, it shows that you are an expert in the field because you use the right terms in the appropriate situations. Secondly, you create the required atmosphere to ensure your readers understand your meaning.
Here are a couple of great examples of musical terms and how to use them effectively in the essay:
Example #1: The chords are perfect pitches sounding simultaneous.
Example #2: The dissonance in this song is a genuinely harmonic combination. Even though it’s unstable by its nature, it adds a specific atmosphere to the song.
Show Passion for Music
When you write a music paper, it’s also necessary to express your passion for it. As this is something truly personal and even intimate for most of us, you are supposed to convince your readers that you love music. Try how much you love it and what it means to you.
Check several examples to convey one’s love of music in writing:
Example #1: Music is a unique and magical refuge for all broken hearts because every story can be told in song.
Example #2: Music has curing effects because it gets deep into your heart and starts to heal when it’s broken.
Example #3: You can easily improve your mood when you listen to the song that made you happy one day with your beloved one.
Tell a Story
Every essay is similar to storytelling. You are supposed to tell a story to make it more engaging. This style helps connect your readers and make you closer to each other. A story style is always much easier to read than scientific, highly sophisticated, academic, or similar styles. A person isn’t puzzled by complicated terms, and the text really “flows.” After all, we all like to read stories!
Let’s check a few examples of how to use storytelling to illustrate the importance of music.
Example #1: Music is my salvation because I cannot communicate properly with others. Once I found people who liked the same genre, we could find those vital links to each other. Now, I have a lot of friends.
Example #2: My love of music began in early childhood, and this story ended happily. I’ll tell you why.
Example #3: I never liked rock because I turned 15. It seemed to be the genre for dull-witted people. It turned out that rock lyrics have more sense than any other genre.
When you write a music essay, you are supposed to be plain and concise. It would be no good if you highlighted the best of your thoughts in a non-comprehensive manner. There are many ways a writer can spoil his/her own text. There are definite mistakes that are repeated by many students. Let’s check them and analyze them.
- Unknown words
Many students use words that don’t relate to what they say. They sometimes want to be innovative and thus implement rare words known to a small percentage of potential readers. You should avoid technical terms, slang, jargon, acronyms, etc. If no one understands what you mean, your text will be useless.
- Too long paragraphs and sentences
Some folks cannot understand that their explanations take up too much space and are contained in one long sentence or paragraph. Just imagine that you are a reader. You are reading a long paragraph with long sentences. Will be easy to track the point of the author? The question was rhetorical. You need to break down all the long parts into smaller chunks.
- Misuse of the passive voice
Many students use the passive voice too often and don’t even notice this mistake. All passive constructions require more words to be completed compared to active ones. As a result, you make your sentences longer.
We don’t say that the passive voice should not be present in your text. You can use it to underline something special in your text. Just be sure you don’t use more than 1 passive sentence per paragraph.
- Weak transitions
You should make smooth transitions between paragraphs. If you make them abruptly, they will be unnatural to your readers. A general impression will be spoiled.
Use Personal Anecdotes
As you try to be personal, you cannot do without writing anecdotes. What is it? An anecdote is a short story of the author about him/her or at least about people he/she met in real life. An anecdote must be related to the topic you cover. The primary purpose of this intelligent literary medium is to make the whole essay more engaging, personal, and relatable. It helps to show that the author has met music, and it somehow changed his/her life.
How can you use personal anecdotes effectively in the essay? Make allowance for the following options:
Example #1: I was a miserable creature without a clear purpose in life. When music entered my life, everything changed. I understood that my future is playing music!
Example #2: My father became a happy person because he had his own family and business and played the music he adored.
Use Descriptive Language
It is necessary to use descriptive language when you write this or similar personal topics. Music is unique for every person. As a result, you need to describe your feelings and emotions clearly using the right words. The task isn’t easy, but you can surely manage it. Be sure you enrich your lexicon in general, as well as in the music field in particular.
We’d like to provide a few good examples of using descriptive language effectively in this essay type.
Example #1: When I first took the stage, I was scared to my feet. Yet, I saw the crowd wanting to listen to a good piece. So, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and started to sing and play. The emotions overwhelmed me because I felt like a hero, the main star in the sky, when I was standing there.
Example #2: I always have goosebumps when I listen to my favorite songs. It’s hard to underestimate the value of music because it can save souls and cure hearts. I instantly get into a new world. Each song is a unique story, engulfing me entirely until it ends. Even when it does, it can have a hold of me for many hours in a row.
Write a Strong Thesis Statement
The central idea of any essay is surely its thesis statement. This is only one sentence, but it plays a decisive role. It’s supposed to explain to your readers why you have decided to cover a concrete issue and why it is relevant to them. As you understand, many students fail to write it properly. We’d like to provide some tips to show how you can create a strong thesis statement. Make allowances for them here below:
- Use the main points in one sentence.
- Clarify the purpose to be straightforward.
- Don’t use more than 15 words in your thesis statement.
- Be convincing and intriguing.
- Relate your thesis statement to the topic.
Edit and Proofread
The last tip for today seems to be pretty simple. You need to revise your paper. Nonetheless, many learners ignore it and afterward regret that decision bitterly. Why is it so? As they skip this stage, they deprive themselves of the chance to see the mistakes they made. You can believe us – no writer has managed to complete a text without making a few mistakes, at the least.
We recommend revising your text twice or thrice. Thus, you increase your chance to detect errors. In the meanwhile, do not read it more than 4 times. Otherwise, your mind will start playing tricks, convincing you that every sentence is either weak or contains mistakes. It’s also good to reread it when a few hours pass to refresh your mind. Apply various forms of revision:
- Read in your head.
- Read it aloud.
- Read backward (from the last sentence to the first one).
- Ask a skilled person to revise your essay.
- Apply checking apps.
We’d like to focus on the last point from our list. You can use digital editors and grammar checkers for free. They are very resourceful. The apps check any text in seconds to provide complete feedback on your errors. They will be underlined. Click on them to see what’s wrong. You will receive suggestions on how to improve those parts. Click again on the corrections to make your text free of errors.
Summing Up
Now, it’s time to sum up our blog post. We have provided 9 practical tips that show how to write a perfect college essay about music. Our tips are universal. It means you can apply it to any essay type, regardless of the topic. Moreover, you can use them to write essays in other academic fields.
We hope this blog post was helpful for you and has encouraged you to write college essays on music more frequently than you commonly do. Music is real magic, and if your professors let you select the subject, it will be a perfect choice!