Midterm
General recommendation ：
Write from a personal point of view (essay style)
• Properly cite any sources (any citation format that you prefer, but be consistent)
• Use font of your preference, double spaced, size 12
• Essays should be at least five pages long.
• All topics you choose to write about should be connected in a clear way to class topics but
need not necessarily have been discussed in class as such.
• The ideas given below are just that: ideas. They are not prompts. I do not believe in
prompts or rubrics. You are an autonomous, creative, independent, unique person. Use
these ideas as points of departure for your own creativity.
These papers are conceived to be more like open-ended essays than research papers (if you’d rather write a research paper, you are welcome to do so, of course!). From the many topics we
will cover in class, choose two (one per paper) that were especially meaningful to you. Write profusely about your personal experience with the musical traditions you chose, explaining why
you chose them, why and how you feel connected to them, and what do you think they mean to the people who practice them. Enrich your narrative with relevant quotes, sources, and information, but really focus on describing and analyzing your personal experience, striving to make a convincing, strong argument. If you consider it relevant, compare the traditions you
chose with other musical traditions you know and/or practice. Discuss how and why those
traditions are important to you and how do you think their practice compares to the ones we
studied in class.
The midterm paper should focus on a topic included in the first part of the course, i.e., an
Indigenous musical tradition of your choosing, whereas the final paper is expected to be about a
topic from the second part of the course, i.e., a Mestizo musical tradition. The essays should be
at least five pages long, but longer texts are welcomed and encouraged
