Your answer should include reference to material in Block 5 AND:
Music printing (Block 1)
Women American Popular Musicians and the sexual revolution (Block 4).
As you plan your essay be sure to include material from Blocks 1, 4 and 5 in your answer, as the rubric requires. You will also need to be clear about what it means to say that music is ‘consumed in society’. A ‘consumer society’ is one in which people buy goods and use them, so what does this mean in relation to music?
Then you will need to identify the technologies that were developed and after that, you will need to say how society changed as a result of their use. You will need to identify which groups in society changed as a result of the use of the technologies – this may have been musicians or some other group entirely. You should also identify who prompted the use of the technologies and the changes they hoped to achieve. You may also wish to consider how quickly society changed as a result of the use of the technologies. Remember that you are being asked primarily to say how technology influenced the way in which music has been consumed. A certain amount of description of the technology itself would be useful, because the reader will need to know about its capabilities, but you need to move beyond the technology to its use in society.
As you plan your essay think about how much time you wish to spend on material from each of Blocks 1, 4 and 5. It is difficult to be precise about how much time to spend on each block, but you should make a substantial argument about each of them.
Make sure that you choose examples to illustrate your argument, from either the study materials or the additional resources listed. When writing a lengthy essay of this sort it is usually better to analyse fewer examples in depth, rather than to range over a wide selection. Finding further information from the additional resources may help you go into greater depth than the discussions in units, but make sure that any material you use from these resources is relevant to answering the question, and that it is referenced properly.
This EMA asks you to make various choices before you even start writing. These relate to:
The question you will answer.
The examples you will use as the basis for your answer.
The supporting evidence you will bring into your answer from different sources.
If you are to produce a good quality assignment, you need to make those choices wisely. For that reason, it is important that your EMA builds directly on the work you have done in Block 5, where you practised finding and working with different kinds of sources as well as planning and thinking about the skills relating to academic writing about music. It is even more vital that your EMA builds on the work you did for TMA 05, where you actually chose your examples and roughed out a plan. Indeed, the feedback your tutor gave on your TMA 05 should be your guiding light when it comes to writing the EMA.
Your answer should focus on demonstrating why the music you have chosen exemplifies the points you make in your argument. It should avoid making just general points about the areas of study you have opted to follow, and ensure that the evidence you have drawn from the different resources supports your argument.
You will need to demonstrate independent use of at least one of the resources you worked with in Block 5, such as looking up key terms, concepts, people or musical works in a reference resource such as the Harvard dictionary, a database such as English Broadside Ballads Archive or the Naxos music library. You should visit the list of Music resources for your EMA to help you decide which to use. Remember that the resource you choose should provide additional relevant evidence for your argument and must be referenced appropriately.
Don’t forget to check the requirements for referencing carefully. You may be penalised if you do not demonstrate that you are trying to follow them. Likewise, if you exceed the prescribed word limit by more than 10 per cent, the examiner will deduct 10 marks. If your answer is more than 50 per cent overlength, please note that the examiner is under no obligation to read, mark or comment on the excess material. Any important material from that point onwards might not be given credit in determining your overall mark.
