If you analyze music in your essay, you will probably find musical examples quite useful in making your meaning clear. Be sure, however, that your examples suit the points you are trying to make. Do not simply provide examples without comment; explain adequately what it is you wish the reader to notice in them. Musical examples should be used to help clarify your analysis, not to replace it.
Your explanation of your musical examples should be done in clear English sentences in your text. If you also decide to add analytical markings (harmonic analysis symbols, brackets indicating motives, and so on) to your examples, do so as neatly as possible, using a ruler to draw lines and form baselines. Do not rely on cryptic notes or on multi-coloured pen markings or highlighting added to the examples.
When you discuss your musical examples in your text, clearly refer to the example numbers, writing something like "As seen in Example 1, . . . " or "(see Example 1)".
You may wish to use a computer music notation program to produce your examples, electronically cutting and pasting them into your text document. Or you may wish to draw them on your pages (very neatly!) by hand. Most often, you will probably photocopy score excerpts and paste them onto your pages. You can paste them with glue stick or with transparent tape. It is a good idea to photocopy the resulting essay pages, to provide clean page surfaces.
Set musical examples in ample spaces of their own, either in the body of your text or at the end of your essay. Do not crowd your examples with text or attempt to run text around small examples. To ensure adequate space, prepare the final version of your examples before formatting your paper.
All musical examples must have captions, placed either above or below them, giving the exact locations in the piece of quoted passages. Such captions number the example and name the composer, the piece, the movement, and the measure numbers.
Example 1. J. S. Bach, French Suite no. 3, Menuet, mm. 1-2
If some information -- perhaps the composer, the piece, the movement -- does not vary among all of the examples in your essay, you need not cite this information in second and subsequent captions. For instance, in an essay on Bach's French Suite no. 3, we might find the following caption on the second example:
Example 2. Sarabande, mm. 1-2
If you have used a photocopied musical example, the published source of your examples should be cited in a footnote (containing a parenthetical citation; see the guide page on Citing Sources). If you are using only one such source, you may find a statement such as "All further musical examples are taken from this source," useful to avoid having to footnote subsequent examples.
All musical examples must include clefs, key signatures, time signatures, and (where appropriate) indications of voices and instrumentation. If you use photocopied musical examples, you may have to do some delicate work with scissors and tape. Examples without clefs, signatures, and instrumentation are useless!
