Blog 8

The Sampsel plagiarism entry was helpful to me because it provided some examples of how to refer to an author's original ideas without plagiarizing.

The On the Media clip brought up some interesting points. In this day and age, should remixing be considered on the same creative level as creating? I thought that Goldsmith's assignment to rip off a paper from an online paper mill and have to present it as your own was a good idea, because using internet sources and "owning" the material is a skill that we as scholars need to have. (However, we would cite our sources...)
I enjoyed the poem featured at the end of the segment because it borrowed rhythms and themes from everyday life, just as a hip-hop artist samples tracks and weaves them into a whole.

Blog 8

I found the entry on analysis interesting because I have never thought about how many different types of musical analysis there are. Also, as part of the History comps, I read about ETA Hoffmann's essay on Beethoven's Fifth, so it was neat to see that in there.

In the piece on criticism, the end of the second paragraph "Nevertheless Hanslick is still highly readable" made me want to read something by Hanslick, and see if I think it's readable!

Gioia makes an interesting point that many music reviews don't actually say much about the music. I always find it frustrating to read pop music reviews because I find it hard to get any idea of what the music actually sounds like. It seems like our culture is obsessed with appearance and gossip about recording artists, rather than caring about them primarily as musicians.

Seitz: I don't know if I usually read film reviews with the thinking about whether the critic is writing about the filmmaking or other aspects. I will definitely consider it the next time I read a film review.

Blog 6: July 24

Seife: I found ithilarious that "bacon enthusiast" as part of a Twitter bio could be a good indicator if a profile is fake or not. But it makes sense that someone would set up a computer program to include things like bacon and alcohol, which are undeniably popular.
The other funny aspect of reading this article was that I read an article online 10 minutes before starting blog reading for Bib that was about how a lot of the profiles on the dating site Tinder are actually bots.
I enjoyed the radio clip because I like listening to Science Friday. Seife had a good point that nowadays, anyone can publish their own books, whereas in the past, publishing was a barrier to dissemination. Also, the term "sock puppet" seems useful to describe a fake commenter.
As a regular user of IMSLP, the most important thing for me to remember is that the editions available are not the most recent or the most scholarly editions. It is worth going to the library and looking at a newer edition to compare it with whatever is available on IMSLP. Also, the search features can be hard to use, so as the author suggested, it's best to just go to the composer page.

Blog 5: July 21, 2014

Observations: 

I have never used Grove before, and based on this interaction with it, really like it. It’s helpful to have definitions for a word like “autograph” from a musical perspective, instead of having a general definition of the word and inferring what it means in a musical context. 

Some insights: 

— Looking at an author’s holographs to see how working as a scribe affected his compositional style seems like an interesting way to study a composer. 

— I was surprised to learn that Beethoven’s sketches excited interest during his lifetime. 

Notes about the Declaration of Independence article: 

This is an interesting point, considering how often the “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” line is quoted and brought up. What if the founders did really mean that all of those rights were constrained within governmental powers? 

In response to the question: 

This is a question I have given some thought to, since as a violinist, I have studied some older works, such as the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. The Bach solo works certainly have been recorded in many different styles. I believe that both historical  and modern performance practice can have value, and enjoy recordings of Bach in both styles. To me, an interpretation should be judged “good” if the violinist has looked carefully at the score and tried to bring it to life, no matter if the performer chose to perform it using modern styles of playing or older ones. I certainly enjoy looking at the facsimile of Bach’s solo violin works (there is one facsimile that is widely published) and trying to mine the secrets in the notation. 

Blog post 4:

Enserink:
It definitely seems like the academic community needs to do more to crack down on shady publishing companies. I found it interesting that the degree of transparency on the journal's website about audience, scope, mission, etc was directly correlated to how legitimate that journal was.

Colquhoun:
The quote that Colquhoun referenced that researchers were pressured to publish 3 papers a year at one academic institution was pretty astounding to me. How would academia change if department heads told professors, "publish when something really important comes up in your research"? Colquhoun also brought up the phenomenon that popular periodicals can latch onto one isolated study (like the acupuncture study) regardless of whether that study is valid or reproducible.

Goldacre: I found it disturbing that pharmaceutical companies can find ways to distort the trial process itself , such as comparing the correct dosage of a new drug to a higher dosage of the old drug, then claiming that the new drug has fewer side effects. It was also surprising that a study as flawed as the fish-oil study (no control group!) could capture as much media attention as it did. Perhaps there isn't enough pressure on science reporters to carefully read the research before they make a claim about it.

After reading these and the last few articles (plus video), it's clear that authors in particular must be very careful in where they choose to publish. They need to consult Beall's list before submitting a paper to a lesser-known journal. As researchers, we have to not take everything at face value, and carefully sift through data.

There were a few interesting points in the Oxford periodical reading that stood out to me:
—The historical aspect: the oldest music periodicals featured only sheet music, no prose about music. I would be interested in looking at some of the earliest music periodicals (for fun, not as part of a research project).
— Another historical aspect: the composers (Schumann, Debussy, Berlioz and Schoenburg) who contributed to music periodicals. This reminded me of the fact that Dickens originally wrote "Great Expectations" for serial publication, and that great artists in many genres have written for periodicals.

Beall:
I have heard of this issue before. It is unfortunate that scholars are falling into this trap. Given what I have been told about the peer-review process, it seems that any true scholarly journal should have a number of steps required to submit a paper, and that a speedy process should raise a red flag.

Kolata:
I read this article when it came out! I hope that Beall's list is becoming more well-known and that scholars submitting to journals frequently check it.

Other questions:

— I have used periodicals for my personal life, but not for research. I have an hour-long commute on the subway to and from work each day and usually use at least half of that reading articles on the New York Times app for Iphone. However, I don't have very much experience actually citing articles from periodicals in research.

— At this point I'm not very comfortable finding periodicals, but I assume that the periodical assignment will help me become more confident. I do feel like the lesson on Boolean search terms and my own subsequent use of advanced searches will be helpful in sorting through periodical databases online.

Blog for July 11:

"It's not Harry Potter" and "How to read a scholarly article": I found both of these articles helpful in that they gave some practical suggestions for successfully navigating a scholarly article. One piece of advice I will definitely take is to pay more attention to the abstract and the introduction and see what I can glean from that before jumping into the full text of the article.

"Writing an annotated bibliography": this article had some good suggestions that will help me as I start to put together my annotated bibliography. One of the main questions that has come up as I've started to collect resources has been "how can I tell if this article is necessary?" and this article had a number of ideas for how to answer that question.

About my annotated bibliography:

—My topic is jazz pedagogy for beginning-level instrumentalists as well as players who are coming from a classical background. I'm hoping this will be broad enough... if not, I will widen it more.
—Not exactly sure how to judge when a topic becomes "timely" so I will have to ask this question tomorrow in class.
—Jazz pedagogy has changed in the methodology used: completely aural/oral, using charts, using transcription, using recordings, etc. I'm looking forward to finding out more about how the methodology has changed over time.
—At this point, the main author I saw coming up on the IC database was David Baker. In terms of other authors, I don't have the expertise yet in this subject to know who are the heavy hitters.
— I already know that the methodology of jazz pedagogy can differ depending on the age of the student and prior background (classical training, etc). Does the student know how to read notation yet? Does she have any experience improvising? These are all considerations that go into figuring out the best methodology for the student.
— The main research question that will guide me is "is my topic to wide or narrow, and how can I make it better?"

Blog post 1

About the readings:

Barzun: Narrowing down my topic will be one of the primary things I will think about while choosing my research topic. This definitely seems like it could be a difficult parts of writing, and the author illustrates the predicament in many good examples.

Strunk and White, Introduction: I can definitely relate to the author's assertion that writing can be frustrating in that "what should be easy looks tangled or feeble or overblown." That is a common problem for me: my writing comes out much more convoluted than I picture it to be. 

Strunk and White: This makes me want to read "the little book". Strunk's most important point seems to be that brevity is valuable. 

In terms of my research topic, I would like to do something related to the following fields: 

—beginning strings education for students in early elementary

— first experiences of ensemble playing for strings students in early elementary

— combinations of note-reading and learning by rote in the strings class

— jazz pedagogy for beginning strings

— improvisation for beginning strings

— Suzuki and how it can feed into alternative styles

— the Suzuki method and students from African American/ Latino backgrounds 

All of these fields are interests because they are directly related to either what I'm currently doing at my school or what I would like to do with my program over the next few years. I hope to put together an annotated bibliography that will be very useful to me as I expand the instrumental program at my school.