Well, there are so many wonderful, meaty topics to choose from. You really should go for something that speaks to you personally, and ideally, something that you have some prior knowledge of and/or experience with. I would strongly recommended avoiding anything to do with the courtesan or women's roles in opera.. it's been done to DEATH, as has anything to do with Beethoven or Wagner.
If you want to carve yourself a niche in the field, you really need to 'go off the beaten track', as you say. Ethnomusicology of all kinds is hot right now.. gamelon, Asian music (for which UBC has an excellent program/faculty), First Nations music. Additionally, cross-disciplinary research is on the rise. For eg: The sociological effect of a certain type of music on its culture. If you can tie together things like sociology, art history, politics or gender studies with a preexisting music history topic, you are bound to do well.
The thing with history in the present day is that it's all been written. It's no longer good enough to simply say "What" something is; you have to really look at "Why" it is, too.
agreed on the opera role topics... even though they're tempting. i think that a gendered analysis of something specifically canadian would be a big, goopy, glorious "why" mudpuddle to dig around in. i went to see Michelle today and she was very encouraging. what a great lady. will you go on and do a masters do you think?
Well, there are so many wonderful, meaty topics to choose from. You really should go for something that speaks to you personally, and ideally, something that you have some prior knowledge of and/or experience with. I would strongly recommended avoiding anything to do with the courtesan or women's roles in opera.. it's been done to DEATH, as has anything to do with Beethoven or Wagner.
If you want to carve yourself a niche in the field, you really need to 'go off the beaten track', as you say. Ethnomusicology of all kinds is hot right now.. gamelon, Asian music (for which UBC has an excellent program/faculty), First Nations music. Additionally, cross-disciplinary research is on the rise. For eg: The sociological effect of a certain type of music on its culture. If you can tie together things like sociology, art history, politics or gender studies with a preexisting music history topic, you are bound to do well.
The thing with history in the present day is that it's all been written. It's no longer good enough to simply say "What" something is; you have to really look at "Why" it is, too.
Thus endeth my tangent.
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thanks for your thoughts. :)
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