LENGTH: Program notes are required for the graduate recital. These notes, though brief (about 1000 words in all, not counting translations of song texts and the like), must indicate substantial investigation, including work in analysis as well as in secondary sources, and they must be well written.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: You must include a correctly written bibliography to your committee and to the Graduate Coordinator, even though this will not be duplicated for your audience. At least 60% of the bibliographic citations should be from non-internet sources. Select internet sources carefully and be careful also of CD liner notes; they may or may not have been written by scholars, and the information is not necessarily reliable. For any information you obtain from these types of sources, cross-check for accuracy with more reliable sources.
FOOTNOTES: Do not use footnotes, but do give credit in the body of the text for any quotations or opinions that are clearly those of a specific person other than yourself. Do not plagiarize your work! Plagiarism can result in suspension or dismissal from the university. Put ideas into your own words and be sure that you understand what you are writing about. Contents of your program notes can be used as material for questions on your oral exam.
CONTENT: The content of your notes will vary according to what is significant about each work or set of pieces on your recital. For some works, it will be more appropriate to write about the composer or the historical significance of the work. For others, a theoretical analysis will be more appropriate, focusing on compositional technique, style or form. For opera arias, it is generally effective to set the scene of the aria and place it in the context of the opera plot. Above all, do not include information if it is not relevant!
The level of your writing should reflect a certain amount of depth; remember that your committee will be looking for evidence that you have researched the material using credible sources and that you understand the music at an advanced level. However, program notes are not supposed to be written in the same style that you would a class research paper. At your recital, you will have both musicians and non-musicians in the audience and your comments should be directed to both. There needs to be something of interest for each type of audience member. The purpose of notes is not to show off what you know, but to give information that will enable the listener to understand and appreciate the music he or she is about to hear. When you are out in the "real world," this is exactly the kind of program note writing that you will most often have to compose. Most knowledgeable musicians will not mind that you must explain things so that laymen can understand, as long as you are not too elementary or condescending about it, and as long as you then move on to something that the musicians can relate to at a more advanced level. In your phrasing, always assume that your audience is intelligent, even if not schooled, and that they can understand what you are saying if you explain it the right way.
WRITING STYLE: Your writing style is your own choice. Do be concise (your audience does not have a lot time to read your notes before the concert starts), but use a style that is interesting and not too dry. If you include analytical descriptions, avoid giving a blow-by-blow, measure-by-measure recitation of harmonic progressions for the entire piece. Aim for a readable style that proceeds logically. It is often effective to begin with information about the composer and work (dates, locations, etc.), proceed to broader topics such as how or why the piece was written, historical background of the composer's efforts in this genre, etc., and then conclude with specific descriptive information about the work you will be performing, so that the last thing the audience reads will provide the most relevant information about what to listen for in the piece. Try to group similar ideas together in paragraphs so that your writing is well organized. Make sure you end your discussion gracefully; stopping abruptly will make it sound as if you just ran out of things to say. A brief summary sentence is often effective.
TRANSLATIONS OF TEXTS: It is recommended that translations of vocal works be incorporated into the body of the program notes rather than appended in a separate section. This will eliminate shuffling of pages during your performance. In general, literal translations are preferable to "singable" translations; however, do not use word-by-word translations that do not make grammatical sense. You do NOT need to print the texts of songs in English unless you wish to (determining factors might be the complexity of the text, or whether it uses archaic forms, or whether the tempo of the song is so fast that the words would be difficult to catch).
It is most helpful to print the text and translation side-by-side, but you may also print the original text and then follow with the translation below it if you prefer. Be sure to cite the name of the translator and/or the source of the translation.
