Alistair Wightman: Writing About Music Workbook

Exam boards: Edexcel, AQA, OCR, WJEC

This workbook will develop students' skills in writing about music for AS, A2 and undergraduate level.

Exercises appear at every stage to challenge and provide examination practice for students. These range from naming musical features and spotting grammatical errors to devising essay plans and analysing sample answers.

Beginning with fundamental writing requirements, this workbook moves on to address how to describe the features of a musical work, as well as how to make comparisons and contrasts between specified pieces.

There is advice on how to approach research, what to retain and reject, and how to structure anessay.

Detailed, analytical and dissertation-style essays are addressed, as well as writing programme notes.

Writing About Music Workbook promotes the development of skills which will be of use in many areas of academic life: collecting information, selecting relevant material, presenting arguments for and against particular propositions, and expressing ideas effectively and correctly in English.

"Wightman has achieved just the right tone, with very clear explanations... I would feel confident giving it to pupils to read in their own time, as it’s very easy for them to work from it, making it a useful resource to reinforce the comments I write on their essays... I think it's probably one of the most genuinely useful books of its type."Russell MillardHead of Academic Music, Charterhouse