Formal or casual? What’s your preferred way to write? Writing for musicians is an essential skill. Even though you may not be a professional writer, you have to articulate your thoughts clearly and efficiently.
Academic writing requires a formal tone while blog writing can be more casual. Musicians should be able to write in a variety of styles to fit the context. You don’t want to write an email the same way as you would a paper.
Let’s look at academic vs blog writing for musicians.
Academic Writing
Academic writing is the type of writing you do as a student. Any papers or journal articles you write will be in an academic style. Academic papers follow a specific format, and they have specific guidelines for citing information.
Growing up, I learned MLA formatting. When I got to music school, I had to use Turabian. It’s based on Chicago style, but there are a few differences.
No matter which format you use, academic writing for musicians is formal. That means using third person and avoiding first and second person. You can’t use “you” or “I.”
Typically, academic writing goes through more editing and changes than blog writing.
Blog Writing
Blog writing is much more casual than academic writing. I use first and second person all of the time on my blog. There’s also no standard format that I have to follow.
I do write my posts with SEO (search engine optimization) in mind, but I don’t have to follow a specific outline or template. I write posts so that they will be interesting, engaging, and informative. Following SEO best practices allows me to write the post so that it will rank high on search engines.
As I mentioned, academic writing goes through a long editing process. Blog writing can involve a lot of editing. However, I edit as I go. I publish a post each week, so I don’t have enough time to put my posts through intensive editing.
Writing for Musicians
At some point, you will have to write. If you want a career in academia, you will have to write papers, a thesis, and a dissertation. If you want to work for a non-profit, you might have to write grant proposals. Self-employed musicians have to write a lot of emails.
A great way to practice writing for musicians is to start with social media. You can start simple with Instagram captions or Facebook posts. If you want to do more, you can start a blog.
You don’t have to publish posts very often, but a blog is an excellent way to hone your writing skills.
No matter what you do as a musician, you have to know how to write!
Writing for musicians is the best way to connect with other musicians. If you can write well, you will have a better chance of getting students, gigs, and more.
Writing also allows you to sell yourself. If you can write a compelling bio for your website, you can draw people in and make them want to get to know you.
So…
Academic and blog writing for musicians can be difficult, especially if you don’t consider yourself a writer. Do you have any questions about writing? What are your biggest concerns or problems?
Leave your response in the comments!