Style And Delivery: writing in the music world

In my "about me" page, I pointed out how this blog is a good example of how music penetrates all areas of my life. But as it turns out, this blog may be an example of how writing penetrates all aspects of anybody's life. For example:
A blog by musician\composer\educator\other talented things David Cutler on : http://www.savvymusician.com/blog/2012/06/the-future-of-the-arts/
A scholarly article by Liora Bresler about music education: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40318589?seq=1
A newspaper article detailing the top ten christmas gifts for broke-ass musicians: http://search.proquest.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/docview/821216698/13937DB83C01844D525/38?accountid=12598

All writings, however, serve different purposes for different audiences.

The blog is like most blogs -- on the informal side, a personal element throughout, used to connect to people in many different parts of the world, and so forth. The audience for this blog is musicians of various types -- musicians that want to be "savvy" and "1. build a career 2. earn a living 3. make a difference" -- all of that is jargon from David Cutler's book The Savvy Musician. In fact, part of Cutler's purpose in this blog is self promotional. He advertises his book, and not only his book but himself: he uses the blog to create an image of himself, to connect to people, and this may further persuade people to be interested in\buy his book. However, with that said, his purposes are not strictly business -- musicians like to connect with other musicians, so this blog is also about connecting with musicians and providing them with useful information. If you couldn't guess from his book, Cutler's blog has a focus on musicians in the working world and how to be successful in that area.

The article has a much different purpose. It's strictly educational -- so educational it's even about education ;) Compared to the blog, it is significantly more formal. The author has no persona. The author is not trying to promote herself or her beliefs. Instead, the article is strictly information, and the focus is on an aspect of research in music education. The audience for the article is most likely college students like me looking for scholarly articles for research, essay, or blog purposes. Since this is a formal essay, the purpose is very clear and even outlined in the title "Teacher Knowledge in Music Education Research".

The newspaper article is the least formal among the three. The vocabulary inludes text talk, slang, and is written in list form. The audience is also vastly different -- the article is directed at friends of musicians as well as a different type of musicians: the classic garage band type. The tone includes humor and wit in it as well, indicating that while the purpose is to inform readers of the "top ten christmas gifts for musicians", the purpose is also to create a comic relief to the issue of being a starving artist as well as creating humor for the sake of being funny! 

Works Cited:

Bresler, Liora. "Teacher Knowledge in Music Education Research." jstor.org. ITHAKA 2012. Web. 9 September, 2012.

Cutler, David. The Savvy Musician Blog. David Cutler, 2012. 10 September, 2012. 

Lopez, Christopher. "Top Ten Christmas Gifts for the Broke-ass Musician." miaminewtimes.com Miami New Times. 23, December 2012. Web. 10 September, 2012.