Information for Prospective Contributors

Guidelines for Proposals

Applying the principles of critical editing to a variety of American idioms, including jazz, psalmody, popular song, twentieth-century chamber music, art song, Native American ceremony, and the Broadway show, MUSA is devoted to expanding the legacy of American music available for study and performance. By bringing notated works and scholarly interpretation together in the same volume, each MUSA edition seeks to place the sounds of music-making in the United States within the context of the nation's cultural life.

Founded in 1988, MUSA is a collaborative venture administered by the American Musicological Society through its Committee on the Publication of American Music (COPAM) and is published by A-R Editions, Inc. of Middleton, Wisconsin. The Society for American Music contributes to the development of the series through its representative to COPAM. Including many accomplished scholars of American music, COPAM serves as an advisory board to the project. Editors receive an honorarium of $1,500 when their editions are published. MUSA is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and housed at the University of Michigan.

Applicants are encouraged to use MUSA editions already in print as models to help shape their editions. MUSA follows A-R Editions's Style Guide in most respects; a copy may be obtained from MUSA's executive editor. Richard Crawford's "Foreword," included in each volume, provides a brief history of the project and a summary of the criteria used by COPAM to evaluate proposals. Examples of successful proposals will be provided on request.

Prospective editors should submit the following, keeping in mind MUSA's goal of publishing works from a broad range of eras, genres, composers, and performance media, and of representing notable achievements in the diverse music history of the United States.

 1. WRITING SAMPLE

A summary argument (ca. 10 pages) for making the music of the proposed edition available to scholars and performers. Please consult the COPAM guidelines for shaping your arguments. This argument should place the music in relevant historical, social, and aesthetic context and describe its importance to the study of music in the United States. If the music is chosen from a larger body of work, the editor should offer objective criteria by which the selection was made.

The summary argument should be fashioned as the first step toward writing a full-scale introductory essay, a scholarly and interpretive article or short monograph to be used in the published volume. Please give your essay a distinctive title that is different from the volume as a whole. The statement is evaluated for style as well as content, and the prospective editor should aim to address a broad readership of scholars, students, and performers. The essay is regarded as a key element of the edition and a substantial contribution to scholarship in American music.

 2. EDITING SAMPLE

a.   A representative sample transcription of music to be included in the edition, illustrating the types of editiorial problems that the music presents and the way in which the editor will solve them. Prospective editors are encouraged to use previous MUSA editions as models for their approach to the editorial method and critical notes sections (see items c and d below).

b.   A list of the available sources for the edition, including a rationale for how the primary source for the transcription was chosen, and concordant sources, if any, will be used in preparing the edition.

c.   A description of the editorial method employed -- that is, what rules the editor has adopted in preparing the music for a scholarly edition. This section details solutions to editorial problems that apply to the volume as a whole.

d.   A set of critical notes for the editing sample that report original readings in the primary source at points where the editor has made corrections and/or changes in the transcribed music. All discrepancies between edition and source must be addressed by either the critical notes or editorial method.

e.   A photocopy of the source(s) used for the transcription.

 3. SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION

a.   A proposed table of contents: you may want to suggest a frontispiece photo of the composer(s) and from three to five facsimile plates that help illustrate the elements of your essay. While these images are not required in the proposal, they will be included in the publication. Note that each plate used may require permissions.

b.   An estimate of the total length of the proposed volume.

c.   A select bibliography.

d.   A brief statement of how much transcription and prose material has already been prepared and an estimate of the time needed for the editor to complete the manuscript, including a proposed submission date.

e.   A detailed explanation of the permissions that need to be secured for the edition, including the names and contact information for all copyright holders and an estimation of any required fees. Completed letters of permission from copyright holders will greatly strengthen a proposal. All documentation must be in writing. Please request a copy of MUSA's permission template.

f.   A curriculum vitae and brief autobiographical statement that summarizes research, performing, teaching, and publishing activities pertinent to work on the edition.

4. FORMAT

a.   Please submit all textual materials both in hard copy and as computer files, in Word (.doc) format, on a CD-ROM.

b.   Please number every page of text and music copy.

c.   Music copy must be neat, dark (use black ink), and legible, and should appear on only one side of each page of music paper. It is not necessary to use a computer music program, but if you do, please submit a laser-printed score and a copy of the file. An original copy should be submitted. If marking up sheet music, use red ink so that your editing can be easily distinguished from the printed copy.

Proposals are reviewed twice yearly, usually in early March and late October. To be considered in a timely fashion, proposals must be received by January 1 or September 1. Applicants are encouraged to submit drafts of their proposals six weeks in advance, so that MUSA staff can perform a preliminary review and offer suggestions to make proposals more competitive. Proposals received less than six weeks before the review deadline may receive attention, depending on MUSA's publications schedule.

Please contact MUSA's Executive Editor to discuss your project. The wide range of musical idiom and styles included in the MUSA series demand a flexible, yet precise approach to scholarly editing. We look forward to receiving your proposal.