169 Awesome Music Research Paper Topics for Every Student

Preparing a great research paper on the music topic is never an easy task. However, if you are ready to face this challenge, you can cope with your assignment much better with the help of professional tips and lifehacks.

The most important thing to start your preparation with is picking up proper music research paper topic. The theme of your academic writing will determine how interesting and popular it will be and will influence the final mark for your work. That’s why choosing a topic is a much more important part of the preparation than it may appear at first glance.

We’ve collected some effective writing tips and set a huge list of samples of interesting paper topics and ideas connected to music of different genres and periods to help you to write excellent research or term paper!

Pro tip: if you’re experiencing difficulties with paper writing, we highly recommend you to use our professional research paper service. This way you will get the highest mark with zero efforts!

How to choose a great music research paper topic?

Perhaps, you already know which theme you will choose for your paper writing or, perhaps, you still have no idea about it. In any case, a list of important qualities of a proper topic will help you to evaluate your choice and to pick up the most interesting research paper topic. All recommendations below are approved by our writing experts!

1. Your personal interest
   Writing experts never advise choosing a topic that is not interesting to you. Working with a boring theme will make you unmotivated and emotionally exhausted during your term paper writing. Why shall you stop your choice on something boring if you can choose a topic that is so pleasant to deal with? Moreover, it’s much easier to proceed with some data is you already have experience of dealing with it.
2. The interest of your target audience
   Let’s imagine, that you choose a topic that is very interesting for you. However, your interests may be rare and not shared by the major part of your readers. In that case, your music studies paper won’t impress other people. Try to find a compromise between your own interest and the interest of other people for creating excellent term paper topics.
3. Ability to be explained and illustrated
   If you want other people to like your music research paper, you shall first make them understand it. The easier it is to imagine, to visualize, and to illustrate the information, the faster your listeners can understand what you are trying to say. Not everything is easy to imagine and to illustrate. If a topic of your music research essay seems to be too complicated for that, try to make it simpler or choose another one.
4. Emotional context
   We can speak hours about really important things, but if they cause no emotional answer from our listeners, our words won’t make any great effect. Emotions are important for effective communication and creating research papers with a powerful message.
5. Not too common
   It often happens that different college students choose the same or very similar topics. As a result, the target auditory reads the same information time after time. Your readers may feel bored and inert while seeing the facts that they are familiar with. The unusual and intriguing topic helps to create an attractive thesis and great informative text.
6. Familiarity
   The academic topic you choose should not be too common for your readers. However, the theme you deal with shall still be familiar to your target auditory. Your written ideas shall coincide with the education field, profession or sphere of interests of your potential readers.
7. Relations
   The topic you search for shall be connected with the current reality your readers live in. It shall refer to the interest, culture, location of your target audience and reflect trending issues of musicology.

The topic you search for shall be connected with the current reality your readers live in. It shall refer to the interest, culture, location of your target audience and reflect trending issues of musicology.

Below we shared a list of the best research paper topics that may inspire you for creating excellent papers on music studies or help you to come up with other research paper ideas.

By popular genres & styles

Music has always been a good way for self-expression. Today there are more than a hundred major music types and genres that are beautiful in their diversity. If you are interested in a specific music genre, you can choose a topic that is connected to it.

Rock

1. How rock music helps to fight stress and psychological issues.
2. Who is the founder of the modern rock genre?
3. Which rock concert would I like to visit and why?
4. Which rock song I associate with my life and why?
5. Shall younger children be banned from listening to rock music?
6. What makes rock music so popular nowadays?
7. What musical instruments are the most important for creating high-quality rock music?
8. Is it fair to associate rock music with drugs and alcohol addiction?
9. Famous scientists are listening to rock.
10. Rock against brain disorders: why listening to rock helps to fight mental weakness.
11. How rock affects people’s style and clothes they choose.

Metal

1. How listening to heavy music helps to fight negative emotions.
2. Why metal music is often associated with depression and sadness?
3. Why metal music became less popular than it used to be in the early ‘90s?
4. Classic motives in metal music.
5. Which type of metal music is the most popular and why?
6. Which metal song inspired you and why?
7. 10 metal songs I would make college students listen to.
8. If I could change the way people think with a song, which metal hit I would choose.
9. The development of metal music: how it started and what it became.
10. The song that made my love metal music.
11. Metal music in movies: how it changes the way we accept what we see.
12. Metal wisdom: 20 wise quotes taken from songs of metal bands.

Pop

1. History of the development of popular music.
2. What are the most common musical instruments used for creating pop music?
3. Is today’s pop music threatening the moral values of society?
4. How the development of pop music influences beauty standards.
5. Who is the real king of pop music for me?
6. Pop music and marketing: which role music plays for promoting new trends.
7. Why pop music is the most common type of music people listen to.
8. Reflection of social issues in popular songs.
9. Is pop music a proper indicator of the cultural level of society?
10. Which music becomes popular now?
11. Pop singers that became role models for youth in the ‘80s.

Hip-Hop

1. Hip-hop generation: how the popularity of hip-hop influenced the mindset of people in the ‘90s and ‘00s.
2. Influence of hip-hop on fashion and beauty standards.
3. Five reasons to listen to hip-hop music.
4. A portrait of a hip-hop fan: who are the majority of hip-hop lovers.
5. The history of modern hip-hop.
6. What differs hip-hop from R&B music.
7. 10 popular things people associate hip-hop with and why.
8. What are the important features of hip-hop hits?
9. Hip-hop culture in different countries: how hip-hop communities differ around the world.
10. Shall teachers listen to hip-hop songs to understand their young students better?
11. Which age groups like hip-hop and why.

Jazz

1. What defines jazz music.
2. History of jazz music.
3. Jazz improvisation as a unique part of music culture.
4. Music genres that were inspired by jazz.
5. How jazz music got its name: analysis of the popular versions.
6. African motives in jazz music.
7. The social aspect of jazz music popularization in the past century.
8. How jazz music helped to reduce racial tension.
9. What are the most interesting characteristics of the Jazz Age?
10. Where jazz music was the most popular and why.
11. Religious motives in jazz music.

Blues

1. Theory of hidden messages in popular blues songs.
2. A prototype of blues music in African folk genres.
3. The main themes of the blues songs.
4. Does blues music correspond to the meaning of its term?
5. Early blues songs: how they differ from the modern blues.
6. Which blues song can be called the symbol of this music genre?
7. What is the social meaning of blues music?
8. How today’s blues songs differ from those that were popular in the past century.
9. Can listening to blues provoke a depression?
10. Things you can associate blues with.
11. The father of blues music.

Classical

1. What differs classical music from other genres.
2. Which instruments are often used for creating classical music?
3. Influence of classical music on other genres.
4. Classical music as a part of medical therapy.
5. Why classical music has a curing effect on many people.
6. Different periods of development of classical music.
7. Classical music in the modern interpretation.
8. Three revolutions in the history of classical music.
9. How to make classical music more popular among teenagers.
10. How to understand and evaluate classical music.
11. What I associate classical music with and why.

By regions

There are many factors that make an impact on the development of different music styles and genres. Location, culture, and realities of the country are those factors that influence music greatly and leaves the unique print in songs.

Western music

1. Which features are unique for Western music.
2. What became the powerful impulse for appearing of Western music.
3. How Western music became popular.
4. The most important historical events that made a great impact on the development of Western music.
5. Western music in films.
6. What is the common message of Western music?
7. Why Western music lost its popularity in the last decade.
8. Which instrument makes Western music so special.
9. Why I love Western music.
10. Influence of Medieval music on Western music.
11. First Western songs and music: motives, instruments, and hidden symbols.

European music

1. How European music differs from other types.
2. Culture of which countries became the most influential for European music.
3. Folk motives in European music.
4. Main types of European music: their commons and differences.
5. Historical events in European songs.
6. How the music culture of Europe differs from music culture in the USA
7. Influence of religion on European music.
8. The most common themes of European songs.
9. The development of European music: how it started and what it is now.
10. The most popular European singers and musicians.
11. Influence of the Second World War on European music traditions.

Asian music

1. Unique features of Asian music.
2. What unites Asian and European music.
3. Chinese music dramas as a unique cultural phenomenon.
4. Main differences between Chinese and South Korean music traditions.
5. K-pop music and reasons for its popularity.
6. Transgender singers in Taiwanese music culture.
7. Popular motives of Japanese songs.
8. Historicizing of Asian pop music.
9. Reflection of common women issues in Asian music culture.
10. Music geography: how Asian countries differ in music traditions.

By history periods

Different time periods influenced the development of music greatly. Analyzing music according to the era it belongs, it’s easy to understand how pieces of musical art reflect important historical events, social moods, and lifestyle.

Medieval

1. Which music genres appeared in Medieval times.
2. Popular ways to explore Medieval music: new musical instruments and techniques.
3. Place of music in Medieval culture.
4. Which music was popular in Medieval times.
5. Songs and musical poems of the Medieval period.
6. Who is the inventor of Medieval music?
7. Popular names in Medieval music culture.
8. Medieval liturgical music is a unique element of the world’s music culture.
9. Medieval motives in modern songs.
10. Reflection of historical events in Medieval music.

Renaissance

1. Role of the church in the development of Renaissance music.
2. Music genres that appeared in the Renaissance period.
3. Popular topics reflected in Renaissance time.
4. Folk songs of the Renaissance period.
5. Comparison of Medieval and Renaissance music traditions.
6. Music education in the Renaissance period.
7. Music experiments of the Renaissance period.
8. Popular musical instruments in the Renaissance period.
9. Role of music in the life of royals in the Renaissance period.
10. European lute as the most common instrument for Renaissance music.

Baroque Age (XVI-XVIII)

1. Common characters of the folk songs in the Baroque age.
2. How musicians made a successful career in the Baroque period.
3. Place of music in the routine life in the time of the Baroque period.
4. Social problems reflected in the popular songs of the Baroque period.
5. Royal musicians in the time of Baroque.
6. What unites popular sonatas of the Baroque period.
7. How Baroque music influenced the culture of the period.
8. Market music as one of the early marketing tricks in the Baroque period.
9. The development of Baroque opera.
10. Bringing Baroque music back: why old motives are often used in modern songs.

Classical Age (XVIII-XIV)

1. The unique talent of Mozart.
2. Music of Bach and its influence on modern music.
3. Why classic music stays popular through centuries.
4. Common traits of people who love classical music.
5. Symphonic music as an important tradition of the Classic age.
6. The usage of classical music in the movies.
7. The evolution of classical music.
8. Paganini and Bach: comparison of two great musicians.
9. Women who played a great role in the development of classical music.
10. How loss of hearing affected the music of Beethoven.

Romantic Era (XIV-XX)

1. What are the brightest music compositions of the Romantic era?
2. What are the features of popular music of the Romantic era?
3. Comparison of modern music and music of the Romantic era.
4. The usage of Romantic-era music in modern movies and films.
5. What differs the music of the Romantic era from other music types.
6. What are the ideas expressed in romantic music?
7. How music reflected social moods in the Romantic era.
8. Romantic practices of public music performing.
9. Piano music performance in the Romantic period.
10. Role of music in the Romantic movement in Europe.

Modern Era (XX-XXI)

1. Features of modernism music.
2. Which social movements influenced the formation of modern music.
3. How modern music is connected with important events.
4. Influence of policy on music.
5. How modern music differs in different parts of the world.
6. What can become a symbol of modern music?
7. Importance of modern music studies.
8. Common social motives reflected in modern songs.
9. My favorite character in modern music culture.

Interesting and controversial topics

Choosing a topic for your research paper, you can get a bit bolder and pick an unusual topic that will require your creativity and critical thinking for your research paper writing. Such research topics often attract lots of attention.

1. Side effects of listening to music: if music helps to treat some health issues, it can cause diseases if used not correctly.
2. Can music cause bad behavior of teens?
3. Shall music be banned if it’s associated with violence against women or sexual assaulting?
4. Shall pop songs be censored?
5. If you could choose one musician to be your best friend, who would you choose and why?
6. Shall singers be banned from giving a concert if they are proven in using drugs or committing crimes?
7. A world without music: how would it be?
8. If you could resurrect one musician of the past, who would you choose and why?
9. If you had to choose a song to present our planet to aliens, which one would you choose?
10. Can soft drugs and alcohol be recommended as sources of inspiration for songwriters and music composers?