Music Education: Primary Sources

Primary Sources are first-hand accounts from of a topic from people who had or have a direct connection to this topic. They can take the form of manuscripts, early printed music, lesson plans, or recordings. 

In music education, the following materials are considered valuable primary sources:

1) Written  documents  e.g.,  autobiographies,  diaries,  letters,  scrapbooks,  memoirs,  magazines,  newspapers, government documents, institutional records, quantitative records such as school music enrollment numbers, demographics, test scores, music festival ratings,
2) Oral records e.g., interviews, audio and visual recordings of school concerts or festivals, recordings of student compositions,
3) Artifacts  e.g.,  photographs,  textbooks,  instructional  media,  musical  instruments,  trophies,  music scores, costumes and uniforms, concert props.

Frierson-Campbell, Carol, Hildegard C. Froehlich, Debbie Ann Rohwer, and Marie McCarthy. Inquiry in Music Education : Concepts and Methods for the Beginning Researcher. Second edition. New York, NY: Routledge, 2022.