Section A – Initial Introductory Task 1.

General questions about music magazines (Questions 1-4)

1) What is a music magazine?

A Music magazine is a magazine dedicated to music and music culture. Such magazines typically in include; interviews, photos, album or concert reviews as well as many other varying features in addition to that music magazines also have interactive features including competitions to win such things as music memorabilia and concert tickets as well as sections for writing in and having your own article with your opinions published. Some music magazines cover a broad range of genres whilst others may only cover popular music of that month for example but most commonly a magazine specialises and concentrates on one specific genre for a specific readership for example; Rock, Classical or Jazz.

2) What content (text/copy/writing/articles/stories) would you expect to find in a music magazine?

Music magazines vary in what they have but there are many features that are compulsory to music magazines for example they will almost always include interviews normally with a respective artist or band who are promoting a tour, concert, new album or single. Other features that are customary include reviews, music charts and stories on big festivals or influential people in the music industry they may also on occasion include competitions or perhaps give away a free CD, in addition to the content I have already mentioned they will almost always have advertising and promotion for a range of music related issues as this would be their main revenue stream rather than the sale of the magazine itself.

3) What images would you expect to find in a music magazine?

There is often a range of different images in a music magazine some may be taken on the spur of the moment whilst bands or artists are performing on stage whilst they also may be a series of professional pictures taken perhaps to accompany an article written about the artist. They may also include images of the artwork for album covers and pictures of music related items that may be advertised for sale including; guitars, microphones and headphones.

4) Identify general characteristics / features that you would expect to find in all music magazines.

There are many aspects to a music magazine that are extremely common it is unlikely you would find a music magazine without some of these things somewhere within their content including a consistent colour scheme issue upon issue so the reader can easily identify their magazine when purchasing it, you would also always find a range of different eye catching fonts to highlight stories of interest thus encouraging people to buy the product as they will want to read the full story after seeing the front cover. Obviously all music magazines backbone is music and that is what they revolve around so all will feature interviews and other common music related articles. In addition to those that I have already mentioned they will also have eye catching images to help the writing and stories stand out as well as adding to the magazines overall shelf appeal. Many images are linked to articles for example if an artist is interviewed they will most likely include the artists picture alongside the article. Furthermore there are many conventions that magazines in general obey for example they will all have basic aspects to them like; Mastheads, Cover-lines and the rule of thirds.

By George Parkin.