Getting better at Music and Literature

[SomeArkansan]

I'm a new senior high player. I played four years of elementary (no stats kept, but I did win two championships at a small tournament we went to every season) and three years of junior high (140 ppg from around 45 tossups per game, no negs in 7th grade, 157.5 ppg in 8th grade, and 204 ppg in 9th grade), with 122 ppg in my first senior high outing. My team's season is over now, as we decided not to attend state due to my ACT date conflicting with the tournament and my coach already emailing the TD that we would not be in attendance. (I answered 73 of the team's 75 tossups at regionals, suffice to say they would not have done amazingly well, no offense.) But, as I enter the offseason, I realize that, to truly be an elite scorer at the state level, I need to have a deeper knowledge of two subjects that have nagged me throughout my AGQBA-sanctioned career (7th-9th): Literature and music. Other subjects that have been shaky in my case have been 19th century American history and the history of the "age of the migrating peoples". But, the main struggles have been in music and literature. So, any advice?

[Stained Diviner]

The good news is that fine arts and literature are very efficient as far as getting points by learning a little bit.

You might want to start with the QB Reader frequency lists to get a sense of what comes up a lot. NAQT's You Gotta Know and the Qwiz 5 guides are also very helpful. When you are studying composers and writers, make sure to focus on what they produced a lot more than their biography.

If you want to get good at the national level at literature, at some point you are going to need to actually read some literature. Two recommendations on that front are to start with poetry and small stories, and also when you start doing some basic research on who wrote what and what the plots and main characters are, ask yourself whether the novels/plays are something you would be interested in reading. Read some novels and/or plays that are in the canon and seem promising as far as what would hold your interest--having a sense of what you like and don't like is a good thing. Also, a lot of literature that comes up has been made into movies, and it's OK to watch those movies--it's not as good as reading the whole thing, but it's still good.

[SomeArkansan]

The good news is that fine arts and literature are very efficient as far as getting points by learning a little bit.

You might want to start with the QB Reader frequency lists to get a sense of what comes up a lot. NAQT's You Gotta Know and the Qwiz 5 guides are also very helpful. When you are studying composers and writers, make sure to focus on what they produced a lot more than their biography.

If you want to get good at the national level at literature, at some point you are going to need to actually read some literature. Two recommendations on that front are to start with poetry and small stories, and also when you start doing some basic research on who wrote what and what the plots and main characters are, ask yourself whether the novels/plays are something you would be interested in reading. Read some novels and/or plays that are in the canon and seem promising as far as what would hold your interest--having a sense of what you like and don't like is a good thing. Also, a lot of literature that comes up has been made into movies, and it's OK to watch those movies--it's not as good as reading the whole thing, but it's still good.

Thanks for this.

[quizbowlchamp1]

For literature, I use the NAQT Frequency List. I read a plot summary of the book, and then I make notes.

[SomeArkansan]

For literature, I use the NAQT Frequency List. I read a plot summary of the book, and then I make notes.

SparkNotes should help me with this.

From one player to another, thanks :)

[quizbowlcaptain]

SparkNotes should help me with this.

Instead of SparkNotes I would use Course Hero, as they have more study guides and even videos.

[dni]

SparkNotes should help me with this.

Instead of SparkNotes I would use Course Hero, as they have more study guides and even videos.

I personally have had a lot of success with Shmoop and Schaum's Outlines. I haven't heard of SparkNotes or Course Hero, but I would imagine those are good resources as well.

[kenna-wh]

Those are some of my areas of expertise! What I usually study is just a bunch of classic novels, poems, authors, etc. and try to memorize important parts of it. For example, if I'm trying to memorize things from Romeo and Juliet, I will remember the title, author, main characters and main plot points. Poets are harder for me at least, but I try and do things like knowing well-known lines from poems and maybe some backstory to them. Music, it would be to study composers, famous operas and characters in those, famous pieces, and then knowing the different families of instruments (Precussion, Brass, String, Winds, etc.) Hope this helps!