Choose a Topic Most successful term papers for Music History or Music Literature focus on a particular composer. Some composers' output is so vast that you will have to narrow your topic substantially. You could narrow your topic to his cantatas, but there are over two hundred of them. So then you might focus on his cantatas for Advent season, or a particular type of cantata movement, such as alto solos in minor keys. Bach lived a long life and worked in several places.
Many people find it easier to start with a narrow topic and broaden it later.
Starting from a specific work can lead you to several broader topics if necessary. For example if your starting point is Franck's Sonata in A minor for Violin and Piano, you can broaden your topic to 19th-Century violin sonatas, French music for violin, or the chamber music of Franck. These types of topics often have the same problems as biographical topics. For example, the history of keyboard instruments is far too vast for a term paper, but the history of the pianoforte may not be. On the other hand, some topics that you would expect to find a wealth of material on may turn out to be too narrow, such as the use of trumpets in the Middle Ages.