ANALYSIS  (F-09)

 

What is music analysis? – 2 main claims (JS)

1)  represents what you hear (what you claim you and other people hear)

2)  represents process of composition

these claims can coincide

any ontological claims are suspect (e.g. this is what the music is, this is how the music works)

 

Many possible objects of analysis, styles of analysis (JS)

form of a piece or a movement

melody or phrase structure

harmonic analysis of passage

meaning of text

text setting (i.e. relation of text to music)

meaning of musical gestures

analysis of performance

etc. etc.

 

Vocabularies of analysis (JS)

Examples:  Harmonic, 12-tone, Forte, LaRue, set theory, Schenker

Each one is like a foreign language, difficult to translate one into another (sometimes impossible)

What do you need at a minimum? – Common-practice harmony, simple counterpoint, common forms (DC aria, AABA song, S-A), versification in common languages - 

Looking things up on the net – e.g. “musical set theory” (Wikipedia)

                                                            French 6th (under augmented 6th)

                                                            Recap (this was a dud)

                                                            Italian versification (in Groves)

But you can’t master an entire vocabulary by reading one article – You need to work with it for a while

 

Finding someone else’s analysis of a piece (JS)

HANDOUT

RILM and other standard indexes

indices to analyses

Google search – e.g. ‘Hammerklavier analysis’

Textbooks – theory texts, history texts

Key books:  Tovey, Rosen, Cone, et al

 

Writing analysis  (CJ)

Use analysis always in context of argument

Choose (or invent) analysis appropriate to what you want to say

Eschew blow-by-blow

Use music notation

Refer to specific passages (bar numbers)

Use graphics, diagrams that represent your analysis

Check everything against what you hear – Do I really hear the key I just wrote in my analysis?  or the chord or the voice-leading?

 

Models for analysis  (CJ)

(Let’s be realistic)

Method presented or assigned in seminars (be critical)

Styles and vocabulary you learned in the past (be flexible)

Analyses you just encountered (problematic)

 

Analysis and performance (CJ)

Analysis is good for more than writing a term paper! – If analysis represents what you hear, can you help someone else to hear that by the way you perform?

Asking the right questions

Developing a check-list of questions for practice

Analytical observations inform interpretive questions

Analysis and practice as creative act

Performers can approach music with a composer’s eye