Musical analysisFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Musical analysis is the attempt to answer the question how does this music work?. The method employedto answer this question, and indeed exactly what is meant by the question, differs from analyst to analyst,and according to the purpose of the analysis. According to Ian Bent (Bent, 1987), analysis is "an approachand method [that] can be traced back to the 1750s ... [though] it existed as a scholarly tool, albeit anauxiliary one, from the Middle Ages onwards." A.B. Marx was influential in formalising concepts aboutcomposition and music understanding towards the second half of the 19th century.

The principle of analysis has been variously criticized, especially by composers, such as Edgard Varse'sclaim that, "to explain by means of [analysis] is to decompose, to mutilate the spirit of a work" (quoted inBernard 1981, 1).

Contents1 Analyses2 Techniques

2.1 Discretization2.2 Composition

3 Analytical situations3.1 Compositional analysis3.2 Perceptual analysis3.3 Analyses of the immanent level3.4 Nonformalized analyses3.5 Formalized analyses3.6 Intermediary analyses

4 Divergent analyses5 References6 Further reading7 External links

AnalysesSome analysts, such as Donald Francis Tovey (whose Essays in Musical Analysis are among the mostaccessible musical analyses) have presented their analyses in prose. Others, such as Hans Keller (whodevised a technique he called Functional Analysis) used no prose commentary at all in some of their work.

There have been many notable analysts other than Tovey and Keller. One of the best known and mostinfluential was Heinrich Schenker, who developed Schenkerian analysis, a method which seeks to describeall tonal classical works as elaborations ('prolongations') of a simple contrapuntal sequence. Ernst Kurthcoined the term of 'developmental motif'. Rudolph Rti is notable for tracing the development of smallmelodic motifs through a work, while Nicolas Ruwet's analysis amounts to a kind of musical semiology.

Musicologists associated with the new musicology often use musical analysis (traditional or not) along withor to support their examinations of the performance practice and social situations in which music isproduced and which produce music, and vice versus. The insights gained from the social considerationsmay then yield insight into the methods of analysis, and vice versa.

Edward Cone ("Analysis Today") argues that musical analysis lies in between description and prescription.Description consists of simple non-analytical activities such as labeling chords with Roman numerals ortone-rows with integers or row-form, while the other extreme, prescription, consists of "the insistence uponthe validity of relationships not supported by the text." Analysis must, rather, provide insight into listeningwithout forcing a description of a piece that cannot be heard.

TechniquesMany techniques are used to analyze music. Metaphor and figurative description may be a part of analysis,and a metaphor used to describe pieces, "reifies their features and relations in a particularly pungent andinsightful way: it makes sense of them in ways not formerly possible." Even absolute music may be viewedas a, "metaphor for the universe," or nature as, "perfect form." (Guck cited in Bauer 2004, p. 131)

DiscretizationThe process of analysis often involves breaking the piece down into relatively simpler and smaller parts.Often, the way these parts fit together and interact with each other is then examined. This process ofdiscretization or segmentation is often considered, as by Jean-Jacques Nattiez (1990), necessary for musicto become accessible to analysis. Fred Lerdahl (1992, 112-13) argues that discretization is necessary evenfor perception by learned listeners, thus making it a basis of his analyses, and finds pieces such asArtikulation by Gyrgy Ligeti inaccessible,(Lerdahl 1988, 235) while Rainer Wehinger (1970) created a"Hrpartitur" or "score for listening" for the piece, representing different sonorous effects with specificgraphic symbols much like a transcription.

CompositionAnalysis often displays a compositional impulse while composition often expresses "display[s] ananalytical impulse" but where "intertextual analyses often succeed through simple verbal description thereare good reasons to literally compose the proposed connections. We actually hear how these songs resonatewith one another, comment upon and affect one another...in a way, the music speaks for itself".(BaileyShea2007) This analytic bent most obviously in recomposition including the mash-ups of popular music.

Analytical situationsAnalysis is an activity most often engaged in by musicologists and most often applied to western classicalmusic, although music of non-western cultures and of unnotated oral traditions is also often analysed. Ananalysis can be conducted on a single piece of music, on a portion or element of a piece or on a collectionof pieces. A musicologist's stance is his or her analytical situation. This includes the physical dimension orcorpus being studied, the level of stylistic relevance studied, and whether the description provided by theanalysis is of its immanent structure, compositional (or poietic) processes, perceptual (or esthesic)processes (Nattiez 1990: 135-6), all three, or a mixture.

Stylistic levels may be hierarchized as an inverted triangle:

universals of musicsystem (style) of reference

style of a genre or an epochstyle of composer X

style of a period in the life of a composerwork

(Nattiez 1990: 136, he also points to Nettl 1964: 177, Boretz 1972: 146, and Meyer)

Nattiez outlines six analytical situations, preferring the sixth:

Poietic processesImmanentstructures of thework

Esthesic processes

1 xImmanentanalysis

2 x xInductivepoietics

3 x xExternalpoietics

4 x xInductiveesthesics

5 x xExternalesthesics

6 x = x = xCommunication between the three levels

(Nattiez 1990: 140)

Examples:

1. "...tackles only the immanent configuration of the work." Allen Forte's musical set theory2. "...proceed[s] from an analysis of the neutral level to drawing conclusions about the poietic." Reti's

(1951: 194-206) analysis of Debussy's la Cathdrale engloutie3. The reverse of the previous, taking "a poietic document -- letters, plans, sketches -- ... and analyzes

the work in the light of this information." Paul Mie's "stylistic analysis of Beethoven in terms of thesketches (1929)"

4. The most common, grounded in "perceptive introspection, or in a certain number of general ideasconcerning musical perception ... a musicologist ... describes what they think is the listener'sperception of the passage." Meyer's (1956: 48) analysis of measures 9-11 of Bach's C minor fugue inBook I of the Well-Tempered Clavier

5. "Begins with information collected from listeners to attempt to understand how the work has beenperceived ... obviously how experimental psychologists would work"

6. "The case in which an immanent analysis is equally relevant to the poietic as to the esthesic."Schenkerian analysis, which, based on the sketches of Beethoven (external poietics) eventually showthrough analysis how the works must be played and perceived (inductive esthesics)

Compositional analysisJacques Chailley (1951: 104) views analysis entirely from a compositional viewpoint, arguing that, "sinceanalysis consists of 'putting oneself in the composer's shoes,' and explaining what he was experiencing ashe was writing, it is obvious that we should not think of studying a work in terms of criteria foreign to theauthor's own preoccupations, no more in tonal analysis than in harmonic analysis."

Perceptual analysisOn the other hand, Fay (1971: 112) argues that, "analytic discussions of music are often concerned withprocesses that are not immediately perceivable. It may be that the analyst is concerned merely withapplying a collection of rules concerning practice, or with the description of the compositional process. Butwhatever he [or she] aims, he often fails -- most notably in twentieth-century music -- to illuminate ourimmediate musical experience," and thus views analysis entirely from a perceptual viewpoint, as doesEdward Cone (1960: 36), "true analysis works through and for the ear. The greatest analysts are those withthe keenest ears; their insights reveal how a piece of music should be heard, which in turn implies how itshould be played. An analysis is a direction for performance," and Thomson (1970: 196): "it seems onlyreasonable to believe that a healthy analytical point of view is that which is so nearly isomorphic with theperceptual act."

Analyses of the immanent levelAnalyses of the immanent level include analyses by Alder, Heinrich Schenker, and the "ontologicalstructuralism" of the analyses of Pierre Boulez, who says in his analysis of The Rite of Spring (1966: 142),"must I repeat here that I have not pretended to discover a creative process, but concern myself with theresult, whose only tangibles are mathematical relationships? If I have been able to find all these structuralcharacteristics, it is because they are there, and I don't care whether they were put there consciously orunconsciously, or with what degree of acuteness they informed [the composer's] understanding of hisconception; I care very little for all such interaction between the work and 'genius.'"

Again, Nattiez (1990: 138-9) argues that the above three approaches, by themselves, are necessarilyincomplete and that an analysis of all three levels is required. Jean Molino (1975a: 50-51) shows thatmusical analysis shifted from an emphasis upon the poietic vantage point to an esthesic one at thebeginning of the eighteenth century (Nattiez 1990: 137).

Nonformalized analysesNattiez distinguishes between nonformalized and formalized analyses. Nonformalized analyses, apart frommusical and analytical terms, do not use resources or techniques other than language. He furtherdistinguishes nonformalized analyses between impressionistic, paraphrases, or hermeneutic readings of thetext (explications de texte). Impressionistic analyses are in "a more or less high-literary style, proceedingfrom an initial selection of elements deemed characeristic," such as the following description of theopening of Claude Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun: "The alternation of binary and ternarydivisions of the eighth notes, the sly feints made by the three pauses, soften the phrase so much, render it sofluid, that it escapes all arithmetical rigors. It floats between heaven and earth like a Gregorian chant; itglides over signposts marking traditional divisions; it slips so furtively between various keys that it freesitself effortlessly from their grasp, and one must await the first appearance of a harmonic underpinningbefore the melody takes graceful leave of this causal atonality." (Vuillermoz 1957: 64)

Paraphrases are a "respeaking" in plain words of the events of the text with little interpretation or addition,such as the following description of the "Boure" of Bach's Third Suite: "An anacrusis, an initial phrase inD major. The figure marked (a) is immediately repeated, descending through a third, and it is employedthroughout the piece. This phrase is immediately elided into its consequent, which modulates from D to Amajor. This figure (a) is used again two times, higher each time; this section is repeated." (Warburton 1952:151)

"Hermeneutic reading of a musical text is based on a description, a 'naming' of the melody's elements, butadds to it a hermeneutic and phenomenological depth that, in the hands of a talented writer, can result in

genuine interpretive masterworks.... All the illustrations in Abraham's and Dahlhaus's Melodielehre (1972)are historical in character; Rosen's essays in The Classical Style (1971) seek to grasp the essence of anepoch's style; Meyer's analysis of Beethoven's Farewell Sonata (1973: 242-68) penetrates melody from thevantage point of perceived structures." He gives as a last example the following description of FranzSchubert's Unfinished Symphony: "The transition from first to second subject is always a difficult piece ofmusical draughtsmanship; and in the rare cases where Schubert accomplishes it with smoothness, the effortotherwise exhausts him to the verge of dullness (as in the slow movement of the otherwise great A minorQuartet). Hence, in his most inspired works the transition is accomplished by an abrupt coup de thtre;and of all such coups, no doubt the crudest is that in the Unfinished Symphony. Very well then; here is anew thing in the history of the symphony, not more new, not more simple than the new things which turnedup in each of Beethoven's nine. Never mind its historic origin, take it on its merits. Is it not a mostimpressive moment? (Tovey 1978:213)"(1990, 162-163)

Formalized analysesFormalized analyses propose models for melodic functions or simulate music. Meyer distinguishes betweenglobal models, which "provide an image of the whole corpus being studied, by listing characteristics,classifying phenomena, or both; they furnish statistical evaluation," and linear models which "do not try toreconstitute the whole melody in order of real time succession of melodic events. Linear models ... describea corpus by means of a system of rules encompassing not only the hierarchical organization of the melody,but also the distribution, environment, and context of events, examples including Chenoweth's (1972, 1979)explanation of "succession of pitches in New Guinean chants in terms of distributional constraintsgoverning each melodic interval," Herndon's (1974, 1975) transformational analysis, and Baroni andJacoboni's (1976) "grammar for the soprano part in Bach's chorales [which] when tested by computer ...allows us to generate melodies in Bach's style."

Global models are further distinguished as analysis by traits, which "identify the presence or absence of aparticular variable, and makes a collective image of the song, genre, or style being considered by means ofa table, or classificatory analysis, which sorts phenomena into classes," one example being Helen Roberts'(1955: 222) "trait listing", and classificatory analysis, which "sorts phenomena into classes," examplesbeing Kolinski's (1956) universal system for classifying melodic contours. Classificatory analyses often callthemselves taxonomical. "Making the basis for the analysis explicit is a fundamental criterion in thisapproach, so delimiting units is always accompanied by carefully defining units in terms of their constituentvariables."

Intermediary analysesNattiez lastly proposes intermediary models "between reductive formal precision, and impressionist laxity."These include Schenker, Meyer (classification of melodic structure in 1973: Chapter 7), Narmour, andLerdahl-Jackendoff's "use of graphics without appealing to a system of formalized rules," complementingand not replacing the verbal analyses. These are in contrast to the formalized models of Babbitt (1972) andBoretz (1969). According to Nattiez Boretz "seems to be confusing his own formal, logical model with animmanent essence he then ascribes to music," and Babbitt "defines a musical theory as a hypothetical-deductive system ... but if we look closely at what he says, we quickly realize that the theory also seeks tolegitimize a music yet to come; that is, that it is also normative ... transforming the value of the theory intoan aesthetic norm ... from an anthropological standpoint, that is a risk that is difficult to countenance."Similarly, "Boretz enthusiastically embraces logical formalism, while evading the question of knowing howthe data -- whose formalization he proposes -- have been obtained." (167)

Divergent analyses

Typically a given work is analyzed by more than one person and different or divergent analyses arecreated. For instance, the first two bars of the prelude to Claude Debussy's Pellas et Mlisande:

Debussy Pelleas et Melisande prelude opening. Play

are analyzed differently by Leibowitz, Laloy, van Appledorn, and Christ. Leibowitz analyses thissuccession harmonically as D minor:I-VII-V, ignoring melodic motion, Laloy analyses the succession asD:I-V, seeing the G in the second measure as an ornament, and both van Appledorn and Christ analysesthe succession as D:I-VII.

Nattiez (173) argues that this divergence is due to the analysts' respective analytic situations, and to whathe calls transcendent principles (1997b: 853, what George Holton might call "themata"), the "philosophicalproject[s]", "underlying principles", or a prioris of analyses, one example being Nattiez's use of thetripartitional definition of sign, and what, after epistemological historian Paul Veyne, he calls plots.

Van Appledorn sees the succession as D:I-VII so as to allow the interpretation of the first chord in measurefive, which Laloy sees as a dominant seventh on D (V/IV) with a diminished fifth (despite that the IVdoesn't arrive till measure twelve), while van Appledorn sees it as a French sixth on D, D-F#-Ab-[C] in theusual second inversion. This means that D is the second degree and the required reference to the firstdegree, C, being established by the D:VII or C major chord. "The need to explain the chord in measure fiveestablishes that C-E-G is 'equally important' as the D-(F)-A of measure one." Leibowitz gives only the bassfor chord, E indicating the progression I-II an "unreal" progression in keeping with his "dialectic betweenthe real and the unreal" used in the analysis, while Christ explains the chord as an augmented eleventh witha bass of Bb, interpreting it as a traditional tertian extended chord.

Debussy's Plleas et Mlisande prelude, measures 5-6. Play

Not only does an analyst select particular traits, they arrange them according to a plot [intrigue].... Oursense of the component parts of a musical work, like our sense of historical 'facts,' is mediated by livedexperience." (176)

While John Blacking (1973: 17-18), among others, holds that "there is ultimately only one explanation and... this could be discovered by a context-sensitive analysis of the music in culture," according to Nattiez(1990: 168) and others, "there is never only one valid musical analysis for any given work." Blacking givesas example: "everyone disagrees hotly and stakes his [or her] academic reputation on what Mozart reallymeant in this or that bar of his symphonies, concertos, or quartets. If we knew exactly what went on insideMozart's mind when he wrote them, there could be only one explanation". (93) However, Nattiez points outthat even if we could determine "what Mozart was thinking" we would still be lacking an analysis of theneutral and esthesic levels.

Roger Scruton (1978: 175-76), in a review of Nattiez's Fondements, says one may, "describe it as you likeso long as you hear it correctly ... certain descriptions suggest wrong ways of hearing it ... what is obviousto hear [in Plleas et Mlisande] is the contrast in mood and atmosphere between the 'modal' passage andthe bars which follow it." Nattiez counters that if compositional intent were identical to perception,"historians of musical language could take a permanent nap.... Scruton sets himself up as a universal,absolute conscience for the 'right' perception of the Plleas et Mlisande. But hearing is an active symbolicprocess (which must be explained): nothing in perception is self-evident."

Thus Nattiez suggests that analyses, especially those intending "a semiological orientation, should ... at leastinclude a comparative critique of already-written analyses, when they exist, so as to explain why the workhas taken on this or that image constructed by this or that writer: all analysis is a representation; [and] anexplanation of the analytical criteria used in the new analysis, so that any critique of this new analysiscould be situated in relation to that analysis's own objectives and methods. As Jean-Claude Gardin sorightly remarks, 'no physicist, no biologist is surprised when asked to indicate, in the context of a newtheory, the physical data and the mental operations that led to its formulation' (1974: 69). Making one'sprocedures explicit would help to create a cumulative progress in knowledge." (177)

ReferencesBaileyShea, Matt (2007). "Mignon: A New Recipe for Analysis and Recomposition(http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.07.13.4/mto.07.13.4.baileyshea.html#FN3REF%7CFilleted)", Music Theory Online Volume 13, Number 4, December 2007.Bauer, Amy (2004). "Cognition, Constraints, and Conceptual Blends in Modernist Music", in ThePleasure of Modernist Music, Ashby, Arved, ed.Bent, Ian (1987). Analysis. London: McMillan Press. ISBN 0-333-41732-1.Bernard, Jonathan. 1981. "Pitch/Register in the Music of Edgar Varse." Music Theory Spectrum 3:125.Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologiegnrale et smiologue, 1987). Translated by Carolyn Abbate (1990). ISBN 0-691-02714-5.Blacking, John (1973). How Musical Is Man?. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Cited inNattiez (1990). Cited in Nattiez (1990).Laloy, L. (1902). "Sur deux accords", Revue musicale. Reprinted in La musique retrouve. Paris:Plon, 1928, pp. 11518. Cited in Nattiez (1990).Lerdahl, Fred (1988/1992). Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems, Contemporary MusicReview 6 (2), pp. 97121.Liebowitz, R. (1971). "Pellas et Mlisande ou les fantmes de la ralit", Les Temps Modernes, no.305:891-922. Cited in Nattiez (1990).Marx, A.B: Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition I-IV [1837-47].

Van Appledorn, M.-J. (1966). "Stylistic Study of Claude Debussy's Opera Pellas et Mlisande".Ph.D. Diss., Eastman School of Music. Cited in Nattiez (1990).Christ, William (1966), Materials and Structure of Music (1 ed.), Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall, ISBN 0-13-560342-0, OCLC 412237 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/412237) LCC MT6 M3471966 (http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=MT6+M347+1966&Search_Code=CALL_&CNT=5). Cited in Nattiez (1990).Stein, Deborah (2005). Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis. New York: Oxford UniversityPress. ISBN 0-19-517010-5.Satyendra, Ramon. "Analyzing the Unity within Contrast: Chick Corea's 'Starlight'". Cited in Stein(2005).

Cone, Edward. "Analysis Today", Music: A View from Delft", pp. 39-54. Cited in Satyendra.

Further readingCook, Nicholas (1992). A Guide to Musical Analysis. ISBN 0-393-96255-5.Hoek, D.J. (2007). Analyses of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Music, 1940-2000. ISBN 0-8108-5887-8.Kresky, Jeffrey (1977). Tonal Music: Twelve Analytic Studies. ISBN 0-253-37011-6.Poirier, Lucien, ed. (1983). Rpertoire bibliographique de textes de presentation generale etd'analyse d'oeuvres musicales canadienne, 1900-1980 = Canadian Musical Works, 1900-1980: aBibliography of General and Analytical Sources. ISBN 0-9690583-2-2

External linksExample Musical Analyses showing the relationship between voice leading and chord progressionpatterns Harmony.org.uk (http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/musical_analysis.htm)Benoit Meudic, IRCAM, Musical Pattern Extraction: from Repetition to Musical Structure(http://recherche.ircam.fr/equipes/repmus/RMPapers/CMMR-meudic2003.pdf)Morphogenesis of chords and scales (http://www.lamadeguido.com/morphogenesis.htm) Chords andscales classificationApplication of virtual pitch theory in music analysis (PDF)(http://www.lamadeguido.com/artangles.pdf)iAnalyse (http://ianalyse.pierrecouprie.fr), a musical analysis aided software by Pierre CouprieMapping Tonal Harmony (http://mdecks.com/mapharmony.html), app to study harmonic functionsand progressions in all keys

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Musical_analysis&oldid=658750076"

Categories: Musical analysis

This page was last modified on 22 April 2015, at 21:48.Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms mayapply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is aregistered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.