Analysis 2013
- 1. Analysis: Art or Science - An Introduction Read: Nicholas Cook’s A Guide to Analysis. 1. Why do it? 2. History of Analysis up to 20th century 3. 20th century approaches 4. Some examples
- 2. Why bother? " Is there is a point in doing analysis? " What is it for?
- 3. Why do it ? " To enable communication of ideas about a piece of music. Speculation and discussion. " To help performers to memorise extended scores. " To judge how it would have been if the composer had done something different. To recompose – composers learn through analysis of past works. " To aid aesthetic appreciation and evaluation. " To see the work as whole – and operating on a number of levels from the broad to the very detailed. " Encourage attentive listening and inform the listeners perception of sound.
- 4. Traditional Methods " Music has always attracted speculation – ideas of religion and cosmic harmony, etc. The greeks did this. Plato and Aristotle, etc. Aesthetics and use. " Wish to classify music – scales, chords, instruments. Ideas of comparative musicology. " In the 19th century this became more scientific though still largely descriptive.
- 5. Melody and Harmony " Music described in terms of themes, tonal areas, and conformity to specific forms (sonata form, binary, rondo, etc ) – text book models. " Example of Donald Tovey. Extended programme note approach. Chronological order, tabular format, constantly using traditional terms (e.g. theme, transition) – plenty of recourse to metaphor.
- 7. Metaphor " A figure of speech by which a thing is spoken of as being that which it only resembles – I.e. when a ferocious man is called a tiger. ‘The man is a tiger’. " Example in music – ‘the melody resembled a river meandering gently and burbling over brooks and shallows’. Does this really tell us anything?
- 8. Hermeneutics " Hermeneutics – ‘the science of interpretation’. " About the message or meaning in music. ‘the piece can be read as a descent into Hell and then the return to the living’. " May involve lots of metaphor. Non- technical descriptive writing about music that deals more with aesthetics rather than with the ‘how’ of music. Is this type of approach analytical in anyway or is it the opposite approach?
- 9. Dissatisfaction with traditional approach " The traditional set forms (sonata form, etc) had never really existed in pure form. Invention of 19th century writers on music – A.B. Marx in particular. " Thematic relations overplayed - tonal function underplayed. Composers did think in terms of contrasting keys – but not in terms of ‘second subject theme’. " Should not separate form and content. Traditional approach does. " It was the functional, not the historical aspects of form, that really mattered.
- 10. Donald Tovey – 1944 Essays in Musical Analysis " ‘The slow movement, in A flat, is nobly serious and mellow in sound, and has a rich digression of Harmonies in its broad transition passage to the dominant. There are several pauses, but they are for reflection, not for cadenzas. The finale is terse, and more in the best style on op.9.’
- 11. Harmony – the most important aspect of content? " Traditionally harmony is reduced to figured – bass notation (6, 5/4 -3,etc), or some form of Roman-letter description. I-iib-V7-I, etc. " Both miss out large amounts of information – register, harmonics, timbre, etc. " Roman letter symbols – you have to decide what key you are in and where transitions occur. This involves analytical decisions that can be arguable. " Gives no clear idea of how the music works and may complicate rather than reduce.
- 12. Schenkerian Analysis " Includes both Schenker’s methods and the application of his ideas in post-war period. " He saw pieces as temporally unfolding (elaboration) of the overtone series, and in particular of the major triad (exists as the first five partials of the overtone series). " It aims to omit the essentials and highlight important relationships. " Reduce down into a series of structural levels – ultimate background (chords or chord) of fundamental structure, middle ground with highlighting of important structural events, foreground with perceived melodic events.
- 13. " A representation of Schenkerian analysis (referred to as a Schenkerian sketch or graph) uses musical notation as its symbols, but all the symbols are given new meaning. Symbols that convey duration in conventional music notation (for example, half notes and quarter notes) no longer have these meanings attached.
- 14. Notes that would only appear at the foreground level might be shown as plain, filled-in noteheads, with higher-level notes shown as noteheads with stems, and finally adding beams and open noteheads. Slurs also have a different purpose. In addition to these symbols, Schenkerian analysis also uses a few symbols that are unique to this particular approach, such as hook slurs, dotted slurs, diagonal lines showing harmonic support and hierarchical beaming.
- 15. Example
- 16. Jonathon Dunsby Bach Bach, "Ich bin's, ich sollte bussen,"
- 17. More Schenker " Piece can then be deconstructed into a series of graphs – which can be superimposed for the full view. " Does not show true rhythmic values and developed its use of notation symbols. E.g. Filled noteheads with tails, like crotchets indicate middleground structures, and connections between them can be seen by following the line of the tails.
- 19. Problems with it " Developed for Western Art music which emphasises harmony over other parameters. " Developed for classical/romantic repertoire in particular, and is not so good at anything else. " Where the piece does not get its meaning from the relationship between its detail and its whole, it begins to break down.
- 21. Other Forms " 1. Psychological Approaches – how music is experienced. " 2. Formal approaches - coding into a new set of symbols and deducing musical structure from the patterns that these symbols make. " Techniques of comparative analysis – based on computer models and often developed for computer processing.
- 22. Often the approach is a composite " To attempt a number of approaches or to develop your own based on someone else's model. " Problems associated with Popular Music and Ethnomusicology where the relative importance of musical parameters may be very different (melody and harmony v. rhythm and timbre) and Western notation inappropriate. " Melograph and Computerised methods and tools. " However as the real aim is to enable communication - if the analysis does not do this it may fail.
- 27. Is it an art or science? " Can it be right or wrong? " Does the analysis fit the music? " Does it say anything about the music that is of value? Does it claim to be scientific and impartial or is it subjective and reflect the interests of the analyst rather than the music? Does it communicate anything to anyone? Is it just a few specialist (university academics) speaking gobbledy-gook to other specialists (more university academics).
- 28. How Can I Use Analysis? " To break down the piece into constituent elements, so that it is possible to describe its essential elements and highlight distinctive features. Be clinical and objective. " Avoid a subjective narrative account. " ‘At the third bar the oboe arrives with a souring melody that echoes a birdlike song across the serene waters of the string accompaniment below’.
- 29. Essay Title " Discuss some of the different approaches available to the musical analyst and comment on the merits and demerits of the different methods. " Cook and Mark Everest (1999) Rethinking Music, Oxford, OUP " Cook, N. (2000). Music, A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, OUP. " Cook, N. (1994). A Guide to Musical Analysis, Oxford, OUP.
- 30. Next Week " Klezmer. " Bring instruments – anything that can either play a melody or chord accompaniment – guitars, accordions, string instruments of any sort. Wind instruments of any sort. " There is no singing so singers must play something.
- 31. Hora