Evaluating Musical Analyses and Theories: Five Perspectives

1990 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Dempster ◽  
Matthew Brown
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Kaniowska

Restoring the memory of the irretrievably lost word of a Jewish community is important for many reasons. To start with, familiarization with the unknown helps with better understanding of the everyday life of Polish Jews, often perceived as a hermetic society, rousing anxiety particularly among those who are totally unfamiliar with Jewish culture and traditions. Secondly, for the young, currently developing Jewish community, it is the way of building their identity by recalling their own historical roots. Gebirtig's creativity is portrayed in this chapter in two inextricably connected aspects: (1) the historical background of musical culture at the turn of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries in Cracow; (2) the perspective of analysis of the musical layers of his pieces. The study emphasizes how the universal language of music is of a crucial importance for building a dialogue based on education, cultivation of memory, and restoration of identity.


2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-102
Author(s):  
Stefano La Via

In his brilliant studies and accurate editions Anthony Newcomb has shown Alfonso Fontanelli’s contributions to the definition of “the new Ferrarese style of the 1590s” and, therefore, to the birth of the seconda pratica. My article focuses on a specific aspect of Fontanelli’s polyphonic writing: the handling of cadences for not only syntactical and tonally structural but also expressive purposes. The literary-musical analyses of some of the most representative settings published in Fontanelli’s two books of madrigals (1595 and 1604)—including masterpieces such as “Tu miri, o vago ed amoroso fiore” (Anonymous), “Io piango, ed ella il volto” (Petrarca), “Lasso, non odo più Filli mia cara” (Anonymous), and “Dovrò dunque morire” (Rinuccini)—shows, above all, the unusually wide range of Fontanelli’s cadential palette. He used not only traditional models (such as the perfect, authentic, Phrygian, and half cadences) but also a great variety of alternative solutions (including what Newcomb has named “evaporated” and “oblique” cadences) that are often so experimental and bold as to escape rigid classification. In the context of a basically chromatic, dissonant, harmonically restless, and tonally unfocused polyphonic flow such cadential variety seems to reflect Fontanelli’s intention not only to underscore the conceptual and emotional meanings represented in the verbal text but also to sharpen their large-scale affective contrasts. In these and other experimental traits of his “cadential style” Fontanelli further developed (possibly through the mediation of Jacques de Wert, and also under the influence of composers such as Luzzaschi and Gesualdo) those basic compositional techniques and exegetic principles that Cipriano de Rore, the real father of the seconda pratica, had already established in his later madrigals, and that Vincenzo Galilei, in turn, had neatly codified in his treatise on counterpoint (ca. 1588–1591).


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 350-382
Author(s):  
Jessica Wiskus

In his seminal essay "Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception," David Lewin takes up (and works against) Husserl's phenomenology of inner time-consciousness as a means of developing his own perception-based musical analyses. My aim, in this article, is not only to show that what Lewin adopts as a theory of Husserlian time-consciousness is in direct conflict with the understanding produced by contemporary philosophers associated with the Husserl Archives, but also to argue that a better understanding of Husserlian time-consciousness enables us to imagine the ways in which phenomenological inquiry actually supports Lewin's objectives. First, I clarify the complicated history of Lewin's textual source, Vorlesungen zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins, arguing that a failure to take account of the genesis of Husserl's text brings about a concomitant misinterpretation of its philosophical content. Second, I critique Lewin's reduction of retention and protention to present contents of perceptions, demonstrating that this results in an infinite regress (or "recursive" structure, in Lewin's terms), and I show that Husserl himself avoids this by investigating the temporal flow of the subject (i. e., as a structure of transcendental subjectivity). Finally, I argue that the Husserlian framework of timeconsciousness provides a productive way to concern ourselves with the creative acts of music making that Lewin so prizes.


Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Zbikowski

This volume makes a unique contribution to music theory by building on recent research in cognitive science and theoretical perspectives adopted from cognitive linguistics to present an account of the foundations of musical grammar. Musical grammar is conceived of as a species of construction grammar, in which grammatical elements are form-function pairs. In the case of music, basic constructions are sonic analogs for dynamic processes that are central to human cultures. This volume focuses on three such processes: those related to emotions, to gestures, and to dance. The first chapter introduces the volume and explains how this approach connects with previous work in music theory. The second chapter reviews research on analogy and shows how it provides a basis for analogical reference, which is fundamental to musical grammar. The third chapter describes the connection between music and the emotions facilitated by analogical reference. The fourth chapter explores connections between human gesture and musical utterances, and shows how both rely on the infrastructure for human communication that is also exploited by language. The fifth chapter demonstrates how music provides sonic analogs for the steps of social dances, and how music combined with dance has been used to structure social interactions. The sixth chapter focuses on the combination of language and music that occurs in songs, making clear how the different grammatical resources offered by music and language shape how meaning is constructed in songs. Detailed musical analyses are offered in each chapter, as well as summaries of the basic elements of musical grammar.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-126
Author(s):  
Asril Gunawan

The Symbolical Meaning Daak Maraaq Music and Daak Hudoq of Hudoq Bahau Ritual in Samarinda, East Borneo. The ritual of Hudoq is an annual cultural practice performed by Dayak Bahau people in the city of Samarinda. The performance of this ritual consists of some phases in which every phase of it represents the symbolical meaning closely related to the value of the ritual. Those phases are (1) Lemivaa Lalii’; (2) Hudoq Taharii’; (3) Lemivaa Tasam; (4) Hudoq Kawit; and (5) Hudoq Pakoq.  Daak Maraaq and Daak Hudoq music and Hudoq dance are performed during the ritual. Daak Maraaq and Daak Hudoq are two different kinds of music, both have a different style of performance, stage of performance, and style of music. Due to its complexity, it becomes especially important to analyze the role of the symbolical meaning of music performed in the ritual of Hudoq. This is a qualitative research within an ethnomusicological approach—music within the cultural perspective—which is done through an analytical descriptive method. The theoretical approach used for this case study is symbolic interpretation and music (transcription) analyses. Despite analyzing the symbolical meaning of Daak Maraaq and Daak Hudoq music, this research is done to provide important information about musical analyses—within the ethnomusicological perspective—of that music. According to the data collected, the ritual of Hudoq has an important role in performing the symbolical meaning of the identical value of ritual, social, and existential meaning for the lives of Dayak Bahau people in Samarinda city, East Borneo.


2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory J. Decker

Like pendant portraits in Baroque visual art, which were meant to be viewed and understood as pairs, contemporaneous opera seria arias may be interpreted with respect to one another. In this article, I illustrate the usefulness of regarding arias as pendants by examining two pairs from G.F. Handel’s operaRodelinda(1725). Structural and semiotic investigations comprise my musical analyses with a focus on musical topics, voice leading, and musical gestures. The analytical methodology of Matthew Shaftel (2009) coupled with the foundational interpretive frameworks of Robert Hatten (1994 and 2004), Lawrence Kramer (1990), and Wye Jamison Allanbrook (1983) provide a consistent set of strategies with which to negotiate the disparate domains of musical structure and dramatic content. Examples of aria pairs sung by two different characters and by the same character are considered. Viewing two arias as pendants aids in developing specific interpretations and has broader ramifications for understanding characterization throughout the work.


2021 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 45-70
Author(s):  
GEORGIA CURRAN ◽  
CALISTA YEOH

AbstractInsights into the knowledge, performance, and transmission of songs are pivotal in ensuring the survival of traditional Aboriginal songs. We present the first in-depth musical analysis of a Wapurtarli yawulyu song set sung by Warlpiri women from Yuendumu, Central Australia, recorded in December 2006 with a solo lead singer accompanied by a small group. Our musical analysis reveals that there are various interlocking parts of a song, and this can make it difficult for current generations to learn songs. The context of musical endangerment and the musical analyses presented in our study show that contemporary spaces for learning yawulyu must consider the complex components that come together for a song set to be properly performed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Jacques Nattiez ◽  
Joan Campbell Huguet
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Stephen Rumph

Musical topics have invited comparison with language ever since Leonard Ratner adopted the rhetorical termtopos. Yet topic theory has not addressed the “double articulation” of language: while words function as meaningful signs, they are articulated by meaningless elements, what Louis Hjelmslev referred to collectively as “figurae.” This chapter develops an analogous theory of topical figurae, structural features that articulate multiple topics but do not themselves signify topically, adapting concepts from phonology (deletion, markedness, assimilation, neutralization). The musical analyses explore both the semantic and syntactic implications of topical figurae, focusing on Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony and Mozart’s Piano Sonata in F major, K. 332. Embedded equally in the musical structure and the topical code, figurae bridge the gap between formal analysis and cultural hermeneutics and can lead to a more holistic understanding of topical meaning.


Popular Music ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA FEIGENBAUM

Examining ways in which gender is marked in the press coverage of self-produced, folk-rock artist and record label owner Ani DiFranco, this paper explores how language employed in rock criticism frequently functions to devalue and marginalise women artists' musicianship, influence on fans, and contribution to the rock canon. Investigating how the readerships of different publications may influence the ways in which journalists mark gender in rock criticism, this study utilises a corpus of 100 articles on Ani DiFranco published between 1993 and 2003 from print and online magazines and newspapers in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Focusing on the use of inter- and intra-gender artist comparisons, adjectival gender markers and ‘metaphorical gender’ markers in artist background information, lyrical and musical analyses and descriptions of fans, this analysis maps the discursive conventions that music critics and theorists continue to rely on in reviews and profiles of women artists.


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