Musical analysis

Musical analysis can be defined as a process attempting to answer the question "how does this music work?". The method employed to answer this question, and indeed exactly what is meant by the question, differs from analyst to analyst. According to Ian Bent (Bent, 1987), analysis is "an approach and method can be traced back to the 1750s ... it existed as a scholarly tool, albeit an auxiliary one, from the Middle Ages onwards."

Related Topics:
Music - 1750s - Middle Ages

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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 or tone-rows with integers or row-form, while the other extreme, prescription, consists of "the insistence upon the validity of relationships not supported by the text." Analysis must, rather, provide insight into listening without forcing a description of a piece that can not be heard.

Related Topics:
Edward Cone - Description - Prescription

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