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."

Discretization

The 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 of discretization or segmentation is often considered, as by Jean-Jacques Nattiez (1990), necessary for music to become accesible to analysis. Fred Lerdahl argues that discretization is necessary even for lay perception, thus making it a basis of his analyses, and finds pieces such as Artikulation by György Ligeti unaccesible, while Rainer Wehinger (1970) created a "Hörpartitur" or "score for listening" for the piece, representing different sonorous effects with specific graphic symbols much like a transcription.

Related Topics:
Analysis - Discretization - Segmentation - Jean-Jacques Nattiez - Fred Lerdahl - György Ligeti - Transcription

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