The focus of this course is on mastering an approach to analysis of musical style as presented by Jan LaRue as well learning the approach of musical analysis as presented in Sonic Design by Cogan and Escot. The LaRue analysis will be a tool that will provide observations of 19th Century musical style. LaRue provides a systematic approach to SHMRG (Sound, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, Growth) and a means of examining this musical factors in context of time, genre, and other components through a category identified as Evaluation. Cogan and Escot's Sonic Design provides a departure from conventional analytic categories: Musical Space, Musical Language, Time and Rhythm: Dimensions and Activity, and The Color of Sound. This approach will be used to examine 20th Century musical practices and will be applied in analyzing specific works.
Therefore the emphasis of the course is on developing analytical skills rather than covering a wide range of repertoire of 19th and 20th Century works. Students should have a mastery of undergraduate theory, since this course builds upon, as well as departs from, this knowledge base.
Another feature of the course is student publication of two analysis projects: one for 19th Century music and one for 20 Century music. Manuscripts will be typed and complete with musical examples, bibliography, and references, as needed.
General Overview of Music Analysis. Assignment of Texts. Assignment of Readings. Overview of Course: First half of course deals with stylistic tendencies of 19th Century Music, Using LaRue's Guidelines for Style Analysis as the "method". Second half of the course deals with stylistic tendencies of 20th Century Music using Cogan and Escot's Sonic Design as the basis for analysis. Focus of the Course is on Analytic Technique using selected scores as source materials. Students will select a 19th Century piece for analysis and a 20th Century Piece for analysis, in addition to completing class assignments in music analysis. General purposes of analysis of music. Assign reading in LaRue's text.
Analytical Tools: Descriptive Analysis, Structural Analysis, and Stylistic Analysis. Special approaches to syntactical analysis. Eclectic Analysis. Some problems about "syntax" as a term for analysis. Source materials introduced for 19th Century Style Analysis: Chopin, Preludes, Opus 28. Assessment of Analytic Skills taken by students in order to determine various levels of skills in the class.
Observations of Stylistic Tendencies of 19th Century music. Listening to Chopin's Preludes. Discussion of Stylistic elements as revealed in the Preludes. How these characteristics might relate to general stylistic characteristics of 19th Century Music. Discussion of LaRue's Sound Category. The role of language as a tool of inquiry. Choosing examples. Individual Preludes handed out to students. Assignment: Complete the first two LaRue categories (Sound, Harmony) on the Prelude assigned to the student.
Review the "Completed Major/Minor System" in the context of Rameau Functional Analysis. Review the Analysis of the Chopin C-Minor Prelude. Refer to the Cogan and Escot discussion. Discussion of LaRue's Categories of Harmony, Melody, Growth. Assignment: Complete the remaining categories of LaRue Analysis on assigned Prelude (except for Evaluation). Discuss writing about Music. Selecting Music examples. Handout example of LaRue Analysis. Students provide name of piece selected for 19th Century analysis project.
Review the LaRue Categories SHMRG. Discuss style analysis as normative, observing the frequency of occurence of practices which may then be identified as stylistic. Look at idiosyncratic features of a composition. Students discuss the text and the problems they encountered in analyzing the Chopin. Introduce the concept of Evaluation as discussed in LaRue text.
Hand in 1st assignment: Chopin Prelude
A review of stylistic practices of 19th Century Music. Timbral expansion and the emerging dominance of color or timbre. Expansion of Harmonic Functions. 19th Century Cadences. Melodic Practices. Rhythmic conformity. Organic approach to form. Extreme range of practice from miniatures to grand scale (Schumann and Berlioz).
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Extension of Chromaticism. Wagner's dominance. Opera as a dominant form. Music as philosophy. Extramusical approaches to form. Macroforms. The collapse of 19th Century Style. Hand in LaRue Style Analysis on 19th Century work selected by student.
The Problem of Musical Style after Wagner. Debussy's solution. Post Romantic music and musical style. Schoenberg's solution. Problems of analysis of 20th Century Music. Cogan and Escot's approach. Students select 20th Century works for analysis
Space as a dimension of musical conception and implications for musical structure. Vertical and Horizontal Space. Space as an aural phenomenon and presence.
Analyzing 20th Century music requires attending to idiomatic style. Individualization of musical style. Experimental notation. Discovering the musical language of a piece. Finding appropriate tools for examining the controlling factors of pitch. The dominance of linear conception. Verticalities and simultaneities (the new "harmony").
Rhythmic diversity and complexity. Rhythm and meter. Rhythm as structure. Temporal modulation.
Texture and timbre. Change of timbre over time. Relationship of texture to timbre and musical space (densities).
Musical gestures as units of musical expression. Anti-Structures which seek to include aleatoric, stochastic, and chance as an approach to "organizing" sound. Structured improvisation.
Review of stylistic tendencies and practices of the 20th Century. Highly structured and highly detailed musical works. Loosely structured formats, aleatoric, and chance as "controlling" factors for musical performance. Analyzing musical structures as sound. Comparisons of LaRue Style Analysis and procedures described in Cogan and Escot's Sonic Design.
Topic 4
Pages 69-152, LaRue: Guidelines for Style Analysis
Topics 5-8
Pages 153-245, LaRue: Guidelines for Style Analysis
Topic 9
Pages 1-85, Cogan & Escot
Topic 10
Pages 86-219, Cogan & Escot
Topic 11
Pages 220-325, Cogan & Escot
Topic 12
Pages 326-401, Cogan & Escot
Topics 13-14
Pages 402-494, Cogan & Escot
Berry, Wallace. Musical Structure and Performance. Dodd, Mead & Co., NY, 1966.
____________. Structural Functions in Music. Yale University Press, NY, 1989.
Cogan, Robert and Pozzi Escot. Sonic Design: The Nature of Sound and Music. Prentice- Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1976. (Reissued by Publication Contact International, Cambridge, Mass., 1984)
Cook, Nicholas. A Guide to Musical Analysis. George Braziller, Inc., NY. 1987.
Ferrara, Lawrence. Philosophy and the Analysis of Music. Excelsior Music Publishing Co. 1991.
Griffiths, Paul. Modern Music: The avante gard since 1945. George Braziller, Inc., NY., 1981.
Hopkins, Anthony. Understanding Music. Oxford University Press, NY. 1993.
LaRue, Jan. Guidelines for Style Analysis.M (2nd ed.) Harmonie Park Press, Michigan, 1992.
Schwartz, Elliot. Music: Ways of Listening. CBS College Publishing, NY, 1982.
White, John D. The Analysis of Music. Prentice-Hall., Inc. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1976.