Talk:Musical analysis

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My personal analysis is shown and proven through the decades. It is that the music that we listen to reflects the type of decade or even century we will have. For example, Elvis Preasley was a huge hit in the 1950's. His provocative moves and radical lyrics changed music forever. The birth rates soared throughout the 1950's. Is it because of the music that would put them in a certain mood? Nowadays people will listen to such rappers as Eminem and such. The suicide rate is extremely high. These show the relationship between what we listen to and who we are. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angelnewsom (talk) 08:33, 20 April 2006

I would change the following line to clarify the meaning, but I'm having trouble understanding what it means at all: "A musicologist's stance is his or her analytical situation." Help? -MarkBuckles 10:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is the author working towards the proposition that the nature of an analysis is influenced by its purpose and scope? That is certainly a valid observation (as it is of any process), and one that might be made more systematically in the article. Countersubject 12:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps there should be a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esthesic_and_poietic? I find the table of six points hard to understand even with that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.171.211.23 (talk) 17:42, 30 July 2007

I am working on a Ph.D. in music theory (and I'm familiar with many of the referenced works), and even I have trouble following the flow of this article. If anything, this seems to be an article on "The Philosophy of Musical Analysis" rather than an article on "Musical Analysis." Reading this article won't give the reader any idea of what he/she should expect to find in a journal called, say "Music Analysis" (not to mention dozens of other journals that publish articles that are examples of music analysis). Shouldn't the emphasis be on giving some descriptions of actual analytical systems that are in use (with links to other articles where relevant), and then perhaps follow it with some briefer ruminations on the various philosophical viewpoints on what analysis might be?

Some specific criticisms -- (1) I love Nattiez as much as the next guy, but he is not the only one to ever consider the goals of music analysis. There is way too emphasis on his particular brand of theorizing here, even if this were an article on "The Philosophy of Musical Analysis" (which it's not). Also, anyone without a background in Nattiez would undoubtedly be completely lost in trying to understand this article.

(2) The overall organization and writing needs some serious work. When an article purporting to be about music analysis has a paragraph that begins, "There have been many notable analysts other than Tovey and Keller. One of the best known and most influential was Heinrich Schenker..." something is obviously wrong. I'm not a big fan of Schenker, but I have to say that a passage that makes it sound like Keller should be mentioned before Schenker is a little unfocused.

(3) The intro has some severe POV when it comes to defining analysis. I more-or-less agree with most of it personally, but I don't think it is a definition that could be embraced by the majority of music theorists. For example, the concluding sentence: "Analysis must, rather, provide insight into listening without forcing a description of a piece that cannot be heard." There are plenty of examples of analyses that do not engage with listening at all. (A recent article in Music Theory Spectrum, one of the major journals that publishes music analyses, actually concerned itself with proving that there were pieces where analysts *must* listen to a piece to analyze it, rather than merely looking at a score; surely such a conclusion would be unnecessary if listening is presumed in the definition of analysis.) There are quite a few theorists who would claim that listening doesn't have to be part of an analysis. I actually believe there are circumstances where that is true -- for example, using analysis to uncover an implicit compositional method may find a structure that was part of a composer's design, but nevertheless is next-to-impossible to hear. Is that not analysis?

(4) Moreover, the intro argues (with Bent) that analysis began in the 1750s. That may be true for a particular definition of analysis, but what do we call it when a composer intently studies the work of other composers in an effort to understand how the music works and to build on his/her own style? Isn't that a kind of analysis? And, if so, haven't composers been doing that ever since there were composers? Supposedly, analysis existed as a "scholarly tool" since the Middle Ages, but again, this is misleading. Yes, there were music theorists in the Middle Ages who did a type of analysis. But there were also plenty of composers who inevitably spent time thinking deeply about music they heard or could see in a score for the sole purpose of creating more music... which isn't exactly using analysis as a "scholarly tool." It would more properly be termed a "compositional tool." Why can analysis only be practiced by scholars?

(5) The Cone quote is insightful, but it also doesn't belong in an intro. It presumes that there is such a thing as pure "description," when even a basic "description" -- like the example given of a Roman numeral label -- assumes a priori the existence of an entire analytical apparatus that e.g., takes a particular perspective on equivalence of certain sonorities (e.g., triads in any inversion are alike in more ways than they differ, register, voicing, timbre, dynamics, etc. are relatively unimportant in labeling), the existence of tonality (hardly an analytical given in all times and places), often syntactical interpretations (e.g., functional harmonic implications and contexts, the suppression of "non-harmonic" tones in a chord), etc., etc., etc. All of this in a basic "description" of a Roman numeral. Yes, a first-year student in harmony may not understand all of this, but an analyst employing a Roman numeral is doing more than describing a sonority. There is an implicit analytical apparatus at work that is proposing a particular interpretation of the notes using assumptions that often are very different from the people who wrote the music that we put Roman numerals onto. Yes, a Roman numeral can be seen as a description, but the way they are used is much, much more complex than the surface "labeling" effect makes them appear. It may be "just a label," but it is often an implicit "analysis" as well.

(6) The extended section at the end on "divergent analyses" is way too long given the length of the article. What's the big deal? Two different analysts may have two different perspectives on a piece? Isn't this intuitively obvious? Would an article on analysis of poetry need to devote a quarter of its length to a justification of the existence of multiple interpretations of the meaning of the poem?? I know it isn't intuitively obvious to a certain group of music theorists who think there is only one true analysis of a given measure, but nowhere in this article is that stance really taken. Thus, the last quarter of the article comes across as a refutation of a view that was never expressed (and in fact completely contradicted by everything said) in the preceding article. The effect is to make the argument of the article a bit schizophrenic... arguing against ghostly enemies whose views are never presumed to exist.

(7) The general tone of this article is problematic. It reads like a summary of an unfocused academic paper with way too many quotations for its own good. Why not explain what analysis is directly, rather than quoting extensively from meta-analytical tertiary sources in every other sentence? It makes the argument hard to follow, it intimidates all readers except a specialist who already knows a heck of a lot about music theory (and knows who all these people are who are being cited), and it contributes further to the schizophrenic style (because every few words are cited from something by a different author with a completely different style and vocabulary from the previous cited author).

I could go on, but perhaps this begins to get some of my points across even though I've only scratched the surface of the problems.

Basically, I'd say that this article is extremely unfocused in that it broadens the definition of music analysis to make it so abstract that a person unfamiliar with philosophical issues surrounding music analysis wouldn't have a clue what's going on, while simultaneously limiting the definition of analysis to be some sort of special thing that requires a particular perspective -- one familiar to a particular breed of musicologist/music theorist in modern times, but hardly representative of musicians who engage in analysis as a whole. By the definitions used in most of this article, perhaps the most-widely practiced form of "analysis" -- i.e., the kind of thing that composers and performers do to a piece to compose and perform better (and listeners do often less formally to listen better) -- isn't analysis at all. This implicit assumption in much of this article is that only qualified professionals can do musical analysis... (by the way, the quote about how New Musicologists sometimes use analysis ("traditional" or otherwise) is ironic in this article... since this article is about music analysis but never actually says what a "traditional" analysis would look like... perhaps this is a self-referential musicological article that is trying to explain analysis without actually discussing what it is...or any examples of it...??)

Someone will certainly suggest that I rewrite the article myself, if there is so much wrong. I would, but I have chosen to abstain from editing Wikipedia after too many annoying encounters with other editors who aren't accepting of new voices and are suspicious of people who appear to know more than themselves. However, as a music theorist, I cannot in good conscience allow this page to go uncommented on, since the article has not been representative of music analysis almost since it was written, and it has stood roughly in this form for a couple years (with the core standing for even longer).

So, to the unfortunate reader trying to understand music analysis -- don't worry if you don't understand a damn thing said here; it's not your fault. Go take a look at some books or journals that have examples of analysis -- that will give you an impression of what it is. And to other knowledgeable music theorists out there -- somebody take a couple hours and write a decent start for a new article sometime. 76.118.181.158 03:07, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're claim seems slight given the abundance of sources provided, which would indicate a wide survey of the field provided by Nattiez. There certainly is more information to be added, but someone looking to understand "the philosophy" of analysis would be well off. From what you wrote above I am not sure what is wrong with that. Hyacinth (talk) 01:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here:

He gives as a last example the following description of Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony: "."

Unfortunately I don't know how to fix that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.30.229.146 (talk) 14:10, 30 September 2007

Fixed. Hyacinth (talk) 01:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Given the above comments (by 76.118.181.158) with no action is there anyone willing to propose a new structure for the article? Hyacinth (talk) 02:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I thought of changing this heading into just "Literature" or the like as I could not make sense of it. Should we do that.....? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Intuitive (talk • contribs) 12:22, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What is hard to understand about the section? Hyacinth (talk) 14:22, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that Nattiez(1990) is not in the list of referecences makes it somewhat difficult to figure out what all this is about. Nattiez approach of now almost 25 years ago (and probably more in the original French) is somewhat outdated – as is, in my opinion, his recent book on Analyses et Interprétation de la Musique (Paris, Vrin, 2013), which reproduces the content of lectures of 1993. Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 21:06, 27 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"augmented eleventh with a bass of Bb"- is there no mistake? There is no Bb in chord, just Ab. --A1 (talk) 11:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot access Christ's book at this point, but the case seems straightforward: it is a case of implied bass, the chord being [B♭]–D–F–A♭–C–E. This being said, I think that the case of this chord hardly is worth the place taken in the article, which remains quite poor. A Wikipedia article on Music Analysis should include a section on the history of analysis, another on analytical methods, and possibly a reflexion on the philosophy of analysis. I'll come back to this as soon as I finished other urgent projects. Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 06:49, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As several of us, probably, I am reminded of articles in my watchlist whenever somebody makes a slight correction. I then come back to them, reread the whole, plus their talk page, and wonder ... In this particular case, I have some mixed feelings (to say the least) about the article and, browsing through the talk page, I must say that I am quite in agreement with the comment written more than ten years ago, Talk:Musical_analysis#What_is_this_article_about?, above.

It is true that the article has an aboundance of sources, as Hyacinth answered in 2007. But the references seem to me somehow inadequate. Much is done of Nattiez' description of the "analytic situations", but these are strongly based on Molino and Nattiez' tripartition ("Poïetic/Neutral(Immanent)/Esthesic") which becomes outdated and has appeared questionable – and was questioned, particularly in English – since quite some time. And Nattiez may have failed to understand what is specific in the analytic discourse: his six "analytic situtations" actually cover any kind of discourse about music, be it analytic or not.

What strikes me the most is, as already mentioned in the section refered to above, is that Tovey, Keller and Schenker are put somehow on the same level, while their contributions have so to say nothing in common. It seems to me that a proper article about musical analysis should at least explain in what they differ.

The section on the "techniques" of analysis is indigent, especially compared with the image in the lead section, which arranges terms in a sort of semiotic square. These terms may have been present in the article in earlier versions, but at present so to say none of them is mentioned elsewhere than in the fogure. Some seem to me utterly puzzling: "Intention", "Metaphor", particularly. Also, such a square should describe logical relations, but the fact that "Discretizaton/Reduction" and "Prolongation/Schenkerism" appear on the two ends of a diagonal makes the logic of the relations quite unclear.

I find it extremely odd that the article describes using Roman numerals as a "non-analytical activity". This must originate in the odd belief that there is no theoretic reflexion behing this use (about chord roots, their meaning in harmony, possibly their indicating musical functions, etc.), that Roman numerals merely describe music "as it is". I very strongly doubt that this ever was the belief of Edward Cone, despite what the article appears to indicate.

Etc. etc. I believe that this article is in urgent need of a thorough reorganization, because it is a very central article for the description of music understanding today – including in the case of non Western musics. Something must be said about new techniques of analysis making use of softwares, or of collective projects of analysis of large corpuses, etc. There were discussions about the relation between music theory and music analysis on SMT Discuss some years ago (What do we call music theory?,Music theory vs music analysis, and others) which might provide some ideas.

I may spend some time on this article, but this is a difficult case and any help will be much needed. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 21:23, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A recent modification of the article, and the fact that I don't understand the meaning of this modification, lends me to wonder how many people around here are still alive. The last intervention on this talk page is from more than seven years ago, and the last one that I did not write myself is more than 25 years ago.

The recent modification adds

"from a Western framework."

to an existing phrase which read

"The method employed to answer this question [about how music works], and indeed exactly what is meant by the question, differs from analyst to analyst, and according to the purpose of the analysis."

I fail to see how "the purpose of the analysis" could depend "from a Western framework." Does that mean that there are other, non-Western purposes of analysis? I'd be interested to know about these...

But I may not have correctly understood the modification by Jmp_codecreatedesign, and I'd be interested if she could explain it. At least, she is among the few ones apparently still interested with this article. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 20:31, 21 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]