Listening-Oriented Analysis and Analytical Techniques 

音樂聆聽與分析技巧

Instructor：Yuh-wen Wang

Semester：Spring 2007, Spring 2006, Fall 2004, Spring 2003

Credit：3

Description

This course is primarily an analysis course. It introduces various analytical methodologies, and guides students to analyze the music they select. The analytical techniques taught here are based upon our listening experience, rather than simply abstract reasoning.

Course goals

1. to cultivate keen sensitivity to musical sounds in students;

2. to develop analytical ability based upon one’s own listening experience

3. to practice various analytical techniques;

4. to know how to select proper analytical methods and make meaning analysis for the music selected.

Content

The primary focus is analytical methodology for non-western-tonal music.

That is, western tonal music is not analyzed in this course. (This is because it

is taught is another course.)

Various analytical methods are included in this course, each occupying one to

three weeks. They are:

Schenkerian/linear analysis

analysis of modes and scalar pitch collections

set-theoretical analysis

Implication-realization analysis

paradigmatic and syntagmatic analyses

spectral analysis

ad hoc analysis

First Assignment

Each student should bring a piece for class analytical discussion in week 2.

The style can be traditional, modern, popular, ... etc., but not western tonal. In the class she should explain why she choose that piece, what perplexes her, what intrigues here, what is her understanding of the sound structure, etc.

Weekly Assignment

Students should turn in their weekly assignments before 5PM each Monday. They can be transmitted through email or fax. A grade point (e.g., A→A-) will be deducted for each half day’s delay. Since the assignment will be discussed in class on Wednesday, no late assignment will be accepted after the class.

Final project

This project comprises of two parts—oral and written. Students are expected to present detailed analysis on a musical piece selected by the student in consultation with the instructor. This should include at lease two analytical methods taught in the class.

Syllabus

1. Introduction

2. Cone, “Analysis Today”;

Syrinx—pitch center

3. Cook, A Guide to Musical Analysis

Syrinx—sections, development

4. Linear analysis: Syrinx

5. modes and scalar pitch collections

Syrinx;

6. Bartok, Mikrokosmos

7. Implication-realization analysis

8. pitch class, interval class analysis:

Sessions, From My Diary, no. 2

Pitch class; interval class

9. Schoenberg Orchestral Pieces, Op.16/3,

“Farben”: pitch-class & interval-class structure

10. “Farben” overall observation;

pitch-class & interval-class structure

11. Burkhart, “Schoenberg’s Farben”;

Cogan & Escot 365-74 & 412-28;

Forte 166-77;

12. timber analysis; spectral analysis:

Sound Forge softward

13. analytical practice—nanguan

14. analytical practice—

Sujechon (《壽齊天》)

15. student presentation

16. student presentation

Deadline for 1st ed. Of the final paper：6/6

Bibliography

Burkhart, Charles. “Schoenberg’s Farben: An Analysis of Op. 16, No. 3,” erspectives of NewMusic 12/1&2 (1973): 141-72.

Cogan, Robert and Pozzi Escot. Sonic Design: The Nature of Sound and Music. New Jersy: Prentice Hall, 1976.

Cone, Edward T. “Analysis Today,” in his Music: A View from Delft.

----------. “Three Ways of Reading a Detective Story,” in his Music: A View from Delft. Cook, Nicholas. A Guide to Musical Analysis. New York: George Braziller, 1987.

----------. Analysing Musical Multimedia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

----------. “Theorizing Musical Multimedia,” Music Theory Spectrum 23/2 (2001): 170-95.

Ferrara, Lawrence. “Phenomenology as a Tool for Musical Analysis,” Musical Quarterly 70 (1984)

Forte, Allen. The Structure of Atonal Music. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973.

Goldsworthy, David. “Cyclic Properties of Indonesian Music,” Journal of Musicological Research 24 (2005): 309-33.

Kostka, Stefan. Materials and Techniques of Twentieth-Century Music. New Jersy: Prentice Hall, 1990.

Lester, Joel. Analytic Approaches to Twentieth-Century Music. New York: Norton, 1989.

Meyer, Leonard B. Explaining Music: Essays and Explorations. The University of Chicago Press, 1973.

----------. Emotion and Meaning in Music. The University of Chicago Press, 1956.

Narmour, Eugene. The Analysis and Cognition of Basic Melodic Structures: the Implication-Realization Model. (Chicago, 1990).

----------. Analysis and Cognition of Melodic Complexity: the Implication-Realization Model. (Chicago, 1992).

Rahn, John. Basic Atonal Theory. New York: Schirmer, 1980.

Strauss, Joseph. Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory. 2nd. Ed. New Jersy: Prentice Hall, 2000.

王育雯.〈音樂，身心狀態，與道德性情──由韓國宮廷音樂《壽齊天》的經驗談起〉，《2001 年中華民國民族音樂學會學術研討會論文集》。台北市：中華民國民族音樂學會, 2001。

----------.〈音樂現代主義，停滯感，與《春之祭》〉，《台大文史哲學報》61 期 (2004/11): 53-102.