Musical analysis

This article is about the process or academic discipline of music analysis. For the academic journal by that name, see Music Analysis (journal).
Approaches or techniques to musical analysis. Assumption and advocating could be considered missing.
Approaches or techniques to musical analysis. Assumption and advocating could be considered missing.

Musical analysis is the study of musical structure in either compositions or performances.[1] According to music theorist Ian Bent, music analysis "is the means of answering directly the question 'How does it work?'".[2] The method employed to answer this question, and indeed exactly what is meant by the question, differs from analyst to analyst, and according to the purpose of the analysis. According to Bent, "its emergence as an approach and method can be traced back to the 1750s. However it existed as a scholarly tool, albeit an auxiliary one, from the Middle Ages onwards."[3]

The principle of analysis has been variously criticized, especially by composers, such as Edgard Varèse's claim that, "to explain by means of [analysis] is to decompose, to mutilate the spirit of a work".[4]

  1. ^ DeVoto 2003.
  2. ^ Bent 1987, 5.
  3. ^ Bent 1987, 6.
  4. ^ Quoted in Bernard 1981, 1