mrsmith@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Mr. P. H. Smith) (08/17/90)
First, thanks to all who sent suggestions for where to look for examples of the divisions of music. They were all very helpful. Now, my next question is What are the basic categories of musicological analysis? In other words, in what few basic categories can all musico-analytic problems be understood? Here is my first stab at the problem: 1. Primary Sound (any sound or silence without rhythm, melody, harmony, or lyrics, but with choate musical value) 2. Rhythmics (the regularization of primary sound in alternation with silence) 3. Harmonics (musical reference to an articulated tonal field such as a scale, the overtone series, etc.) 4. Melodics (Logicial discursive overlays on 1, 2, and 3 above) 5. Lyrics (Verbal and semantic overlay on 1, 2, or 3 above - includes song texts, but not vocalises - maybe includes the Teacher in Charlie Brown TV shows) 6. Corpographics (the staging and visual presentation in alles its aspects - i.e., is the music in a church, a stadium, in headphones, etc.) I think these six categories can serve to cover any and all problems in musicological analysis in a meaningful way. That is, they are not too broad and they are logically related to one another. But, of course some of you will have better ideas about this. And that is what I think would be interesting to hear about. So, please let me know what you think of. Thanks. Paul Smith mrsmith@ai.mit.edu
lseltzer@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Linda Ann Seltzer) (08/17/90)
>Now, my next question is What are the basic categories of musicological >analysis? In other words, in what few basic categories can all >musico-analytic problems be understood? >Here is my first stab at the problem: > > 1. Primary Sound (any sound or silence without rhythm, melody, >harmony, or lyrics, but with choate musical value) > > 2. Rhythmics (the regularization of primary sound in >alternation with silence) > > 3. Harmonics (musical reference to an articulated tonal field >such as a scale, the overtone series, etc.) > > 4. Melodics (Logicial discursive overlays on 1, 2, and 3 >above) > > 5. Lyrics (Verbal and semantic overlay on 1, 2, or 3 above - >includes song texts, but not vocalises - maybe includes the Teacher in >Charlie Brown TV shows) > > 6. Corpographics (the staging and visual presentation in alles >its aspects - i.e., is the music in a church, a stadium, in >headphones, etc.) The main problem with this categorization is that is has an inheretly Western musical bias. I.E., the category of "primary sound" seems be a catch-all for any sound that doesn't follow traditional Western musical procedures. At the same time, there are categories which relate to both Western and non-Western music which have been excluded here. Musicological analysis usually starts with a reference to who produces the music, rather than to the acoustics of individual phrases and sounds. Thus we have historical musicology ethnomusicology or comparative musicology. Systematic musicology moves away from this and you move along the continuum until you reach disciplines which do analyze music on the basis of acoustical properties of sound. Musical acoustics, as reported in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, is such a discipline. In acoustics we would normally talk about pitch (rather than melody), timbre (rather than harmonics), temporal properties (rhythm is probably an acceptable term, but one might wish to analyze the temporal properties of a sound on a more microscopic level), relationship of music to text (rather than "lyrics", a word which assumes certain composition processes which might not occur in certain types of music, such as improvised Indian ragas where syllables are insterspersed with words). If one desires to examine music in relation to text, one may also cross interdisciplinary boundaries by examining the relationship of music to visual art, theater, and dance. Your sixth category seemed to combine architectural acoustics and theater - there are situations in which such matters should be treated together and other situations where they are distinct disciplines.
rjenkins@.com (Robert Jenkins) (08/19/90)
A random idea:
I had an idea for analyzing music which I've been trying to develop
into something concrete. Music has melodies, countermelodies,
rhythms, et cetera. What I am thinking of I will call a motif. I
think songs are defined by their motif, this motif is repeated over
and over again, but in many different ways.
A motif is usually about two seconds long -- that is, if you
listen to a song for four seconds, you can probably pick out its
motif. It is like the mood, but it is more definite. It is a rhythm
of notes, their times and their emphasis. It is how the notes rise
and fall, but not the exact intervals. It is how the notes are
executed. When you hear a motif, you identify it with its song.
In barbershop, the fact that voices are voices, are a capella,
in close harmony, and moving together is part of the motif. If you do
barbershop, note for note, slur for slur, with a string quartet, you
don't have barbershop.
In The Pink Panther, it is t-T-t-T, as if sneaking around, and a
tendency to run through the chromatic scale. Brass helps. It doesn't
matter if the notes are rising or falling, although they should be one
or the other. The motif is repeated many times throughout the melody,
but differently every time.
In Beethoven's 5th, d-d-d-Da is the motif. d-d-d is the
approach, Da is the arrival. Da is different from d-d-d. How? it
varies. The motif applies to sequences of phrases as well as notes,
with many held-back phrases building up to a blatent one.
Bach uses motifs everywhere; he needs to. His motifs includes
a recognizable rhythm of notes, but the intervals are flexible
depending on the harmony he is matching. Jumps still occur at the
same places, but whether the jumps are up or down or big or small
varies. His chord progressions are virtually independent of his
melodies because he doesn't use melodies, he uses motifs.
I like the idea of motifs because it explains why some
musicians consistently produce good work, and why musicians need to be
cool. The motif is an abstraction which unifies a song. The whole
song should be true to its pattern, but the actual notes that form
that pattern can and should vary wildly. Making a flexible motif
takes creativity, finding different ways to display its pattern takes
imagination.
What is this concept really called? Are these assertions
true? If they are, there is a problem with writing down music.
Motifs often contain elements which cannot be written down. This may
not be true for Bach Inventions, but it certainly is for the blues.
Given the notes, you can only make guesses at what the song really is.
- Bob Jenkins
rjenkins@oracle.oracle.commrsmith@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Mr. P. H. Smith) (08/19/90)
In article <1990Aug19.001007.6827@oracle.com> rjenkins@oracle.UUCP (Robert Jenkins) writes: >A motif is usually about two seconds long -- that is, if you >listen to a song for four seconds, you can probably pick out its >motif. It is like the mood, but it is more definite. It is a rhythm >of notes, their times and their emphasis. It is how the notes rise >and fall, but not the exact intervals. It is how the notes are >executed. When you hear a motif, you identify it with its song. > Are you saying that motif is a general rhythmic and pitch contour? If so, how is it that instrumentation can be part of the motive? (Sorry, I accidentally deleted what you said about barbershop quartet music being non-convertible, motif-wise, to string quartet music). > [...] >I like the idea of motifs because it explains why some >musicians consistently produce good work, and why musicians need to be >cool. Wow, you really must elaborate on this! I had the notion that musicians had to be cool depending on their personalities and the social expectations of their musical community. To think that something like motif is the reason musicians need to be cool is really quite remarkable. I wish you would explain how you think this might be so. >The motif is an abstraction which unifies a song. This could be anything from "the human mind" to Platonic forms to the Schenkerian Ursatz. >What is this concept really called? Are these assertions true? Don't know. >Motifs often contain elements which cannot be written down. This may >not be true for Bach Inventions, but it certainly is for the blues. Most mysterious, really. You imply that motifs in Bach can be written down, but not in the blues. >Given the notes, you can only make guesses at what the song really >is. What do you mean by "notes" here? The written notes? The sounds? If you mean written notes, I suppose you are right. Learning to read music is learning to make educated guesses at "what the song really is." As Mahler said, everything is in the score but the essential. Maybe he meant something like your idea of motif? > - Bob Jenkins > rjenkins@oracle.oracle.com Paul Smith mrsmith@ai.mit.edu
rmurtha@lotus.com (Rob Murtha - Lotus) (08/21/90)
How about dynamics? Rarely does any musical thought pattern lack dynamics or changes in volume, and or sound velocities. rmurtha@voyager.lotus.com