A Theory of Music Analysis

This book introduces a theory of music analysis that one can use to explore aspects of segmentation and associative organization in a wide range of repertoire including Western classical music from the Baroque to the present with potential applications to jazz and popular music and some non-Western musics. Rather than a methodology the theory provides analysts with precise language and a broad flexible conceptual framework through which they can formulate and investigate questions of interest and develop their own interpretations of individual pieces and passages. The theory begins with a basic distinction among three domains of musical experience and discourse about it: the sonic (psychoacoustic); the contextual (or associative sparked by varying degrees of repetition); and the structural (guided by a specific theory of musical structure or syntax invoked by the analyst). A comprehensive presentation of the theory with copious musical illustrations is balanced with close analyses of works by Beethoven Debussy Nancarrow Riley Feldman and Morris.<BR><BR>Dora A. Hanninen is associate professor of music theory at the University of Maryland. She received the 2010 Outstanding Publication Award from the Society for Music Theory.