Style Analysis II

Read chapter "Idiom" in Hopkins’ Understanding Music pp. 86-117

Jan LaRue developed a very clear and concise way of analyzing all kinds of music. He intended the technique for musicians who had been burdened with progressively more convoluted analytical hoops through which to jump. Suddenly in 1970, he presented the book Guidelines for Style Analysis from which this brief overview is taken. It is a marvel of clear writing and sensible approach to a complex problem, namely: "How do we make heads and tails of a wide range of musical styles from an analytical standpoint?" LaRue's points of departure are carefully chosen to cover the essential elements of music. They could be used by anyone to gain appreciation or insight into a musical work. Its application to dance is easy since the first sentence acknowledges the oneness of music/dance: "Music is essentially movement; it is never wholly static." Together they are SHMERG(T)!

LaRue's style analysis is based on the combination of :

1) Three Standard Dimensions: Large, Middle and Small

Small: Motive, Subphrase, Phrase

Middle: Sentence, Paragraph, Section, Part

Large: Movement, Work, Groups of Works

2) Four Contributing Elements: Sound, Harmony, Melody and Rhythm [Copland is virtually identical on these]

3) The Fifth Resultant Element: Growth

(Change over Time Factor]

If you take these overall areas of analytic concern you can get a pretty good idea of what a piece is made of, what it has as its’ expressive materials. This is the goal of any good choreographer when s/he is considering music. I would like for you all to get a handle on this as a way to look at music, to interact with the elements of music and then to respond in choreographic terms. It is a skill which takes some time. Look these elements over and see what seems to make sense and what doesn’t. We will cover them in class.

I) Sound - all aspects of sound!

- Timbre - the colors of the sound [instrumentation].

- Dynamics - intensity of sound.

-Texture and Fabric - the arrangement of timbres both at particular moments and in the continuing unfolding of the piece.

II) Harmony - the overall dissonance and consonance, their balance and vocabulary.

a) Color - major/minor, amount and use of various harmonic elements.

b) Tension - the "fall and recovery" of music, especially resolution.

*We will look at this more closely through the semester. It is one of the most difficult points of analysis.

Words -> Grammar -> Syntax = Chords -> Progressions -> Tonality

III) Melody - "The average person probably responds more knowledgeably to melody than to any other musical element, partly because it reaches us early in the form of cradlesong and continues in adult singing of bathtub and barroom ditties. " He sounds like a lot of fun, eh?

range

mode

motion

patterns

origin: new or derived, i.e. modes or scales or something else

IV) Rhythm - all aspects of rhythm from meter to "textural rhythm, harmonic rhythm and contour rhythm".

Surface Rhythm – rhythmic vocabulary

Continuum: meter, tempo, phrasing

Interactions: textural, harmonic and contour rhythms

Patterns of change: stress, lull and transition [S L T]

Fabric

V) Growth - overall balance of parts, sectional variation relationships between various parts in all dimensions. Nature and kind of movement [change].

Large Dimensional Considerations: balance etc.

Evolution of control: what type of control?

*Sources of shape: anticipation, overlap, elision, truncation lamination

Options: recurrence, development, response contrast

Sources of Movement: conditions and types

Module

VI) Text Influence - the kind of use, characteristic flavors, influence on musical line, rhythm and texture. All aspects of the use of text and its possible ramifications.