# What kind of musical analysis has helped you?



## Roger Knox

What kind of musical analysis has helped you? Give an example from a particular composition.


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## BBSVK

I like reading stuff like this as a consumer. 
I do not play an instrument or sing.









Norma Online Course by Dr. Paul Dorgan | Part 3: THE MUSICAL STORY OF NORMA – ACT 1


by Dr. Paul Dorgan *Note: All video excerpts are drawn from a 1978 performance of Norma for The Australian Opera, featuring Joan Sutherland in the title role. Norma was given its first performance at Milan’s La Scala on December 26, 1831. The libretto, by Bellini’s regular librettist Felice...




utahopera.org













Norma Online Course by Dr. Paul Dorgan | Part 4: THE MUSICAL STORY OF NORMA – ACT 2


by Dr. Paul Dorgan *Note: All video excerpts are drawn from a 1978 performance of Norma for The Australian Opera, featuring Joan Sutherland in the title role. Norma At the top of Act 2, we remain in Norma’s home. The full orchestra blares a fortissimo D. Silence. Orchestra repeats its D, and...




utahopera.org


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## Nate Miller

Shenkerian Analysis I think can give some better insight to a work than an analysis of the chord functions

but as a musician, I think psychological analysis probably has helped me the most


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## mikeh375

TBH, my own methods of analysis where the most helpful because they where focused on what I needed or wanted to know at the time during my formative years. I'm guessing as a composer yourself Roger you'll get this. Self reliance (aided with good texts, scores and plenty of practice), is a good way to sharpen one's musical wits I've found.


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## Bwv 1080

As no doubt everyone is sick of me flogging here, I am a big fan of schema analysis as a more natural, musician friendly way to understand CP music which is more in line to how 18th and 19th century composers actually thought about music






Galant Schemas – OPEN MUSIC THEORY







viva.pressbooks.pub


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## Roger Knox

In Canada many pianists and other musicians do ARCT (Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto) diplomas requiring exams in performance and theory. For the Form exam (theory) one of the works I had to study was Beethoven's Sonata Op. 53, "Waldstein." The analysis was basically descriptive, phrase by phrase, along the lines of Donald Tovey's analyses; at the exam you couldn't use score or notes. Having that analysis by memory helped me when learning and performing the Waldstein for my third-year recital, which was successful. Much of it is still present to me now 50 years later: the innovative key relationships, expanded scope of the sonata form, thoroughgoing use of brief motifs, and the sheer _presence _and _uniqueness _of this piece. Descriptive analysis isn't rocket science. This happens here, that happens there, here's the relationship, see the cumulative effect of such relationships within the large structure. Music is apprehended physically, cognitive, and emotionally; analysis shouldn't be only an intellectual exercise. Memorization of both the work and the analysis allows one to assume it internally, so that it plays on you.


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## Roger Knox

BBSVK said:


> I like reading stuff like this as a consumer.
> I do not play an instrument or sing.


Some will say these descriptive analyses are not "analysis," and they are right in the academic sense of the word. But an analysis doesn't have to be original; it is enough to be accurate and based on reputable sources. From there the writer has has to point up the most important features appropriately, and that is enough for this example and its intended audience.

Thanks for being the only responder to provide an example from a particular composition, as requested in the OP.


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## Roger Knox

Nate Miller said:


> Shenkerian Analysis I think can give some better insight to a work than an analysis of the chord functions
> 
> but as a musician, I think psychological analysis probably has helped me the most


Aha, psychology is a very important area for musicians.

I studied Schenkerian analysis and used it in a thesis. It focuses on the linear and contrapuntal aspects of a composition at different structural levels. I think it is a valuable procedure, but it shouldn't be the only kind of analysis even in the repertoire for which it is intended: 18th- and 19th-century music.


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## Bwv 1080

Here is a good example of schema applied to the Eroica symphony, the author identifies a common le-sol-fi-sol pattern popular in the 1790s to prepare a modulaton by third, which ties exactly to the opening dozen bars of the Erioica with the le-sol-fi-sol centered on the leading tone, D


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## Roger Knox

mikeh375 said:


> TBH, my own methods of analysis where the most helpful because they where focused on what I needed or wanted to know at the time during my formative years. I'm guessing as a composer yourself Roger you'll get this. Self reliance (aided with good texts, scores and plenty of practice), is a good way to sharpen one's musical wits I've found.


Mikeh375, It sounds like analysis of music was an ongoing self-directed program for you. That makes sense to me, since if I remember correctly you've worked in more than one area of music. Also it sounds like you aligned analysis closely with compositional techniques or features that you were using or wanted to use. Could you perhaps briefly describe one example of a work by another composer that you analysed for those purposes?


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