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<div dir="ltr"> In the same gesture, Professor Malitz makes a point that is both valid and egregious. The suggestion from the Abbate/Parker quote that analyzing the note-structures of an opera can be misleading or misguided, thus eminently dispensable, is of course self-evident on one level. Analysis of any piece of music that includes text, but ignores its role(s), will become semantically one-sided, to a greater or lesser extent. Somewhat ironically, analysis of an oral tradition tune family such as the <i>passamezzo moderno</i> ["Amazing Grace"/Pachelbel Can{n}on/Alexandrov] bass pattern, can probably get away with ignoring the text rather better than a consideration of a Schubert song, or <i>Wozzeck</i>. In the latter instances, the influence of the course of the text on the course of the music is sufficiently integral and profound that a strictly "note"-based approach will border on violence to the piece as a whole.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"> To the extent that Abbate/Parker are suggesting or claiming that "mere notes" are dispensable in opera analysis because it is an inextricably integral form of expression, their statement is reasonable; as far as it goes. But to suggest that analysis perforce means semantically sundering the tones from the words and the action is preposterous. We saw the quote offered here as a rationalization for not including notation; let's hope that their book doesn't take that as license to ignore music!</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"> But Professor Malitz also suggests that his form of analysis successfully pits "experience" against "[the] notes." Without further and very serious qualification, this is absurd. If it is true that myopic--or whatever the acoustical equivalent of "myopic" should be--forms of analysis tacitly define "the notes" as "those black thingies on the score page," the only workable conception of "the notes" is "what we experience"; or, if you will, in the case of vocal and dramatic music, "an integral part of what we experience." Save for the purposes of a limited if not trivial polemic, the contradistinction of notes and experience is flat wrong, I believe.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">MW Morse</div><div dir="ltr">Trent University<br><br><div><div id="SkyDrivePlaceholder"></div>Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2012 20:35:04 -0700<br>From: imalitz@omsmodel.com<br>To: smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org<br>Subject: [Smt-talk] Fwd: the impossibility of listening<br><br><pre>I don't find the authors' comments to be disturbing.<br>In my own research, I am concerned with the analysis of music from the <br>"experiential" side - I'm interested in how music stimulates listeners <br>(from an aesthetic point of view)<br>I find my kind of analysis to be fascinating, deep, enlightening in many <br>ways. (It even sheds light on the analysis of musical scores)<br>It has its own rigor, although that rigor is different from the rigor of <br>conventional note-centric musical analysis.<br>I have also found that my kind of analysis is not popular in the <br>mainstream of musical academicians.<br> <br>So, the author's approach to discussing opera (via experience rather <br>than notes) seems a natural approach.<br>I look forward to reading their book!<br> <br>[The negative comments I have seen in this thread just seem to express <br>resistance to something that I think is new and good]<br> <br> <br>Isaac Malitz, Ph.D.<br>www.OMSModel.com<br>imalitz@rdic.com<br> <br> <br> <br>Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker: "...we wanted to write a book without <br>reference to musical scores."<br> <br> <br></pre><br>_______________________________________________
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