Kevin Korsyn
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195104547
- eISBN:
- 9780199868988
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195104547.003.0010
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This chapter examines how social antagonisms produce cultural double binds, moments when individuals are caught between different communities and languages that both refuse — and yet somehow demand — ...
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This chapter examines how social antagonisms produce cultural double binds, moments when individuals are caught between different communities and languages that both refuse — and yet somehow demand — integration. In ethnomusicology, for example, such cases may arise when the history of colonialism contaminates the very methodology through which one studies oppressed cultures, leaving one without a language in which to engage the other while feeling a disciplinary imperative that one must engage the other. The essay “Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception” by music theorist David Lewin is analyzed.Less
This chapter examines how social antagonisms produce cultural double binds, moments when individuals are caught between different communities and languages that both refuse — and yet somehow demand — integration. In ethnomusicology, for example, such cases may arise when the history of colonialism contaminates the very methodology through which one studies oppressed cultures, leaving one without a language in which to engage the other while feeling a disciplinary imperative that one must engage the other. The essay “Music Theory, Phenomenology, and Modes of Perception” by music theorist David Lewin is analyzed.
Steven Rings
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195384277
- eISBN:
- 9780199897001
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195384277.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, History, Western
This book employs transformational theory to illuminate the experience of tonal music. In addition to providing an accessible primer on transformational theory, the book introduces new theoretical ...
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This book employs transformational theory to illuminate the experience of tonal music. In addition to providing an accessible primer on transformational theory, the book introduces new theoretical constructs to model familiar tonal effects. Two effects are central: the infusion of sounding pitches with tonal qualities (or qualia) and the orientation of pitches toward a tonic. Tonal qualities are modeled via a Generalized Interval System (or GIS), while tonic directedness is modeled by oriented transformational networks. The arrows in such networks animate a special class of transformational action called tonal intention—the directing of the listener's awareness toward a tonal center. The book divides into two parts. Part I addresses theoretical and methodological issues, while Part II comprises four extended analytical chapters. The analytical chapters explore the E-major Fugue from Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier; the aria “Un’aura amorosa” from Mozart's Così fan tutte; Brahms's A-major Intermezzo, op. 118, no. 2; and the slow movement from Brahms's String Quintet, op. 111. Analytical vignettes are present throughout Part I as well, demonstrating the efficacy of the book's theoretical ideas in music from Bach to Mahler. The analyses place the book's novel technologies in dialogue with existing methods for tonal analysis, including Schenkerian theory and neo-Riemannian theory.Less
This book employs transformational theory to illuminate the experience of tonal music. In addition to providing an accessible primer on transformational theory, the book introduces new theoretical constructs to model familiar tonal effects. Two effects are central: the infusion of sounding pitches with tonal qualities (or qualia) and the orientation of pitches toward a tonic. Tonal qualities are modeled via a Generalized Interval System (or GIS), while tonic directedness is modeled by oriented transformational networks. The arrows in such networks animate a special class of transformational action called tonal intention—the directing of the listener's awareness toward a tonal center. The book divides into two parts. Part I addresses theoretical and methodological issues, while Part II comprises four extended analytical chapters. The analytical chapters explore the E-major Fugue from Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier; the aria “Un’aura amorosa” from Mozart's Così fan tutte; Brahms's A-major Intermezzo, op. 118, no. 2; and the slow movement from Brahms's String Quintet, op. 111. Analytical vignettes are present throughout Part I as well, demonstrating the efficacy of the book's theoretical ideas in music from Bach to Mahler. The analyses place the book's novel technologies in dialogue with existing methods for tonal analysis, including Schenkerian theory and neo-Riemannian theory.
Kevin Korsyn
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195104547
- eISBN:
- 9780199868988
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195104547.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This book examines the struggle for the authority to speak about music at a time when the humanities are in crisis. By linking the institutions that support musical research, including professional ...
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This book examines the struggle for the authority to speak about music at a time when the humanities are in crisis. By linking the institutions that support musical research, including professional associations and universities, to complex historical changes such as globalization and the commodification of knowledge, this book undertakes a critique of musical scholarship as an institutional discourse, while contributing to a general theory of disciplinary structures that goes beyond the limits of any single field. In asking a number of fundamental questions about the models through which disciplinary objects in music are constructed, the book suggests unexpected relationships between works of musical scholarship and the cultural networks in which they participate. Thus, David Lewin's theory of musical perceptions is compared to Richard Rorty's concept of the “liberal ironist”, Susan McClary's feminist narrative of music history is juxtaposed with T.S. Eliot's “dissociation of sensibility”, and Steven Feld's work in recording the music of the Kaluli people is compared to the treatment of ambient sound in contemporary cinema. Developing a framework for interpretation in dialogue with a number of poststructuralist writers, the book goes far beyond applying their thought to the analysis of music; by showing the cultural dilemmas to which their work responds, it suggests how musical research already participates in these ideas.Less
This book examines the struggle for the authority to speak about music at a time when the humanities are in crisis. By linking the institutions that support musical research, including professional associations and universities, to complex historical changes such as globalization and the commodification of knowledge, this book undertakes a critique of musical scholarship as an institutional discourse, while contributing to a general theory of disciplinary structures that goes beyond the limits of any single field. In asking a number of fundamental questions about the models through which disciplinary objects in music are constructed, the book suggests unexpected relationships between works of musical scholarship and the cultural networks in which they participate. Thus, David Lewin's theory of musical perceptions is compared to Richard Rorty's concept of the “liberal ironist”, Susan McClary's feminist narrative of music history is juxtaposed with T.S. Eliot's “dissociation of sensibility”, and Steven Feld's work in recording the music of the Kaluli people is compared to the treatment of ambient sound in contemporary cinema. Developing a framework for interpretation in dialogue with a number of poststructuralist writers, the book goes far beyond applying their thought to the analysis of music; by showing the cultural dilemmas to which their work responds, it suggests how musical research already participates in these ideas.
Richard Cohn
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199844784
- eISBN:
- 9780190228323
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199844784.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
This chapter is an introduction to Lewin’s 1974 Morgengruß essay, presenting an account of its genesis and reception, its position within Lewin’s intellectual development, and its influence on music ...
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This chapter is an introduction to Lewin’s 1974 Morgengruß essay, presenting an account of its genesis and reception, its position within Lewin’s intellectual development, and its influence on music theorists. It contextualizes the essay’s masculine-gendered pronouns, and explores philological issues regarding the Morgengruß poem and essays.Less
This chapter is an introduction to Lewin’s 1974 Morgengruß essay, presenting an account of its genesis and reception, its position within Lewin’s intellectual development, and its influence on music theorists. It contextualizes the essay’s masculine-gendered pronouns, and explores philological issues regarding the Morgengruß poem and essays.
