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From: mrsmith@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Mr. P. H. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: Categories of Musicological Analysis
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Date: 18 Aug 90 17:02:44 GMT
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Before I respond I must say that I clearly indicated that I was
proposing categories of "musicological analysis."  I DO NOT consider
these to be exhaustive of all categories of musical research of any
kind.  I have written more about this in another posting below
[Musicology and Music Research]

The first category of musicological analysis I had proposed was

	1. Primary Sound (any sound or silence without rhythm,
melody, harmony, or lyrics, but with choate musical value)

lseltzer@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Linda Ann Seltzer) responded:

	The main problem with this categorization is that is has an
	inheretly Western musical bias.  I.E., the category of 	"primary
	sound" seems be a catch-all for any sound that 	doesn't follow
	traditional Western musical procedures. ...

Do you think that "rhythm, melody, harmony, and lyrics" are "Western
musical procedures?"  I don't, and I don't think any non-western
musician would agree with you, if you arrogantly claim that rhythm,
melody, harmony, and lyrics are Western musical procedures.  Primary
sound without any of the other elements is as rare in Asian and
African music as it is in Western music.  So, I guess I still cannot
see the Western Bias you're talking about.  Please explain in more
detail the other categories that I left out that do not have this
Western Bias.

You also claim that

	Musicological analysis usually starts with a reference to
	who produces the music, rather than to the acoustics of
	individual phrases and sounds. 

First, I did not mention anything about acoustics - which I think is
nowhere to be found in musicological analysis.  Primary sound, as I
indicated, has to have "choate musical value."  Where did you find
acoustics?  And I don't agree that musicological analysis "usually
starts with a reference to who produces the music."  I mean, how many
articles about Schubert songs begin by saying, "Dietrich Fischer
Diskau produced this music, and now I am going to analyze it thus..."

Apparently you also think that lyrics as I defined it is too narrow.
You suggest calling this

	relationship of music to text (rather than "lyrics", a word
	which assumes certain composition processes which might not
	occur in certain types of music, such as improvised Indian
	ragas where syllables are insterspersed with words). 

But you will shoot yourself in the foot with this one because the word
"text" means just what we all think it means (i.e., the wording,
usually printed or written, of an author's utterance).  You must
understand, therefore, that text can never be a musical element.  I
defined lyrics as a "verbal and semantic overlay" on rhythm, melody,
harmony, or primary sound precisely to avoid "text," which, as a word,
usually does not have anything to do with music. Lyrics (of the lyre)
almost always does.  The key is VERBAL.  Text is never verbal, lyrics
usually are (only when they're written, they're a text).  I also
prefer lyrics because it has always been used - since antiquity - to
have something to do with music.  Anyway, you have correctly
identified the nebulous boundary between lyrics and primary sound by
bringing up the example of improvised, non-semantic syllables.
Indeed, the boundaries between all of these categories are
overlapping, but I have tried to define them as distinct AND to show
their interrelationship.   

The reason I gave a definition of the word lyrics is because the one I
understand to be common is not precise enough in this case.  So please
recognize that I have redefined the term and not mentioned anything at
all about *how* music manages to get a lyric overlay in a particular
instance (i.e., it does not matter whether someone first wrote down
the lyrics, or whether they are just now making them up.  The end
result is the same: a semantic and verbal overlay.  BTW, according to
Webster's lyrics are "the words of a song, as distinguished from the
music."  I think that this is incorrect.  The lyrics are as much a
part of the music as the rhythm and melody.  Moreover, as you and I
pointed out, lyrics need not be limited to words.

But, when you say 

	If one desires to examine music in relation to text, one
	may also cross interdisciplinary boundaries by examining
	the relationship of music to visual art, theater, and dance

I must agree.  But you should realize that I have not suggested
examining music in relation to text.  I have suggested only that
lyrics is a category of musicological analysis because it is
understood to be part of music.  The way you construe it, I get the
impression that music and text are to be understood in their
traditional meaning (i.e., mutually exclusive).  If you don't mean 
this, then don't use the word text and don't say "music in relation to
text" where text is something not music. 

Finally, you have also misunderstood the sixth category,
corpographics.  You say

	Your sixth category seemed to combine architectural
	acoustics and theater

That term I chose carefully (it was invented by Gerald Otte, a
choreographer), but I perhaps misled you with my examples.  I said
that corpographics, as a category of musicological analysis, includes 

	the staging and visual presentation in all of its aspects -
	i.e., is the music in a church, a stadium, in headphones, etc.

I could not list everything here like, are the musicians wearing
anything?  Are they dressed like waiters?  Is there an obvious leader?
Are they moving or sitting or both? ... Is the music outside,
amplified, drunk, on a CD player, imagined?  Is the listener lying
down, sitting, eating, dancing, praying?  You get my drift.  I did not
mean just "architectural acoustics" (again you put acoustics in there.
Where do you keep finding that?) If you think these things have no
place in musicological analysis, you will have anyone who believes
that opera is music, Christopher Hogwash and the period performance
people, and ethnomusicologists shaking their heads in disagreement.

Paul Smith
mrsmith@ai.mit.edu