A Guide to Musical Analysis

by Nicholas Cook

In this extremely practical introduction to musical analysis, the author explores the factors that give unity and coherence to musical masterpieces, seeking the answers mainly in the formal and harmonic structure of individual compositions. The text is divided into two part One deals with the most important analytical methods current in the English-speaking world, treating each in turn. They are presented method by method because each one involves a characteristic set of beliefs and it is important to identify those beliefs i order to avoid applying inappropriate techniques that produce irrelevant data. The question of how you decide what method to adopt is addressed in the second part of the book, in which given compositions rather than given analytical methods form the starting point. The analyses in this section are each designed to highlight a different aspect of analytical procedure.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Reference

386 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Nicholas Cook is a British musicologist and writer. In 2009 he became the 1684 Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge, where he is a Fellow of Darwin College. Previously, he was professorial research fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he directed the Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music (CHARM). He has also taught at the University of Hong Kong, University of Sydney, and University of Southampton, where he served as dean of arts.

He is a former editor of the Journal of the Royal Musical Association and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2001.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frankly as incomprehensible and incoherent as some of the 'problem pieces' Cook largely fails to make in any way clearer to the beleaguered reader. After spending countless hours engaging with this book, I have truly questioned my own desires to pursue academic music further. Not only is Cook's writing so densely unintelligible at the best of times (thanks to his lack of coherent explanation or reduction of the scope of any of his investigations), the formatting of his figures are as hopelessly unhelpful as possible. A favourite was turning the page mid-sentence only to find a following 5 pages of random scores Cook references 10 pages prior, before finishing his sentence after these. Cook spends the first few chapters racing through similar styles of analysis (mostly Schenkerian derived), yet does not stop to explain them, instead launching into complex analyses of pieces having expected you to already come to terms entirely with these niche methods of analysis. He is concerningly infatuated with Schenkerian analysis, and attempts to shoehorn this in to practically every page of the book, although most especially so towards the end in his engagement of 'problem pieces', which assuredly the use of Schenkerian analysis does not aid in enlightening. Perhaps my 2 diplomas in performance, my acceptance into an Oxford music bachelors, and 11 years of engaging with music still make me too novice to interpret this book for 'beginners'. If you'd like to waste around 100 hours attempting to read biased analyses of scores that are either haphazardly splayed out throughout the book, or simply impossible to find online, then this book will entice you. Cook even warns himself for his analysis of an entire problem piece that the recording he uses (in the absence of a score) for the analysis is 'deleted'. So you just have to take his word for everything he says. An interesting exercise in the academic bias, inaccessibility, and incoherence of a supposed analytical master.

[Tom Blurbgess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the steepest learning curve I've had from cover to cover, having had a general music education but not come across any of the analytical methods (from Schenkerian to set-theoretical, with excursions into semiology). If you stick through it though, totally worth it! Incredibly well-written and condensed, impartial with the right examples for each case - a rare event to find such a well-written pedagogical book by a scholar, and still holds up a few decades later.

[Blunt Of Mercia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am convinced musical analysis abstracted from practical music is completely useless. Did Bach draw a spider's web's worth of lines over his scores to find out what he was doing? It is only when perusing such books that one finds with dismay that "Musik ist tot!" — that art and creativity are utterly foreign to the pages, practicality is consigned to oblivion and sophistry reigns.

Perhaps this is why the music of the 20th century came increasingly to sound like secondary literature.

[Tanya Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was clear Schenker was a major love of Cook's (the author), and I can't help but feel the information I gathered from reading this book was largely influenced by Schenkerian attitudes. For example, I noted that Cook, in the middle of explaining other methods of analysis, would suddenly turn to criticising them, and then defending (by sometimes randomly bringing up) Schenkerian analysis as an all-round useful tool for understanding how music is heard and experienced. I simply can't get behind that angle, particularly with Cook's statements earlier in the book about the exclusionary nature of Schenkerian methods (the words "worthless" and "racialised" go poorly in establishing theory, I feel), and the fact that there are plenty of other analysis methods that he derides that actually lend themselves to more than just Baroque and Classical Germanic musics. I particularly liked the idea of analysis founded on rhythms, namely those found in poetic forms (Meyer? this could be extended to non-Latin/Germanic- based languages, too), and sequencing formal-melodic structures through diagrams (Adams?). These explanations were thorough, but, again, tainted a bit by the running theme of praising Schenkerians at every possible opportunity.

[Richard Pohl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slight disappointment overall, yet still worth of reading... the book is as most of the Western publications of this kind very Schenkerian (although it shows alternate methods it is clear which one the author prefer) - good enough for a Czech reader (our analytical theories never took much from Schenker at all). I expect to put my hands on some purely Schenkerian book soon, too, anyway. The most interesting for me were parts treating the topic of comparative methods and few model analysis attached to the last portion of the book. Recommended.

[Javier Guijarro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una introducción muy clara a distintos tipos de análisis, y unos cuantos análisis bastante lúcidos. Lo mejor es, para mí, el estilo tan claro de la prosa de Cook, incluso cuando trata temas difíciles.