Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis. Edited by John Covach and Graeme M. Boone. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Expression in Pop-Rock Music: A Collection of Critical and Analytical Essays. Edited by Walter Everett. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 2000.

Abstract

In the intense disciplinary upheavals of the last fifteen years or so within music scholarship, music analysis has been one of the most contentious areas of debate The sense of conflict arises from a confluence of factors: all music scholars who wish to describe the details of musical style must employ some form of music analysis, yet the very strengths of music-analytical practice Ð its ability to describe musical events with precision, its ability to explain details of musical style and demonstrate structural interrelationships Ð are couched in a technical meta-language that seems resistant to socio-cultural analysis, an area of particular interest for those involved in the self-critique of the field. Concurrent with the apearance of what are probably the best-known denouncements of analysis as formalist and tautological by Joseph Kerman in the early to mid-1980s, musicologists who were sympathetic to aspects of KermanÕs critique explored ways to harmonise the description and analysis of musical details with methods of analysis derived from different aspects of cultural theory. Many of the scholars seeking new applications for music analysis also pursued the related project of understanding the socio-historical context for music analysis itself and of unpacking the aesthetic values couched within the apparently neutral practice of analysis.