Sunday, 9:00–11:15
am, Sudler Hall In W. L. Harkness (WLH)
Most musicians agree that analysis and performance complement one another. One view of the relationship is that analytical activity helps performers solve problems of notation, memory, and interpretation. While true, the assistance performance can provide to analysis is underrepresented. Another view is that performance and analysis activities are equivalent: for example, both involve an element of interpretation and both benefit from investigative processes. This view endorses dialogue but deemphasizes the richness of difference between these activities. By dwelling only within the realm of what they share, this view is unable to gain access to the contributions performance and analysis can make independently.
Another alternative is possible. Performance development and analytical activity can be seen to be engaged in a continuous spiral of influence, one inspiring the other, throughout the process of getting to know a piece of music. Charles Fisk explicitly describes his experience of the spiral, but this relationship is so natural to musicians that it often goes unnoticed or is taken for granted. This paper will demonstrate how the spiral of influence operates beneath the surface of performance-and-analysis writing, such as that of Joel Lester. Using ideas brought into focus by Andrew Mead, Lawrence Rosenwald, and Fred Maus, as well as the author’s experience in performance and analysis, this paper will explore this spiral relationship and discuss the implications of an awareness of such a relationship in analytical writing, in teaching, and in performance.
While there has been much discussion of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” in terms of its major-3rd cyclic structure, there is still no consensus in answering the simple question: “what key is it in?” This paper revisits the significant analytical work of Demsey, Jaffe, Levine, Martin, and others on “Giant Steps” in the jazz theory and pedagogy writings. Although the strongest argument supports the view that its tonal center is Eb, other readings can also be convincingly argued by emphasizing different characteristics of tonal structure: a B tonal center, being in two or three keys at once, and of being non-tonal. Building on these perspectives, new analyses are presented that can more clearly model the varied tonal readings possible for this groundbreaking work. Further, several recordings of “Giant Steps” (and related pieces) are considered – by Coltrane and later jazz performers – that creatively portray both conventional and alternative analytical perspectives. Recorded performances and arrangements by Alice Coltrane, Woody Herman, Jaco Pastorius, Buddy Rich, and Maria Schneider, among others, are surveyed showing a wide diversity of tonal interpretations, yet each rooted in aspects of Coltrane’s original 1959 recording.
Our paper examines a few of the ways in which analysis and performance have been related in the music-theoretic literature. Based on this examination, the paper questions some of the assumptions about the nature of analysis, and proposes a new type of analysis—“performer’s analysis.”
Much “analysis and performance” literature privileges analysis of the score or analysis of some aural image represented by the score. However, kinesthetic experience forms an integral part of a performer’s knowledge of a work. Performance and analysis, if it is to take performance seriously, must explore performers’ physical knowledge of works.
We define “performer’s analysis” as analysis that addresses a piece as a performer knows it, and explore characteristics of such an analysis. To illustrate what such an approach might contribute to analytic discussion, we analyze the opening cadenza from Ravel’s Concerto for the Left Hand. Our analysis draws on our experience as performers of the work. (This paper is co-authored by a theorist/pianist and a concert pianist.) Demonstrating at the piano, we show how physical and structural interact in the work, and how their convergences and divergences contribute to the experience of the performer and/or audience.
Our findings demonstrate that “performer’s analysis” in general, and analysis of the kinesthetic in particular, have much to contribute to the field of analysis and performance.