- Do you have an interest in classical music?
- Are you a keen amateur musician?
- Are you a professional musician looking to increase your understanding of the music you perform?
Music exerts such a powerful effect on humanity that people have been trying to penetrate its mysteries for centuries. We might respond to a piece of music by describing it as beautiful, emotionally moving, elevating or exciting. We might feel that there is a sense of inevitability about it, such that not a single note could be changed for the better.
Musical analysis is, essentially, the attempt to bridge the gap between our intuitions about music and our conscious knowledge of it. In analysing works that we feel to be intrinsically worthwhile we are trying to correlate our subjective responses with observable properties in the music.
This course explores a number of well-established approaches to musical analysis whilst also laying due emphasis on the subjective experience of the listener and performer.
In order to do this course successfully, we recommend that you should be comfortable in reading music to a certain level. If you have studied a musical instrument to even a modest level of proficiency your music reading ability will probably be sufficient.
Similarly a basic understanding of music theory will be helpful. You need not have taken any theory exams but if your knowledge of music theory is around Grade 4 or 5 in the ABRSM theory syllabus then you should be well able to follow the course.