An approach to the analysis of electro-acoustic music derived from empirical investigation and critical methodologies of other disciplines
Michael Bridger · Contemporary Music Review · 1989
Roland Barthes' S/Z (a virtuoso analysis of a short story by Balzac) yields a number of principles susceptible to modification for application to the analysis of electro-acoustic music, amongst which are his fundamental notion that a work of art carries within itself indicators of appropriate analytical method and his insistence on the primacy of experiential encounter between writing and reader (music and listener). This paper is an account of a recent research project in which an analytical approach to a group of electro-acoustic works was developed from the reported experience of listeners, aided by diagrammatic scores that helped to focus attention and identify points for discussion. Barthes' system of codes of meaning was adapted, and further useful insights came from film criticism, the work of Roman Jakobson (particularly with respect to communication systems and the metaphor/metonymy dichotomy), and Arthur Koestler's notion of ‘matrices of bisociation’.