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Factorial Analysis of the Song as an Approach to the Formation of a Unitary Field Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Charles Seeger*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Extract

In comparison with the most admired scholarly disciplines of the twentieth century Western World, musicology has only tardily formed concepts of its total field, or universe, and of its lowest common denominator. And these concepts, such as they are, have not yet made a dent upon the “excessive historicism” still entrenched in academic fortresses. Meanwhile, the natural and social sciences have advanced from positions of main reliance upon analytical techniques to bold syntheses of universal proportions, while in musicology, even mention of synthesis is not quite respectable. It should not be, but probably is, necessary to point out that except within a universal conceptual frame and in terms of a lowest common denominator, analysis is harzardous.

Type
Techniques in the Study of Folk Music
Copyright
Copyright © International Council for Traditional Music 1968

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References

Notes

1. Knopoff, Leon, “An Index for the Relative Quality among Musical Instruments”, Ethnomusicology, VII No. 3, pp 229233 Google Scholar; Id., “Some Technological Advances in Music Analysis,” Journal of the International Folk Music Council, Vol. XVIII part 2 (Studia Musicologica, Com. VII, fasc. 1-4 1965, pp. 301-07).