1 Music Notation as Analysis Nicolas Meeùs * The question that I want to raise is not whether the term “music”, in the expression “music analysis,” necessarily refers to its score, nor whether a score is needed to perform an analysis, but whether the score can (or must) be considered an analysis of the music that it records. My purpose is to defend the idea that notation itself, whether as part of the compositional process or as record of a music already performed, always achieves some kind of analysis, or of pre-analysis of the work that it concerns. My paper, in short, is about notation. It is well known that notation in general and Western notation (staff notation) in particular do not record all aspects of music. Notation is not a representation of the musical sound and never claimed to be such a representation. Curt Sachs, in The Rise of Music in the Ancient World, obviously speaking of vocal music, describes two sides of ancient melodies, one “logogenic” and the other “pathogenic”. Logogenic music, he says, is “word-born”, it is used “as a mere vehicle for words”, while pathogenic music “is due to an irresistible stimulus that releases the singer’s utmost possibilities.” 1 What interests me most in this is that Sachs adds, in his posthumous work The Wellsprings of Music (1962), that the ones (the pathogenic melodies) “can hardly be transcribed in the neat notation of the West,” while the others (the logogenic ones) “are less turbulent and at a pinch accessible to our five-line staffs.” 2 This already indicates that notation concerns the “linguistic” – or let’s say the semiotic aspects of music. Leonard Meyer, in “A Universe of Universals” and in other writings before, considers that music includes “syntactic” parameters, mainly pitch and duration (rhythm, meter), and “statistical” parameters, among which he quotes dynamics, tempo, “sonority” [?], and timbre. 3 Even if Meyer does not stress this aspect, it is obvious that while syntactic parameters are more or less precisely recorded in notation, the notation of statistical parameters is much less precise; it is of the order of what we call in French didascalies, verbal instructions for the player. And the syntactic aspects, once again, belong to the semiotic aspect of music, while the statistical aspects mainly concern performance. * Paper read at the Porto International Symposium on the Analysis and Theory of Music, 22 March 2019. 1 “The music considered so far is logogenic or word-born. Men […] actually use the melody as a mere vehicle for words […]. But this is only one side of primitive music. For music is often due to an irresistible stimulus that releases the singer’s utmost possibilities. Not yet able to shape such pathogenic music in premeditated longer patterns with the climax in the middle or at the end, he lends all his force and passion to the beginning of his song and lets the melody drop as his vocal chords slacken, often passing to a scarcely audible pianissimo.” Curt SACHS, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World (1943), p. 41. 2 “The most fascinating of the oldest melody patterns may be described as a ‘tumbling strain’. […] While such fierce haphazard cascades can hardly be transcribed in the neat notation of the West, others, in almost every part of the globe, are less turbulent and at a pinch accessible to our five-line staffs.” Curt SACHS, The Wellsprings of Music (1962), pp. 51-52. 3 “Because of the innate capabilities of the human mind, some parameters of sound can be segmented into perceptually discrete, proportionally related stimuli that can then serve as the basis for auditory patternings. In most musics of the world, this is the case with pitch (frequency) and duration which are the basis for melody, rhythm, meter, and (in Western music) harmony. […] I have called these parameters “syntactic”. […] Innate cognitive constraints do no, however, segment other parameters of sound into discrete, proportional relationships. For instance, there is no relationship in the realm of dynamics that corresponds to, say, a minor third or dotted rhythm. And the same is true of tempo, sonority, and timbre. […] Because they are experienced and conceptualized in terms of amount, rather than in terms of kinds or classlike relationships […], I have called these parameters “statistical”.” Leonard MEYER, “A Universe of Universals” (1998), pp. 8-9