An Eclectic Method for Sound, Form, and Reference (Ferrara, Ch. 7)

Summary:
In this chapter, Ferrara presents the 10 steps of the Eclectic Method of analysis. He states that the underlying directive of the method is that the listener must maintain openness to any level of musical significance in order to account for the fact that the structures of any method significantly impacts the data that can be collected. One is to suspend prejudgments. Since it is not possible to suspend prejudgments completely, one must allow them to be subject to change. There must be a clear direction in any set of questions, whether toward sound, form, or reference, or the interactions among them. The eclectic method must support moving between asking direct questions of the work and the response of the analyst to questions pose by the work. Distinctions between explanation of form, description of sound-in-time, and interpretation of reference must be sustained. Ferrara states that the "inherent rules and logic of each system remain intact, retaining integrity, unity, and autonomy." One must not question the underlying presuppositions of individual methods, but also must include a meta-critique to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the methods and their impact on the analysis.

The steps of the Eclectic Analysis are as follows:
1) Historical Analysis: The analyst collects data about the dates of the composer, the style period, important historical events, the significance of the composer in his time, other prominent art movements or styles, and the socio-political climate. After this step, there should be no comparisons to other works or composers in the analysis.
2) Open Listening: The listener becomes oriented to the overall sound, structure,and message of the pieces and reports insights into the sound, syntax, and reference.
3) Syntax: This is a literal and direct analysis of the piece.
4) Phenomenology: This is an analysis of sound-in-time based on Husserl's theories. It is a the transition to increased use of metaphorical language. One looks at the "temporal units" which cohere and a result of the temporal direction of the passage and combine to the larger "temporal structure."
5) Textual meaning: If one is analyzing programmatic music, they would analyze the program in this step. It also includes an analysis of any text.
6) Reference to human feeling: This is based on hermeneutic phenomenology and the theories of Langer, Kivy, and Coker discussed in previous posts. One analyzes the virtual feeling of the piece, keeping in mind that music can be expressive of feeling rather than actually expressing feeling. This stage must be rooted in syntax and sound-in-time, not just ordinary emotional release. Instead of suspending them, one must review earlier insights of sound-in-time and syntax in order to insure that reference is congruent with the work's intrinsic dimensions of significance. This provides some degree of empirical adequacy.
7) Onto-historical World of the Composer: This is another referential, hermeneutic stage of analysis that uses interpretive language that discloses the referential context of the musical sounds and form. It is also grounded in sound-in-time and syntax.
8) Second Open Listening: In this second listening, the analyst can discuss any level of significance and should show that the different levels combine, as Ferrara describes it, a "dynamic and polyphonic tapestry...Each stratum remains perceptibly discreet yet there's an inner connective organicity that weaves them together in a dynamic state." The return to open listening shows that the method is circular. In the first open listening, one hears the work as an unfinished whole. In the second, the "full force of the work can begin to be experienced and reported through the interplay of various strata that constitute musical significance." This exemplifies Heidegger's strife between earth and world, or "rift-design."
9) Performance Guide: the analyst provides a performance guide to aid performers in their overall understanding of the piece and in making interpretive decisions for performance. This can include the need for crescendo or the overall message of the work. It may include technical or physical approaches to the work as well.
10) Meta-critique: This stage discusses the impact of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the methods employed. It "necessitates the examination of one's theoretical presuppositions in order to improve and extend [the analyst's] theory base." It facilitates the ongoing development of the eclectic method.

Reaction:
The most important and useful part of the eclectic analysis is arguably the fact that it doesn't claim to provide one definitive answer about a work's significants. Instead, it provides the analyst with a number of avenues to approach the piece from in order to gain insights on its many different characteristics. I am a firm believer that everything is less complicated than we can even imagine or comprehend. Because we're so "advanced," it is only possible for us to truly understand the most complicated concepts that answer the questions "how does this happen," or "how does this work." This is because we are only able to speak literally about issues of "how." We are only able to speak metaphorically about issues of "why." I think this is because we are by nature overly abstract, but I will address this at another times. The eclectic method enables us to momentarily side-step the "why" by asking "how" on 10 different levels. One collects data on how the piece came to be, how it is structured, how it is referential, how it sounds, how it can best be performed, and how the methods succeeded in providing insight and how they failed. The answers to "how" provide material to contemplate post-analysis, which point toward but never really reach an answer to "why." I think that this is excellent because I don't think we need to--or should, for that matter--know "why." If we knew, or were able to empirically discern "why," the meaning of meaning would be lost. We tend to appreciate the things we can't fully explain and take for granted the things that we are able to explain. Instead of killing the work in order to open it up and examine it cold, the eclectic analysis allows us to examine the work as it exists in life through time.