Chapter 7 Ferrara – An Eclectic Method for Sound, Form and Reference

Chapter 7
Ferrara – An Eclectic Method for Sound, Form and Reference

Summary

In this chapter, Ferrara finally consolidates and summarizes the various topics he has discussed in the previous chapters. As he previously did, he cautions readers to expect data/answers based on how questions and methods of analysis are structured, yet also reminds them that there must be discernible boundaries.

The ten steps of the Eclectic Method of Analysis are as follows:

1. Place the piece under study within a framework/historical context

(Ex. Important dates for the composers, historical information, societal issues at the time, etc.)

2. Conduct an “open listening” of the piece

The listener must free himself from all prior knowledge and biases and approach the piece with complete openness

3. A conventional method of analysis is used to examine musical syntax

4. Sound-in-time

The phenomenological aspects of the piece are examined

5. Referential meaning – Level One: Musical Representation

The meaning of the music in and/or based on a text

6. Referential meaning – Expressivity of Human Feeling

The listener must take a stance that is detached from human feeling, but remain grounded in syntax and sound-in-time

7. Referential meaning – Onto-historial world of the composer

Exploring the world, culture, society, etc. of the composer in which the piece the piece was written

8. Return to “open listening”, keeping the prior data collected in mind

9. Performance Guide

A guide presented to the listener to aid him in the overall understanding of the work and in making interpretive decisions for performance

10. Meta-Critique – an overall assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the analysis presented


Reaction

It is SO refreshing to read a simplified version of the culmination of the book and the individual aspects of methods of analysis. Furthermore, it makes it exponentially easier to understand, engage in, and eventually employ. To borrow a line from Ferrara, I now feel like I know the "discernible boundaries" of the Eclectic Method. In it's most basic form (the 10-step list), the method really comes to life and presents itself in a very accessible fashion. Dare I say it even makes a reader interested in approaching the analysis of a work?