Problems, current methodologies, and an analytical case study in electro-acoustic music analysis: Lejaren Hiller's Vocalise from seven electronic studies for two-channel tape recorder (1963)

Abstract

This dissertation is an investigation of electro-acoustic music analysis; it highlights the difficulties of analysis, explains some of the prevailing analysis methodologies, and demonstrates the use of a hybrid analysis methodology through an analytical case study. These difficulties and analysis methodologies correlate to electro- acoustic music in general as well as the piece chosen for the analytical case study. The piece selected for the study, Vocalise, is the first movement from a larger work titled Seven Electronic Studies for Two-Channel Tape Recorder (1963) by the composer Lejaren Hiller (1924 - 1994). The study made use of methodologies based on listening (Smalley’s Spectromorphology and Roy’s Functional and Implicative Method) and used computer-assisted analysis (Music Information Retrieval) as a tool for confirming the findings of the listening analysis.