"The concerned and thoughtful musical citizen": Music analysis as sufficient explanation

Abstract

Some scholars have proposed the application of scientific method to the practice of music theory and analysis. This thesis examines two such frameworks: one developed by Milton Babbitt, and another by Matthew Brown and Douglas Dempster. The first part presents Babbitt's prescriptions of "scientific language and method," along with his distinction between analytical explanation and description, and an outline of Hempel and Oppenheim's Deductive-Nomological model of explanation. The second part focuses on Brown and Dempster's application of scientific method to music theory and analysis and contrasts their view with Babbitt's. Within the thesis, I make the following restrictions to my theoretical framework: music theory and analysis are explanatory activities---as opposed to descriptive---and music theories are composed of generalized empirical statements concerning individual works on an analytical level. In its consideration of large methodological questions, this thesis promotes the continued integrity of the discipline of music theory and analysis.