The Complexity of Analysing Musical Works Comprising Various Means: A Perspective on Constança Capdeville's Works.

Description

This paper offers a reflection based on the following questions: what are the pedagogical approaches to musical works that include different technical and technological means? Secondly what are the methodological implications of such works to the practice of music analysis?
Some musical works and performances include not only a score but also image, lighting, dance, acting, electronic sounds, unusual sound objects and instruments, interactivity and so forth (Pires et al., 2018: 1). Most of Constança Capdeville’s musical works, mainly after the mid-seventies, involve, besides the above quoted means, slides, texts, gestures, which are entangled, creating a heterogeneous counterpoint. The study of such works is still travelling a long path in terms of documentation, also requiring different musical analytical approaches. Works such as those of Capdeville are very difficult to document due to the unavailability of materials. Capdeville’s works comprise acts of creation, interpretation, and technological experiments that typify a particular period of contemporary Portuguese music history, which deserves to be studied. For instance, teaching Capdeville’s musical works that include different means in schools would be particularly challenging because it requires new analytical methods and new approaches in regard to the analysis of her music. The teachers of music analysis discipline would be required to approach the challenge via an interdisciplinary activity involving the knowledge of the technology, new software in the scope of music analysis and not only that: a full understanding of the archival field, audio engineering, and so forth would also be necessary. In short an acquaintance of the current processes running in such different fields. In this paper, we will present some aspects related to the documentation of Capdeville’s musical works to perceive its methodological and social implications in the analysis of her music.

Period	22 Mar 2019
Held at	Research Center for Science and Technology of the Arts (CITAR), Portugal
Degree of Recognition	International