Paradigmatic Analysis - Applied To Music

Applied To Music

In music, paradigmatic analysis was a method of musical analysis developed by Nicolas Ruwet during the 1960s but later named by others. It is "based on the concept of 'equivalence'. Ruwet argued that the most striking characteristic of musical syntax was the central role of repetition - and, by extension, of varied repetition or transformation (Ruwet 1987)" (Middleton 1990/2002, p. 183).

Paradigmatic analysis assumes that Roman Jakobson's description of the poetic system (1960, p. 358) applies to music and that in both a "projection of the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection on to the axis of combination" occurs. Thus paradigmatic analyses is able to base the assignment of units entirely on repetition so that "anything repeated (straight or varied) is defined as a unit, and this is true on all levels," from sections to phrases and individual sounds (Middleton, ibid).

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