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HERNDON'S VERDICT ON ANALYSIS: TABULA RASA

In her article "Analysis: the herding of sacred cows?" Marcia Herndon stresses the need for exposing, discussing, and evaluating various methods of musical analysis, in particular those employed by a number of ethnomusicologists (Herndon 1974a). While this is certainly a most timely and relevant endeavor, the author does not seem to display a sufficient degree of objectivity to deal adequately with the delicate subject matter. At least, this is the case with her treatment of my general concepts and of my assumed analysis of the chosen song from Madagascar. Some sections of this hypothetical "analysis" must give the unsuspecting reader the impression that I merely indulge in sterile and unintelligible manipulations. A case in point is her presentation of what I call a "scale formula." By this I simply mean the ordering, according to pitch, of the tone material employed in a melody plus additional information concerning initial and final tone, differentiations in the structural importance of the tones, and the steps by which they are connected. This is by no means "a major factor" of my analytical approach nor is it intended to be "a representation of the main features of the tonal structure" (p. 232). But far more serious than these misstatements is the distortion beyond recognition of "my" scale formula. Although the author justly assumes (p. 232) that I would apply it only to the vocal part and that the scale comprises the major-sixth area f G a b c d, my hypothetical scale formula, presented on page 233, stretches over an area of one octave plus a minor seventh (D3-C5) and includes eleven different pitches. My first impression was that the tone material employed by the voice and the zither has been lumped together, but a closer look revealed an even more confused situation. For some unexplained reason the tones A3 and D4, which frequently occur in the vocal (and instrumental) part, are omitted, while the tones D3, E4, F4, G4, A4, B4, and C5, although produced only by the zither, are included. But why then omit Gs, reached by the zither in measure 13 (p. 225)? And why are the tones distributed between two staves? The statement that "the tonal structure is both closed and open" is nonsensical because these two features are mutually exclusive; moreover, I have no idea what is meant by "the 13th degree" and by the contention that "thirteen tones are omitted" (p. 233). Regarding the information, contained in the scale formula, about the