ABSTRACT
The author briefly reviews 13 analytical methods and several popular definitions of musical style. The theories of Lerdahl and Jackendoff, and those of Baroni and Jacoboni provide the foundation of a project to define closely the style of Debussy based on the identification of 92 melodic phrases. Each melody is parsed according to a paradigm derived from Baroni and Jacoboni. The project seeks an explanation for the subtleties that we recognize as features of Debussy’s style, but which we cannot satisfactorily rationalize.
