ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of analytical methods and the challenges that go along with them. It offers a tour through categories of screen-music analysis, with a compressed and partial review of the most literature along the way. The chapter discusses in terms of basic units of musical meaning, moving from the highest level of structure to the finest. It describes more extended consideration of two specific, somewhat more novel methodologies for approaching certain sorts of screen music. This is a useful tool for inspecting nonfunctional chromaticism and dynamic, musical surface-oriented harmony in general. The chapter examines digital visualization software, specifically spectrographic analysis, whose utility is greatest for analyzing screen music that is resistant to transcription through conventional notational systems. It highlights some of the hurdles that even the most systematic theoretical approaches run up against when confronting screen media.
