ABSTRACT
The activity of segmentation, or more broadly the determination of constituent elements, tends to be conceptualized as a bottom-up engagement with musical phenomena. Such observational approaches to the analysis of musical structure must inevitably address the question of how theory of any sort is implicated not simply in observation but in musical perception itself. One of the ongoing tasks for an analyst of musical structure is determining the relation of part to whole, or in other words determining how the musical details contribute to longer range musical phenomena. There is long-standing philosophical discussion of the claims of objectivity and the nature of explanation in the empirical sciences, which has had an echo in music studies. In his critique of Structuralism, Derrida argues that structure operates within a discursive system of knowledge and that attempts to give structure a center-an origin neutralizes its conceptual play of the quotes considered here, two explicitly identifies an origin for musical structure.
