The event onstage is brought about by language. But the language itself doesn't need to be understood. The truth of the scene is elsewhere.(Crimp in Sierz, 2006: 99) In this assertion, playwright Martin Crimp makes clear that his use of language is only partially to do with the way it signifies lexically; in performance, language is soundconcrete and material -which works upon the embodied spectator in a range of ways. This is not a new idea; theatre phenomenologists such as Bert States (1985) article to focus on two specific approaches to affect in performance that come from critical interpretations of affect at work in music. i At its most basic, musicology is a very broad term encompassing 'all study of music other than that directed to proficiency in performance or composition ' (Kennedy, 1996: 502). Clearly, this conveys none of the intricacies and complexities of the vast range of concepts and approaches used under the term and the debates about its methodologies. As a nonspecialist in music, or musicology, I will not enter into those debates here but argue, rather, that there are examples of musicological analysis that can be readily adapted to