Schenkerian analysis Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Schenkerian analysis is an approach to musical analysis devised by Heinrich Schenker. It reduces all tonal music to a simple progression based on the tonic triad which in its simplest form is:
This reduction to a piece's basic essence or fundamental structure, which Schenker called the Ursatz, is arrived at by taking the original piece as written by the composer and progressively stripping away levels of decoration (see satz).
Schenker defined tonal music as that of the masterpieces of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras. According to Allen Forte, "Schenker's major concept is not that of the Ursatz, as it is sometimes maintained, but that of structural levels, a far more inclusive idea." Schenker called these levels Schichten. He called only the Ursatz background or Hintergrund and he called the foreground Vordergrund. (Beach 1983)
Schenker used traditional musical notation with modified implications, and his own symbols, on graphs or graphic analyses. Forte groups Schenker's graphs into "rhythmic" and "structural" types. In rhythmic reduction, often called metric reducation, the original note durations and their meanings are kept, while in structural analysis longer rhythmic values indicate greater structural importance or level. In Free Composition half notes, sometimes whole notes, are used for the fundamental line also accompanied by careted scale degree and its supporting bass. Quarter notes indicate middleground, linear progressions and their supporting bass lines, and eighth notes usually indicate embellishments or leading tone motion to the tonic. Beams and slurs connect and group together parts of the same structural level. Other symbols include those for interruptions and omissions. (Beach 1983)
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Diminution
Other important concepts include diminution. In Schenkerian theory a diminution, or "division", rather than a diminishing is an expansion, "the process by which an interval formed by notes of longer value is expressed in notes of smaller value." Those notes of smaller value represent the notes of longer value, and thus the latter need not be present. A diminution may be classified as a passing note (P), neighboring note (N, upper or lower, complete or incomplete, direct or indirect), consonant skip (CS), arpeggiation (Arp). These are all also terms for nonchord tones, but Schenkerian analysis differentiates levels not expressed by the terms chordal and nonchordal tones. Diminutions may also be prefixes or suffixes. (Forte and Golbert 1982)
"The function of a note is determined by its harmonic and contrapuntal setting." Thus whether a note is part of or a diminution is determined by its context. For example, if two adjacent notes alternate, the one which is 'unsupported' by the harmony is a neighboring note. (Forte and Golbert 1982)
Schenkerian analysis uses its own form of notations, or creates successive notations of musical works. The first step is often a rhythmic reduction, removing some or all diminutions. Then the time signature and barlines are removed, with stems and slurs added. Slurs indicate dependency upon stemmed notes. (Forte and Golbert 1982)
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