Readings for Week 2

While we will focus on form this week, nevertheless, we will look a good bit at harmonic and tonal relationships and structure. Please read the following pages in the IAT materials:

1. Pp. 41-42: Linear intervallic patterns from Forte and Gilbert Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis.
2. Pp. 43-49: On elaborated chorales from Forte and Gilbert. The object here is not to do Schenkerian analysis but to study how the authors derive the simple keyboard setting of a complex Chopin Prelude.
3. Pp. 51-61: Guidelines for Metric Reduction. The idea behind these guidelines is to provide some principles for making metric reductions of musical excerpts. The idea behind reduction is to simplify the surface of a composition in order to understand better the underlying metric and pitch structure. Keep in mind that these are guidelines, not rules in an absolute sense. Reductions are interpretations and will differ from person to person. The test of the effectiveness of a reduction is whether it captures the essence of the pitch structure of a passage. Like all analytic tools, reductions are valuable to the extent that they help one to understand musical structure.