“[W]e never benefit from merely looking at an object. Looking becomes considering, considering becomes reflecting, reflecting becomes connecting. Thus one can say that with every intent glance at the world we theorize.” (from Goethe’s Theory of Colors)
(Specific objectives for topics are listed within each topic.)
The IAT materials contain readings, outlines, sample analyses and musical examples used in T551. They are available at Collegiate Copies on Third Street , east of the School of Music, in a turquoise spiral binding for $9.65 plus tax. There is no textbook as such for T551.
Grades will be based on the quality of your work throughout the semester. A typical schedule for T551 appears below, though the specifics may change depending on class size and makeup.
Readings will be assigned for discussion in class. Do the readings before the class period in which they are due, for they are intended to help you in the class discussions and in your assignments and exams.
Course work and requirements
Unit II: Tonal structure: diatonic and chromatic music Part I
Unit IV: Tonal structure Part II
Fundamental Principles of Analysis
A brief glossary of common terms
URLs (links to other Web pages) that you might find useful
Lecture 1, week 1 Lecture 2, week 1 Lecture 3, week 1
Lectures, week 2 Lectures, week 3 Lectures, weeks 4-6
Tentative schedule of topics
The following outline comprises analytic topics that we will explore this semester. The topics are not mutually exclusive; there is a great deal of overlap. The focus will be on instrumental music, but texted music will also be considered. Book sources for the authors cited are on reserve. Journal sources are on the shelves on the third floor of the Simon Music Library. Bibliography and readings appear in the IAT duplicated materials (pp. 70Dff.) and later in this document (see the Table of Contents above).
Focus on diagramming and labeling of form parts. Examples of diagrams are on IAT pp 5-10.
READ
READ
We will look at as many of the following musical examples in class as time permits. All are found in the second half of the IAT materials:
Bach: Menuet from French Suite in C Minor,
Chopin: Nocturne, Op. 55, No. 1
Schubert: Moment Musicale, Op. 94, No. 6
Brahms: Intermezzo, Op. 118, No. 2
Beethoven: Sonata for Piano, Op. 2, No. 1/I
Mozart: String Quartet, K. 387/I
Beethoven: Sonata for Piano, Op. 13/III
Liszt: Sonetto 123 del Petrarca
READ
Principles of harmonic, melodic and contrapuntal design:
READ
A. Accent types
B. Meter and hypermeter and methods of symbolic representation
READ
READ (Assigned reading from the following list will be given in class)
Investigation of tonal hierarchy according to Lerdahl and Jackendoff in GTTM, focusing on basic principles of Time-Span and Prolongational Reduction.
READ
Motive as multi-dimensional (melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, timbral, textual); issues of style vs. integration, description vs. prescription, “tune detection” vs. substance (Meyer, Explaining Music); Grundgestalt (basic shape; Epstein Beyond Orpheus)
READ
READ
A. Tempo and pacing
Additional readings
1. A score is a map of the territory it represents, not the territory itself. It is important that you
· listen, not just look, and
· focus on where motions begin and end (structural beginning and ending) in order to understand musical structure.
2. Harmonically, one needs to understand
· the difference between what a chord is (what it is called) and what it does (its function),
· the difference between chords of structure (“tonal pillars”) and chords of prolongation (motion-carrying),
· function classes (Tonic, Subdominant [also called Dominant Preparation], Dominant), and
· harmonic patterns: elaboration of T and D and dissonance-resolution.
3. In addition, one has to understand counterpoint and how it is the motion-creating aspect of harmony. Often this aspect of harmony is called voice leading. Harmony is essentially the vertical component of music, counterpoint the linear. Among other things, we need to understand
· Linear intervallic patterns (LIPs; see Forte and Gilbert, Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis), that is, interval patterns created most commonly between outer voices in a texture that are repeated, usually sequentially. LIPs usually serve the function of filling space between one structural harmony and another; and
· Linear chords: related to LIPs, linear chords are successive chords that fill space between one structural chord and another: e.g., the middle two chords in the i-v6-iv6-V pattern typical of the Phrygian cadence pattern of Baroque music are linear chords. See also Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 55, No. 1, mm. 71-72, for a remarkable example of linear chords that prolong a V7 harmony in a chromatic context..
One of the better books on counterpoint in tonal music is Felix Salzer and Carl Schachter’s Counterpoint in Composition. Taking a decidely Salzerian point of view (Salzer was a student of Heinrich Schenker), it provides many good and clear examples of how tonal passages are activated contrapuntally.
4. Melody in tonal music has been considered by some to be the “surface of harmony,” meaning that it is strictly governed by harmony. However, this view is too limiting, for melody and harmony quite frequently achieve considerable independence, though principal structural points (primarily cadences) are governed by harmony. Following are two guidelines for analyzing melody:
· Look for underlying melodic patterns that structure the melody in ways that are simpler than the surface itself. One example is the overall course of a melody within in a phrase, which often tends to reflect Schenkerian prototypes, i.e., a descent overall from scale degrees 3, 5, or 8 by step to 1. A good example is the Chopin Nocturne Op. 55, No. 1, mm. 1-8, which moves from scale degree 5 down by step to 1, with the opening 5 elaborated by a scalar passage from 8 above back to 5. A similar plan is found in Mozart’s, Sonata K. 283, first movement, mm. 1-10.
· A melody may imply more than one line, a so-called “compound melody.” This is especially true in unaccompanied solo compositions in which one line has to convey both melody and harmony.
5. Rhythm and meter in tonal music are important to understand, especially from the point of view of performance. Some key concepts:
· Meter is produced by musical materials, not by the meter signature, which is but a guide.
· Even in music of the baroque, classical, and early romantic periods in which composers did not notate meter changes, the meter often changes, sometimes only subtly (as in a hemiola near a cadence), sometimes much more specifically (as in Mozart’s Sonata K. 331, near the end of the first movement, where beat 3 becomes the downbeat in a quadruple meter; this example and others are discussed in Edward Cone’s Musical Form and Musical Performance).
· Metric accents are the means by which we determine meter. But there are also other kinds of accents, in particular phenomenal (created by any element of a musical texture that stands out to the ear), and structural (points of structural importance, such as a cadence). Cadence chords may be metrically accented or not, depending on context.
· Just as beats within measures serve to define the measure, so measures may combine to form larger metric units, called hypermeasures. At some point, however, the perception of beat relationships characteristic of measures and hypermeasures gives way to a broader motion between points of structural importance marked by important harmonic and tonal events. In other words, meter gives way to rhythm at higher levels. Meter is a relatively low-level (surface) phenomenon.
6. Triadic tonal music (and even some music that is not clearly tonal) is hierarchical, meaning that there are perceptions of subordination and superordination of musical materials. The clearest examples are in meter, in which whole notes are divided into half notes, half notes are divided into quarter notes, etc. Measures may combine to form hypermeasures. Harmonically, tonic and dominant chords have a higher position in the tonal hierarchy than do other harmonic functions. Phrases subsume subphrases, etc. Hierarchy is important for helping to understand the complex surfaces that typify the music we hear.
Harmony vs. chord: A harmony has an implicit function (as tonic, dominant, etc.), while a chord is simply a sonority.
Phrase: Douglass Green's defines the phrase as follows: A phrase is the shortest passage of music which, having reached a point of relative repose, has expressed a more or less complete musical thought. (p. 7) William Rothstein (see the Bibliography) defines a phrase as a unit of music that has a definite beginning, middle, and end and that coheres melodically, harmonically, and rhythmically. Rothstein defines small and large phrases, depending on the extent to which the phrase is a complete Schenkerian protostructure. An important feature of a phrase is that often its melodic and harmonic structure will parallel the overall melodic and harmonic structure of a full composition. This is one of the reasons why phrases are so important to perception and are commonly the focus of performer comments in published writings.
Subphrase: A unit with structural integrity yet smaller than a phrase. For example, in a sentence structure (e.g., the 2-bar + 2-bar + 4-bar phrase opening Beethoven's Op. 2, No. 1 Piano Sonata, first movement), two 4-bar subphrases organize the 8-bar span. Subphrases in such phrase structures may have the characteristics of a phrase, in which case they may qualify for "small phrase" status in Rothstein's terms (e.g., the opening four bars in each of the first and third movements of Mozart’s Piano Sonata K. 333).
Phrasing: Denotes a manner of articulation, often characterized by a phrasing slur. Do not confuse phrasing and phrase; they are distinct and different concepts.
Motive: A short and recurrent musical element with a definite shape, characterized primarily by its rhythmic and melodic aspects (e.g., the Beethoven Fifth opening motive).
Variation: A process by means of which motives and phrases undergo modification. In a typical variation process (as in a theme and variations movement), variation may take place melodically and harmonically in a context in which enough details are preserved so that the original theme, melody, or motive can be heard through the variation. In a typical classical theme and variations movement, the length of the theme and of each variation is the same.
Development: As distinct from variation but clearly related to it, developmental processes borrow materials from major themes or motives and present them in new guises, most commonly in fragmentation, sequence, and in new harmonic contexts (e.g., a development section of a sonata form).
Motivic parallelism (or concealed repetition, or hidden repetition): One of Schenker's concepts (see the Burkhart article in the Bibliography) in which a motive (or even a full theme) is found in different time spans. For example, one of Schenker's prototypical linear descending figures (e.g., scale degrees 3-2-1 or 5-4-3-2-1) may appear at the outset of a phrase and at the same time govern the course of the entire phrase.
Accent: Lerdahl and Jackendoff define three kinds of accents in music: phenomenal, structural, and metrical (see the Bibliography), only the last of which defines meter. Kramer's terms stress, rhythmic, and metric correspond, respectively, to Lerdahl and Jackendoff's. A metrical accent is a beat that is strong within a metric context. It is important to note that dynamics (often regarded as accents when they appear as, say, sfz) do not necessarily create metric accents. Neither do barlines necessarily create accents, though clearly they influence where performers place them. In the words of Cooper and Meyer (see the Bibliography), an accent is an event that is "marked for consciousness." But not all events so marked determine meter. The three kinds of accent may occur simultaneously in a given musical context, but often they do not.
Hierarchy: One of the most important concepts of tonal music, hierarchy denotes a context in which elements are related in such a way that one element subsumes (or is subsumed by) another. A typical hierarchy is found in musical notation: a whole note subsumes two half notes, each of which subsumes two quarter notes. When the hierarchical pattern extends systematically to higher or lower levels, then the process is called recursive.
Meter: Meter is a much debated concept. Essentially, meter measures segments of music and marks them off into more or less regular lengths initiated by metric accents. For example, a duple meter is marked by a beat pattern of accent-unaccent (weak-strong) that is recurrent. Meter often becomes a kind of background (regulative) level against which a foreground (configurative) pattern operates. Note carefully: barlines do not create meter; musical materials and relationships do.
Hypermeter: A term first defined by Edward Cone to denote a grouping of measures that has a structure similar to that of a measure itself in terms of its accent structure. However, there is much debate about this concept. The depth of hypermetric structure is a matter of debate. At higher levels of structure, the perception of meter tends to give way to a general flow of tension and relaxation called rhythm.
Level: A level is a time span. In Schenkerian terms, there are foreground, middleground, and background levels, each of which represents a successively simplified version of the complex surface of a piece of music.
Structural downbeat: Another term coined by Edward Cone to denote a point where melody, harmony, and rhythm coincide to provide a strong sense of focus, and which turns everything before it into an upbeat. A structural downbeat is a point of tonal stability, but it is not a time span. Rather, it is a point of instantaneous release of energy, a time point that has no duration associated with it. A typical composition consists a numerous structural downbeats. Look for prominent points where a period of tension is followed by resolution. In general, structural downbeats have not been dealt with hierachically.
Structural upbeat: David Epstein has defined this term in response to Cone's structural downbeat. A structural upbeat consists of a span of time in which tension is built leading to a resolution, that is, a structural downbeat. Thus structural upbeats are considered to have duration (the span of the upbeat, which can be quite extensive), while structural downbeats do not.
Structure: A much overused term, often lacking specificity. Broadly, structure denotes all of those aspects of music which contribute to the overall design of a unit (e.g., motive, phrase, section, composition). Melody, rhythm, and harmony are key ingredients, but timbre and texture also contribute.
Reduction: A general term denoting the elimination of some of a musical passage's details for the purpose of simplifying a musical context. An example is a metric reduction which preserves the essential pitch and duration structure of a passage but which eliminates some elements, such as non-chord tones. Tonal direction and temporal unfolding are thus preserved but in a simplified context. A reduction might also be called a model. Another kind of reduction is durational, which Rothstein and Schachter (see the Bibliography) utilize to compress musical segments into measures for the purpose of showing musical structure in a compact way.
Theory: The word theory derives from Greek and means “to view,” or a way of viewing. In music the word theory connotes generalization. We generalize about harmonic structure, about musical form types, about voice leading and contrapuntal models, etc., as a way of trying to make the complex surfaces of music simpler. Such generalization leads to the idea of reduction. Generalization, however, has a drawback, expressed best the authors Lincoln and Guba in their book Naturalistic Inquiry, where they say “The trouble with generalizations is that they don’t apply to particulars.” Our task in this course will be to find ways to fit the theory to the music, not the other way around.
The following bibliography contains a selection of books and articles useful for ideas about and examples of musical analysis. (Many of the books will be on the T551 reserve. Check the School of Music Library World Wide Web pages for reserve lists: http://www.music.indiana.edu/reserves/)
The following references (found in the Reference section of the Library) are good for locating published analyses. The first is good up to about 1990, the second up to 1985.
The sources below are authored by music theorists who are (were, in the case of Berry, who is now deceased) active in performance.
This is an active field nowadays, particularly with the appearance of instruments (e.g., Yamaha's Disklavier piano) that enable data collection for display and analysis by computer. The following listing is a good starting point.
Beach, David, ed. Aspects of Schenkerian Theory MT6 .A83
Berry, Wallace. Structural Functions in Music MT6 .B465 S8 1987
Cadwallader, Allen, ed. Trends in Schenkerian Research MT6 .T75
Cone, Edward T. Musical Form and Musical Performance MT58
.C747
(Chs. 1-3 on closed reserve)
Cook, Nicholas. A Guide to Musical Analysis MT6 .C85
Cooper, G. and Meyer, L. The Rhythmic Structure of Music MT42 .C77
Dunsby, J. and Whittal, A. Music Analysis in Theory and Practice MT6 .D92
Epstein, David. Beyond Orpheus MT58 .E67
Epstein, David. Shaping Time ML437 .E64
Forte, A. and Gilbert, S. Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis MT6 .F72 I6
Gjerdingen, R. A Classic Turn of Phrase ML3838 .G45
Green, Douglas. Form in Tonal Music MT58 .G79
Howat, Roy. Debussy in Proportion... ML410 .D28
(Ch. 3 on closed reserve)
Kramer, J. D. The Time of Music ML3800 .K695
(Ch. 4 on closed reserve)
LaRue, Jan. Guidelines for Style Analysis MT6 .L336
Lerdahl, F., and Jackendoff, R. A Generative Theory of Tonal
Music MT 6 .L47 G4
(A personal copy of the book and a photocopy of Chs. 1-9 are closed
reserve. Please do not mark on the copies.)
Lester, Joel. The Rhythms of Tonal Music MT41 .L48
Meyer, L. Explaining Music ML60 .M58
Neumeyer, D. and Tepping, S. A Guide to Schenkerian Analysis MT6 .N45 G9
Reti, Rudolph. The Thematic Process in Music MT40 .R4
Rothstein, Wm. Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music MT42 .R88
(Chs. 1-2 on closed reserve)
Salzer, Felix. Structural Hearing..., 2 vols MT40 .S18 1962
Schenker, H. Five Graphic Music Analyses MT140 .S324
Schenker, H. Free Composition (trans. E. Oster), 2 vols. MT140 .S195
Yeston, Maury. The Stratification of Musical Rhythm ML3813 .Y47
Berry, Wallace. "Metric and Rhythmic Articulation in Music," MTS 7 (1985):7 33. This is probably Berry's best article and carries forth many of the ideas introduced in chapter 3 of his Structural Functions of Music book. The basic premise is that most compositions (at least shorter ones) move toward and away from a single highest level accent.
Burkhart, Charles. "Schenker's 'Motivic Parallelisms'," JMTh 22.2 (Fall, 1978):145 176. This article discusses what Schenker called "hidden (or concealed) repetition," the reflection of the same pattern at different hierarchical levels. In fact, this kind of motivic analysis is the only kind Schenker acknowledged as musically important. Note particularly Burkhart's distinction between motivic parallelism and variation.
Forte, Allen. "Schenker's Conception of Musical Structure," JMTh 3.1 (Spring 1959):1 30. This source is an excellent introduction to Schenker's theories and interpretation thereof.
Morgan, Robert. "The Theory and Analysis of Tonal Rhythm," MQ LXIV (October, 1978):458 473. A good source on rhythm and meter in tonal music, including a summary of previous work by other writers.
Schachter, Carl. Three articles in Music Forum, all under the general heading "Rhythm and Linear Analysis:"
"A Preliminary Study," IV:281 334
"Durational Reduction," V:197 232
"Aspects of Meter," VI:1 59
These articles are all strongly influenced by Schenker's theories but are valuable as well for a study of rhythm and meter. The first article discusses rhythm and meter in tonal music and includes a summary of previous writings by other writers. The second article introduces reduction based on metric structure, and the third article deals with the complicated aspect of accent determined structure, particularly with hypermeasure.
Smyth, David. "Large-Scale Rhythm and Classical Form," MTS 12.2 (Fall 1990):236-246. Smyth looks at points of initiation and group boundaries to define large-scale symmetries on movements from various compositions by Mozart,Haydn, and Beethoven. Of interest is that while listeners cannot perceive periodicities at such high levels (the movement as a whole), nevertheless, Smyth finds well balanced lengths operating at the highest levels of the movements. The writing is clear and uses description to good advantage in essentially top-down analyses.
Two articles on musical analysis (models of). The Journal of Music Theory Pedagog 1.1 (1987) published the winning submissions of an analysis competition sponsored by the University of Wisconsin. The articles (in the order listed below) represent the top two prize winners. You might consider the articles as models of analytic writing prior to writing your term paper. Note, however, that some of the techniques employed will not have been dealt with thoroughly or at all in this course. Organization and writing style, on the other hand, will be relevant.
1. Swain, Joseph P. "Connections in Modulation," (pp. 13 -24). The organization is clear, though the sectional structure (intro body conclusion) may not be quite so clear as the next listed analysis. The problem discussed is modulation in terms of harmonic functions. The analytic method involves informal use of Schenkerian prolongation concepts. The article is not as clear methodologically as the following one.
2. Hanford, Lisa."Unity and Contrast in Mozart," (pp. 25-38). The article is much like and expanded course paper and is a good model for you to follow, though longer than your paper need be. The problem is stated clearly in the opening pages and is then explored using a Mozart sonata movement and Schenkerian methods. It concludes with a summary highlighting the key points, always a good idea in a paper of any length.
(Note: Sites change a great deal. Addresses included here may not be active or may have changed by the time you try them. Generally, if you click on an address no longer active, you will receive information about whether it has been abandoned or its new address.)
Cook Music Library sources
General IU sources you should use regularly
Search engines
Professional Music Societies
Miscellansous URLs