Graphic Music Analysis

An Introduction to Schenkerian Theory and Practice

By (author) Eric Wen

Not available to order

Publication date:

14 February 2019

Length of book:

390 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781538104675

Graphic Music Analysis presents Schenkerian analysis in a practical and engaging manner that will resonate with musicology, theory, and composition students, as well as performing musicians. With over 650 musical examples, Eric Wen guides students through the step-by-step process of creating graphic representations of music and reveals how Schenkerian ideas evolve out of analytical issues in the works encountered. Rather than promoting an analytic method for its own sake, Wen derives structural techniques from their particular musical situations to help students engage directly with the music.

The textbook has an online companion website (textbooks.rowman.com/wen) featuring:

Full scores and recordings of the works discussed in the book
Downloadable workbook of additional pieces to analyze
Detailed commentary on Schenker’s own analysis of J. S. Bach’s Prelude in C from Book 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier

An instructor’s manual with a step-by-step guide to analyzing the supplementary workbook examples is also available. Please email textbooks@rowman.com for more information.

Section 1 – Graphic Music Analysis

Chapter 1: Highlighting Notes and Making Connections between Them

Chapter 2: Figuration

Chapter 3: The Linear Progression

Chapter 4: The 5–6 succession

Chapter 5: Structural Levels

Chapter 6: The Introduction to Mozart’s “Dissonance” Quartet

Section 2 – Semper idem, sed non eodem modo

Chapter 7: The Fundamental Structure (Ursatz)

Chapter 8: Urlinie Descents from 3

Chapter 9: Urlinie Descents from 5

Section 3 – Techniques of Elaborating the Ursatz

Chapter 10: Substitution

Chapter 11: Delaying the Initial Tone of the Urlinie

Chapter 12: Boundary Play and the Obligatory Register

Chapter 13: Sequences

Chapter 14: Non-Structural Harmonies

Chapter 15: Implied Tones

Chapter 16: Mixture

Chapter 17: Relocating the Urlinie

Chapter 18: The Phrygian 2

Chapter 19: The Auxiliary Cadence

Chapter 20: Non-Tonic Expansions

Section 4 – Tonal Structure and Musical Form

Chapter 21: The Parallel Period (A A´)

Chapter 22: Variants of the Parallel Period

Chapter 23: A B A Form

Chapter 24: A B A' Form (with simple A)

Chapter 25: A B A' Form (with compound A)

Chapter 26: Sonata Form in the Major Mode

Chapter 27: Sonata Form in the Minor Mode

Epilogue

In Graphic Music Analysis Eric Wen draws upon decades of experience to elucidate the layered patterns and underlying linear structures of common-practice period tonal music, all engagingly explained through the analytic system of reduction developed by Heinrich Schenker early in the twentieth century. Clearly written and generously appointed with elegantly executed examples, Graphic Music Analysis offers not just a powerful method of analyzing tonal music, but also a rewarding way of hearing that music, which should be of compelling interest to theorists and practitioners alike.