A Pedagogical Suggestion for the Popularization of the Schenkerian Theory in the Undergraduate Curriculum
This study suggests a practical analytic method, by which one can analyze tonal music. The essay begins by testifying the validity of Rameauian harmonic theory and of traditional harmonic analysis by Roman numerals. The analytical limit which the traditional methodology of the harmonic analysis poses is supplemented and combined with the theoretical strengths that Schenkerian theory provides. In contrast to the conventional harmonic analysis by Roman numerals, which focuses exclusively on local levels of the chord to chord, what I call the macro-analysis, in which the individual labels of each chord are jointed through brackets under the chord symbols, incorporates a deep understanding of the harmonic functions of each chord and of the musical contexts and the harmonic syntax that the chords create. The examination of the tonal harmony from a Schenkerian point of view serves as a basis for the application of the eclectic methodology, the dialectical result of the Rameauian and Schenkerian theories, to tonal music. Excerpts from Schubert's Lied, Nact and Tra¨ume and Chopin's Nocturne in A^(b) major, Op. 32, no. 2 are analyzed both by the macro-analytic technique and by the Schenkerian analytic method. The paper reveals that the two analytic methods lead to quite similar analytic results.