File created 20 June 2009; updated 28 February 2010.

Supplementary materials for "Thematic Reading, Proto-backgrounds, and Transformations," Music Theory Spectrum 31/2 (fall 2009): 284-324.

In one important sense, "Schenkerian analysis" is a misnomer, as its practice has little if anything to do with analysis in any scientific sense; that is, the application of techniques such as voice exchange, reaching-over, and the nesting induced by levels immediately and heavily interprets the musical text (indeed, these are already pre-determined by the bias toward lines in the upper voices). Essays based on such readings are most often interpretations in the routine sense of the term in literature studies.

The article does not look to overthrow linear analysis as a practice but looks to options for interpretation through an historical take on the issues involved: it uses an analogy between "theme" in literary studies and "background" in linear analysis (or other hierarchical analytic models) for music. A further distinction, derived from Monroe Beardsley, is made between "theme" and "thesis." The short essays listed below provide illustratiions of these terms and distinctions in literature.

1. Explanation of "theme" and "thesis" using a passage from Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.

2. Explanation of "theme" and "thesis" using a poem by Rachel Hadas: Genre Clerk.

The repertory of proto-backgrounds within the octave is 9: three unisons, three intervals above ^1, two intervals above ^3, and one interval above ^5. The repertory of first-order transformations is not fixed, but I assume it includes at least LINE, N(eighbor), and their inverses. The article also introduces two registral (rather than linear) transformations: DIV(ision) and ADDINV (see the graphic at the right for a sample).

The article offers case studies of a chorale and two of its settings by J. S. Bach. The first web essay listed below provides an example of the construction and evaluation of analyses using proto-backgrounds. The second essay does the same with quick sketches. The third is similar to the first but spends more time on the evaluation stage. The fourth essay focuses on transformation functions in generating/constructing an analysis. The fifth essay uses a method that is compatible with the proto-backgrounds, although its devices (derived from Lerdahl & Jackendoff) are somewhat different.

1. Beethoven, Menuet, WoO10, no. 2 [Minuet in G]: list of the proto-backgrounds with commentary and evaluation: WoO10, no. 2.

2. Beethoven, Menuet, WoO10, no. 1: list of the proto-backgrounds with commentary and evaluation: WoO10, no. 1.

3. Application and evaluation of proto-backgrounds for a dance melody from M. Landrin, Receuil danglaise, [c1760-1785]: "Blac Danse."

4. Reading of Mozart, German Dance, K. 602, no. 4, using proto-backgrounds and transformation functions: Mozart, K. 602, no. 4.

5. Rising cadence gestures in the tonal frames of eighteenth and nineteenth century European and American compositions. This essay makes use of "frames," a construct that is compatible with the proto-backgrounds: Go to Rising Cadence Gestures.

In not looking to overthrow linear analysis as a practice, the MTS article and the web essays here assume a position that is somewhat different from that now commonly found in the literature: here, pragmatically, I maintain the generative hierarchical character of the reading (derived from Schenker), rather than work to disrupt the hierarchy through gaps, discontinuities, or ambivalent moments. Nevertheless, I do not think the work contradicts current literature; by undermining the hegemony of Schenker's background types, I am also providing alternative ways to make use of linear analysis and therefore similarly "democratizing" its practice.

All original material copyright David Neumeyer 2009-2010.

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