Schenkerian Analysis - Schenkerian Notation

Schenkerian Notation

Schenker created a symbolic language from modified musical notation creating graphic analyses, or graphs. Forte groups Schenker's graphs in "Free Composition" into "rhythmic" and "structural" types. In rhythmic reduction, often called metric reduction, the original note durations and their meanings are kept, while in structural analysis longer rhythmic values indicate greater structural importance or level. (Beach 1983) In modern Schenkerian analysis structural graphs are the norm. In the language of Schenkerian symbols open noteheads are used for notes of the fundamental line and their supporting bass notes. These are usually stemmed and beamed together and accompanied by careted scale-degree numbers. Flagged open notes indicate the deeper middleground prolongations of the fundamental structure, frequently neighbor-note embellishments of the Urlinie. Other stemmed closed notes show a subsequent stage of middleground prolongation. Occasionally these may be beamed together beneath the beamed open notes to show a middleground image of the fundamental structure. In this case the careted scale-degree numbers should be in parentheses to show that this is not the true fundamental line. Slurs indicate a variety of middleground connections, especially linear progressions, and dotted slurs show the retention of a single note over a long span or the registral displacement (or octave coupling) of a particular note. Other symbols include those for interruptions, unfolding, and voice exchange.