Schenker (and his Analysis): An Introduction

[@smashissocool65]

Your channel is one of the main factors I might become a musicologist someday. Keep up the good work!

[@z.olderautist2209]

Don't, make yourself useful instead. Music is a nice hobby.

[@uncertainity188]

​@z.olderautist2209 What makes one useful? And why does such a vocation contradict this, as you imply?

[@MilsteinRulez]

Thanks for this -- very interesting for German viewers especially, as Schenker's method used to play a very minor role in German post-war pre-academic and academic music education. When studying musicology and music theory, we found it odd how well-versed visiting American students were in this, to our thinking, outlandish method. About your interpretation of Schenker's original title: Yes, "Satz" means movement in the sense of one part of a multi-movement composition. That is not, however, what Schenker referred to here. "Setzen" is a, today obsolete, German term for composing, and "Satz" means the very act of composing as well as its result. A movement, in this sense, is a Satz, i. e. the result of compositional activity. Schenker's title refers to the act of composing, so "free composition" is in fact an apt equivalent.

[@yango8778]

Totally agree. I first heard about Schenker in Adam Neelys video. I never came across his name or his system of analysis both in my private and my academic music studies.

[@boyisun]

I think one of many many reasons why Schenkerian analysis was so small (if not near non-existent) in Germany, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and China, was the dissemination of Riemannian/post-Riemannian Funktionstheorie (a long with a few other theories). Riemann's system and Schenker's system are incompatible (i.e., don't easily work well together) in many places if you simply throw them together. Though, I wonder what level of importance Schenkerian analysis has in Austria. Are there any Austrian viewers here who are willing to shed some light for us?

[@harmonicamick908]

Thank you. Your videos are such a brilliant resource for anyone who wants to understand music theory, and for amateur composers like myself, they are a treasure trove. Oh, and given the date, happy new year!

[@violinimpulse]

I thought I had escaped the Schenkerverse after graduating conservatory. It seems we meet again. Well done on the video!

[@ClassicalNerd]

You can take the man out of the Schenkerverse. But you can't take the Schenkerverse out of the man ...

[@dk7472]

Also your explanation of diminution via "the lick" was unironically very helpful

[@Snardbafulator]

Absolutely superlative video, Thomas. Thank you.

[@ChipsAplentyBand]

Happy New Year to you, Thomas. Thank you for your clarity and common sense in this presentation. As a graduate student in music school I used Schenkerian-style graphing techniques upon various pieces of music, including (the dreaded) ATONAL. This made me rather a Schenker heretic. When I composed with 12-tone technique I often sought to do so in ways that deliberately created tonal implications. This made me rather a Schōnberg heretic. In our composers' seminars there was at least some discussion of the partisanships among music theorists and there was to a lesser degree some evident partisanship at school as well between musicology and composition students. Perhaps some of this tension arises because of differing notions of music composition as storytelling vs. architecture, though I personally tend to think we're dealing with a synthesis: structured storytelling. When I compose tonal music now any real awareness of, or concern over, background tonal structure gets more or less relegated to the area of my subconcious; I'm too consciously preoccupied with foreground and middle ground levels of detail, but also with elements such as orchestration and editing, to worry about wearing the music theorist's/analyst's hat WHILE I compose, although I'm both consciously aware of creating structure and subconsciously informed hour by hour and day to day about that as I write. But just making the computer music notation software do what I need it to do takes up majorly big parts of my composing attention and energy too, as does editing-as-I-go (the self-editing work of composers just never ends). For me, the ethnic, cultural, and political 'investment' aspects of all of this not only get in the way of the actual note-pushing but I find them to be manipulative, tiresome, and irrelevant to composition itself. Though I can and occasionally still do write atonal music, I decided about halfway through my adulthood (statistically speaking) that I would throw stylistic caution to the wind and simply study and write what I love and admire and find interesting the most, without worrying about where on the 'continuum of musical progressivism' my ownwork does or doesn't fall because, in the end, I couldn't see that anyone could identify a coherent goal toward which such 'progress' was purportedly being made, or even was 'supposed' to be made or under what criteria. As a case in point, look at the current audience popularity of the most prominent atonal composers of the 1960s vs. that of The Beatles. WHO are we writing FOR--some ethnic/cultural/political 'cause' or philosophy, or for an audience which begins with ourselves? For me, Schenkerian-style graphing is a valuable tool for uncovering the superstructure of a piece but the philosophical aspects of 'Schenkerianism' are given way too much weight when they superimpose judgments of WORTH on a given piece. In the end, the AUDIENCE assigns a much more relevant assessment of worth by voting with their feet and their wallets, other things being equal (which they frequently are not). WHAT IF a particular well-constructedand emotionally convincing piece displays a 1-2-3 (ascending rather than descending) background melodic framework? Here I say: 'Let the audience decide what they like and think is valid.' WHAT IF a particular piece modulates and never comes back to its starting key? Same thing. WHAT IF a piece manifests no evident or prominent key at all? Same thing. Again, the audience is a far better barometer of these kinds of things, and I'd rather write for them than for the concocted sensibilites of corrosive people whose greatest ambition is to dominate, manipulate, divide, and demean others via making musical value-judgments based on self-invented/imagined criteria. People still 'get' J. S. Bach, don't they? They also still 'get' Karen Carpenter, Brian Wilson, and film composer John Williams, who are all far more recent, proving that there is such a thing a 'timeless universality' in the appeal of music. Life is short and often tortured, and music can be a welcome and needed respite for us. I say let's not neglect that in favor of the assorted manifestations of manipulation and squabbling over art by self-important people.

[@josesolismusic]

I took a whole semested of this at the Conservatory. I got a top grade. I found it to be one of the worst waste of time in my music studies.

[@henrygingercat]

Brilliant and beautifully balanced. And hello Ruth.

[@ericrakestraw664]

I still have Cadwallader and Gagné's book from when I studied Schenkerian analysis in graduate school. I found learning Schenkerian theory really helped me when I analyzed my own composition for my master's thesis.

[@pabloansonmusic]

05:45 Satz also means something similar to texture, but texture only understood as the type of fabric formed by the real parts of a passage. Hence, you can speak of a chorale-type texture (Choralsatz), 3-voice texture (Dreistimmiger Satz), and so on. It could also be translated as compositional technique (Historische Satztechniken is still the name of one of the most important classes for composers at the MDW).

[@worldmusictheory]

Been watching your videos on different composers and was shocked to not find one on Thomas Tallis.

[@vincossissonsable5689]

Hi, at 9:10, the 2nd inversion of the dominant 7th chord is noted V+6, not V43. The 43 notation is used for the 2nd inversion of 7th of species where the 7th is the important tone. In dominant 7th, the leading tone is the important tone.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

Good and balanced video. The more I understand counterpoint, the more value I see in Schenkerian analysis. But I would suggest that the ornamentation is most of the music. Schoenberg may not have in fact said ‘he missed out my favourite bits’, but it does seem to track. I appreciate the Popper reference haha.

[@skern49]

Schenker understood the importance of ornamentation. In fact one of the reason he thought the Romantics tended to be worse than earlier Classical composers was that they didn't know how to ornament melodies but instead depended on textural and orchestral effects.

[@abassyomi.o]

Calling him a product of his time is honestly being kind.

[@AlanAuti]

All of us are a product of our time, like it or not.

[@ShanevsDCsniperr]

​@@AlanAuti non sequitur

[@z.olderautist2209]

My guy, all of us are a product of our time. What makes you think we are correct now?

[@z.olderautist2209]

Ah, the fallacy fallacy!

[@peterrowan-bx4ci]

@@z.olderautist2209Some people are pointedly worse than even the standards of their time permit, often this talking point of viewing people through the lens of the time they lived in serves to remove nuance from the conversation rather than do what it ostensibly seeks to, which is add it. Look at history and you will see all sorts of people who weren’t complacent with the status quo, who weren’t just apathetic bigots or sought to prop up a system that benefited them. Maybe most people were but that’s why the bar for being a good human being shouldn’t be on the floor. It’s a weird form of exceptionalism to go ‘PRODUCT OF THEIR TIME’ rather than to assess if any beliefs or actions pertaining to an individual are deserving of condemnation.

[@DmitriBron1973]

great essay. Schenker is not practical for me in harmonic analysis. But I was looking at the Schoenberg second book on Harmony the other day and felt that it was also making things more difficult than necesary. Just like with voice leading that can be explained for the most part by the idea of 'the path of least resistence', chords and progressions can be explained by simple concepts. The great Joe Pass did not think of complex chords when he played. He only thought of 3 chords I believe (major, minor and dominant). The rest were just alterations on the spot. Also with progressions I think you can bring it down to a dozen concepts like establishing, reaffirming, contradicting, modulating towards (determined, hesitant, wandering) or modulating away from and so on.

[@atlassolid5946]

love to see more and more of these episodes! i'd love to see one on George Crumb, if you're interested

[@RachManJohn]

Reading Katz's book on this was really fascinating to me. Nice to have reinforcement from a more digestable source.

[@keesvp]

I absolutely love your channel. In this context, I'd be interested in your ideas about Eugene Narmour ("Beyond Schenkerism")

[@ClassicalNerd]

I didn't get to reading that one-I figured the thousand+ pages I digested here was enough (it's practically impossible to read all the relevant literature for a topic of this size).

[@Zarty-Music]

Thanks for the overview, I learn a lot from these videos! Schenker analysis is definitely not for everyone, and I personally have a hard time with the way it seems to dismiss the surface level of the music. I'm not denying its utility, but I usually find schenkerian analysis harder to understand than a quick look to the score, and that goes against my view of what the musical analysis should strive for. Also thanks for giving us an informed summary of Schenker's political and ideological context. I'm kind of tired of those so called "experts" that insist on explaining everything through modern (american) racial theories, not acknowledging (or not caring) about Europe's complex history in terms of nationalistic and social tensions. Best whishes.

[@EverGreenElephant]

When I moved to the US, I realized how obsessed Americans are with this guy... I studied composition and musicology in Germany, at the conservatory and the university, earned a bachelors and masters, but I can only vaguely remember that a professor mentioned him once. That's it. Now, as I do my PhD at an American university, he is everywhere...

[@zecifras]

A vídeo about theory of polarization of Edmond Costere will be nice too, Schenker and Costere is essential

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

Merci. My friend is a veterinarian and approves of the treatment of the elephant in the room. Too many analysts take the four blind men description of the elephant, not to be confused with the Schenkerian Three Blind Mice analogy.

[@bb_inthelab]

In this case Satz can also be derived from „Tonsatz“, (literally: note putting/setting / or engraving) therefore imo „composition“ is a valid translation

[@Snardbafulator]

I love the idea that all the greatest music can be reduced to Three Blind Mice ;) I mean, there's self-refuting and then there's self-refuting ;)

[@domenickmacri7936]

Thank you so much Thomas. Love your channel. i came across it in the spring of 2021 with your video on George rochberg. I like his music very much. i remember reading in an interview in the book soundpices by Cole gagne and Tracy caras. concerning his composition Electra kaleidoscope concerning two passages containing strong rock passages and whether he liked rock music and followed it closely. He said he hated it and called it the very essence of mindlessness. Is paul simon, peter Gabriel, David Byrne, Brian Eno or patty Smith mindless? anyway i love all kinds of music, classical, rock , jazz, blues and electronic music and i make music myself. keep up the great work! ❤

[@thomasking1620]

I kept hearing Schenker's name brought up in classes just to be dismissed by professors who just didn't want to get into it. Now I see why.

[@fredhayman3245]

Great video! Have you considered doing a video on Herbert Howells? I think it would be great.

[@shaerens]

Greatly appreciated your in-depth introduction to the system. From the POV of someone who wasn't taught this toolset, it sounds a lot like Q-anon for musicologists: a theory the requires constant exceptions to itself to justify its existence rather than accept that it may just not be right at all. A hypothesis, not a theory.

[@disinformationworld9378]

That’s not accurate at all. I am no Schenker disciple but he just made valid observations about counterpoint. Composers care about voice leading and this is always present in their compositions. That doesn’t mean all compositions will have a specific formula but many of them did as he showed. And many times it’s not even that hidden. Composers think in scales as well. Nothing controversial about this point. If you look at most melodies in general they tend to be stepwise. But they also tend to elaborate scales as well. So much so that’s it’s almost a principle of good melodic writing. Melodies that are jagged and bounce all over randomly are the exception not the norm.

[@disinformationworld9378]

As for his theories yes some of it is clearly faulty and ideology and these parts of his analysis can be criticized quite fairly. But if you really study composers at all some of these principles are just obvious and part of the composition process to think in scales as well motion. The scale itself has a pull and musical grammar in itself and in continuation of the scale motion.

[@disinformationworld9378]

Personally I don’t have much time for the non musical points of view both for and against him. His theories are grounded in more than just random ideas without merit. Species counterpoint itself I would say can explain a lot of the movement in classical composition. It’s literally the first lessons that these composers learned. Elaborating a scale or more simple line is very evident whether the composer thought intentionally or subconsciously they chose to move tones in a specific and calculated way. That’s what composing is. The art of not only motives and ideas, but connecting music through harmony and voice leading.

[@disinformationworld9378]

If voice leading wasn’t important why did composers avoid parallel octaves and fifths? Classical composition started with these voice leading principles and composers took lessons in species counterpoint.

[@skern49]

Yikes, calling Schenkerian analysis 'musicology' could not have demonstrated your ignorance of the subject in any clearer terms (which, to be fair, you did confess, though for some reason that didn't stop you from passing judgment on it). Say what you will about the 'value' side of his writings, but the analysis proper is one of the most plain and straightforward segments of music theory that exists. More straightforward than even the likes of Roman numeral analysis and functional harmony. To place it in the same sentence as 'musicology' is laughable. If you've ever heard or studied a melody and recognized some notes as passing tones or some other form of ornamentation, congratulations! You're doing a little Schenkerian analysis! Not to mention the concepts of Schenker that have become so commonplace and taken for granted that they are used outside of Schenkerian analysis and by people who supposedly disavow Schenker, such as 'tonicization', or as it would have originally appeared, 'Tonikalizierung'.

[@JazzGuitarScrapbook]

The mentions of Scientology also reminds me of a (imo flawed but interesting) paper by JP Louth ‘There’s Madness in your Method’ discussing scientism in music education. I don’t think he mentions Schenkerian analysis, but there’s plenty of semi cults in music education; Nicholas Baragwanath’s ‘the Supremacist’s Toolbox’ among other things elucidates the way in which German theory and musicology necessitated a rewriting of music history to sideline the importance of the Italians, a narrative of German genius which remains mainstream to this day. It’s an interesting read!

[@davidkent2804]

Excellent educational value and well-treated. Just a fatuous comment: pedandtic theorists like Shenker and their meta comments on the purpose of their own work, their certainty, make me lose all interest in playing, writing, or listening to music. Really, I don't care what the era, style, or format: if it doesn't rock I am not interested. Life is too short and difficult for music, which often makes it worthwhile, to be reduced to an analytical fetish. In my experience, I found that attitude discouraging when encountered in academia. Interestingly, the most monstrous and uncannily talented success stories I ever met told me: "Nope, you can't do what I can do, but we need you to do what you can do." I believed them and never looked back.

[@dskinner6263]

As off-putting as Schenker's theories may be (as you say, intertwined with his disagreeable thoughts on other matters), his thinking reflects the listening experience. And, not only when listening to music which best suits his theories, but a lot of other music as well. However, Babbitt and Wuorinen's conscious application of a Schenker-like theory in their compositions seems contrived to me, and not much related to what I can hear in their work. (This, from a listener who deeply appreciates most 20th c. music, including Schoenberg, Carter, Boulez, etc.)

[@idrisbalavakos]

I’m so relieved you read all these books so I don’t have to

[@jdiwkall]

I recommend Peter Mennin for classical nerd's considerations for a video. I really enjoy Mennin's symphony no 9... Its succinct, piercing, fierce, and distantly romantic.

[@pinecone421]

so good

[@rainbowkrampus]

Great video. I think a lot of the people who dismiss Schenker do so from a somewhat limited understanding of politics and not much else. Schenker was something that we just don't see very often in a post WWII context. Especially not here in the US. He's a monarcho-nationalist. Hitler et al were "good" in his view because they represented the authoritarianism and a German supremacism that he wanted. He likely would have preferred it from a king rather than a chancellor. But one takes what one can get in the world of politics. I've never been particularly thrilled about voting for the Dems, but until we get electoral reforms, we're kinda stuck with them. There are, to this day, people like Schenker. Largely in Europe but still you can find some elsewhere. There's a thriving community of them in southern Japan, for example. A bunch of losers pining for some imagined return to the glory of Imperial Japan. They are all rightly described as fascists. But I think it's important to remember that fascism is idiosyncratic and that most forms of fascism are so idiosyncratic that they are rendered functionally harmless by the fact that they will never achieve any kind of popular support e.g. the much vaunted "christian nationalism" we talk about in the US today stems from concepts like dominionism and "traditional catholicism" that simply were never popular enough to gain any traction until the rhetoric supporting these ideas became incorporated into the ideologies of far right protestant/evangelical groups. All then being combined into the "christian nationalism" label which has largely been subsumed under the "Trumpism" or "MAGA" label. It's all fascism. It's all bad. But that doesn't mean that the old time dominionist is the same as the old guy in a red hat who has a shrine to Trump in his living room. Believe it or not, a lot of those people hate Trump. Ideology is complicated enough without introducing anachronisms by retrojecting current iterations onto past ones. I definitely agree with the assessment that there was, and is still to an extent, a kind of double speak around Schenker. I think there is less now, largely just due to generational turnover, but since a lot of these texts are preserved, you still run into people parroting the talking points. Personally, when I was first learning about Schenker, I was dubious of... just about everything about him and his method. Largely because I heard the downplaying and felt that there was some disingenuousness in play. Since then, I think there is some merit to some of his theoretical ideas and while I disagree with pretty much all of his political ideas, I don't think he was a goosestepper the way some want to portray him. He was his own brand of political freak. One which used to be more common but which we've largely moved away from across the post-industrial world. Also like, if the long since dead guy offends you that much, you can always just call it "compositional reduction" and never think about Schenker for the rest of your days. There's utility in taking elements of the method and using them to quickly construct an entire background for your composition which you can then elaborate on. If you're the sort who doesn't like working in a vacuum and prefer having a loose framework to start from, you can't go wrong with Schenker. The tools are already there. Don't need to reinvent the wheel just because the wheel maker sucked.

[@yeah8598]

Hey! I know you are busy and all, but i think the works (i know) of Murray Schafer aren't talked about as much, even if they are very amazing and unique in their ways; and i do not know of any other composer similar to him or any evolution of his ideas through other artists (could very well be my ignorance, hence an information could serve well). Wish you well!

[@doricdream498]

I remember learning shenkerian analysis in university, I found it quite confusing and not especially helpful in my own compositions. I am at least glad I learned it, because it did help put some works I was learning in interesting contexts. I had no idea he was such a nutjob, though, gotta love bizarre metaphysical philosophy worming its way into technical analysis. Also, I have a bit of a critique, if you don't mind. I don't really mind the use of AI generated imagery and don't feel the need to get into the ethical debate, but I do feel it is incredibly distracting here. The text you put over it is very difficult to read, and the image itself is full of bizarre 'hallucinations' that further draw attention away from the text. Perhaps a different stock image could be used in future videos? Love your videos as always. I've watched them for years and theyre always a highlight of my day.

[@ClassicalNerd]

You'll have to be more specific. I will sometimes use AI for colorization (or, more often, expanding the neutral backgrounds of portraits so they fit better on the screen). But I don't recall doing that at any point here.

[@doricdream498]

@@ClassicalNerd Specifically the background on the left hand of the screen at 8:39, with the bright colors and tons of lines. It's not a dealbreaker for sure, but it makes reading larger amounts of text quite difficult. (If that image isn't AI generated then my apologies for assuming as such.)

[@porcinet1968]

what did he think of Pfitzner? I do love the constant purring in my headphones watching this - Ruth is very cute!

[@BrendaBoykin-qz5dj]

Thank you,Thomas 🌟🌹🔥🌹🌟(Ja...,aber😵‍💫).(btw., where was BOYKIN from?) Thank you.🌟🌹🔥🌹🌟

[@ClassicalNerd]

Spelled Boykan-he was from NYC, I believe. I met him once during my masters' program; he was professor emeritus at Brandeis while I attended.

[@lumityyknn3]

Dutilleux next pls!!

[@georgesdelatour]

At a primal level, I think there are sub-surface forces in music; slo-mo tectonic forces, if you like. And I don’t think they’re limited to western classical music. When I listen to a great Indian raga performance, which is mostly improvised, it feels as if there’s a slower rhythm working its inexorable magic behind the surface activity level, driving the music onwards. Obviously the slo-mo forces that operate in Indian classical music can’t have anything to do with western functional harmony or counterpoint, so the specific elements Schenker focuses on aren’t relevant. But the principle of levels, some operating beneath the surface: I think that might be pretty general in music.

[@thexplaner6237]

I recall reading something by Nicholas Cook , showing it’s possible to find innumerable examples of pieces that Schenker - analyze very similarly but otherwise have entirely different ‘emotional characters.’ You didn’t mention this argument - do you think it’s valid? Seems that way to me.

[@ClassicalNerd]

I mean, it's _valid,_ sure, but I don't think it's very fair. Schenker was never that interested in the surface level of the music, so critiques on that level are sort of like complaining that the Latin alphabet has no built-in tone indicators when it didn't evolve for tonal languages.

[@joeaquilino19]

I'm going to have to say that he was brutally honest and that only polite society ( which is completely removed from nature) forces people to clutch pearls. We really need to get over the fact that man can be ugly on the inside, they are only shadows of one complex dimension of a being that echoes into eternity. Frustration and language tied at the hip just look at 2 people who speak different languages they could both be highly respected people but leave them in a room for 2 long and force them with an important task and I wager curses opon one anothers' forefathers will at some point take rise.

[@mylesjordan9970]

Excellent! To quibble with one little detail, Brahms wasn’t impressed with Schenker as a composer, but he was certainly one of Brahms’s favorite pianists. His very-late-in-life iteration of graphic analysis, published in 1938, wasn’t intended as an aid either to theorists or to composers, but to help performers better understand how to put across very large formal structures. Schenkerian analysis has been a defining concept for several apex artists like Sir Murray Perahia, Charles Rosen, Alfred Brendel and others, as well as fascinating to analysts for the multiple “layers” [Schichte] of thematic unity that it uncovers in some of the most complex scores of the 19th century. Post-modern music relies increasingly on other techniques, such as Fortean set theory-but for understanding how to play tonal music, graphic analysis is still arguably an irreplaceable tool and Schenker’s edition of Beethoven piano sonatas, parenthetically, is still counted one of the finest ever.

[@Fraizh]

I studied Schenkerian analysis in depth during my music theory study at a conservatory. I found that, to realy appreciate it’s value, you have to do it yourself, you have to walk the walk. Risking the danger of being considered elitist, I think it is nearly impossible to form a sound opinion on this subject if you only have a shallow knowledge of it. At the same time, this causes the divisiveness on Schenkerian analysis, and his social and political views don’t help here, to say the least. To my experience, it is a very powerful tool, one of the greatest there is. It has applications way beyond his dozen loved ones. Urlinien, not as rigidly as Schenker put it, can be found in any pop/rock song or jazz standard. As are the concepts of prolongation and diminution. I think that current analysis of these genres can benefit significantly from it. Many people think putting functional harmony symbols under a pop song is an analysis. It’s not, it is stating the obvious within the confines of functional harmony. As an example of a Schenkerian view on a pop song, take ‘Nowhere man’ by The Beatles. In the verse there is a 5-4-3-2-1 urlinie, very easy to hear. The chorus is a prolongation of 5, without resolving, ending on V, thus creating a tension and expectation for the next verse. If you buy this, and believe me when I say that similar analyses can be made for most pop songs, then the conclusion seems inevitable: the pop ‘geniuses’ also have an innate feeling or understanding of the Urlinie etc.

[@ClassicalNerd]

Lennon was clearly Mega Genius #13

[@Fraizh]

I understand the pun, but I am not sure if you get my point. I don’t want to ‘proof’ that Lennon was a genius, you can find Urlinien in any pop song or jazz standard. For instance, Adam Neely uses Schenkerian concepts to compare songs in cases of alleged plagiarism. An important reason why it works so well in these genres is that they’re even ‘more tonal’ than anything classic after Brahms

[@dk7472]

7:44 that should be on a tshirt or coffee mug #psyop

[@ClassicalNerd]

Merch at 100K subscribers ... ? 🤔

[@mylesjordan9970]

As an Austro-Hungarian Jewish subject, it’s pretty hard to argue that if Schenker had lived through the Holocaust, his pre-war political instincts would have remained intact. It’s even hard to argue that that’s hard to argue. Mahler, Bruno Walter, Schoenberg and many others agreed with these views at the time. Not so much by 1945.

[@tinfang-warble]

This is a pretty good summary of Schenker overall, but don't you think there's an uncanny parallel between "There's little connection between Schenker's racism & his theory" and your claim that 'There's little connection between Schenker's Judaism and his theory"? There's a case to be his mode of textual criticism is significantly inspired by Talmudic scholarship; I also know a graduate student who's working on a project that shows how deeply influenced Schenker was by Spinoza. I agree that it's a bad faith argument to suggest that criticisms of Schenker are motivated by antisemitism (at least in the 2020s!), but I think that there's an equally problematic trend of erasing or downplaying not only his Jewishness, but that of most of his students (especially the ones who brought his ideas to the US).

[@Jinkaza1882]

Do we stop teaching it then?

[@ClassicalNerd]

No, that's not my argument at all.

[@abassyomi.o]

No. It should be taught with this video and the Adam Neely video as the opening introduction.

[@Jinkaza1882]

@@abassyomi.o Nah. Adam Neely is a communist. He should not be teaching anyone anything.

[@Jinkaza1882]

@@ClassicalNerd Fair enough.

[@Jinkaza1882]

@@abassyomi.o Since my more direct comment was deleted lets try this. Freshman year and Dr. Chuck Smith comes fuming down the hall absolutely angry. It is early in 2001 and the full horrors of the year and of the new internet phenomena have not occurred, but one person showed Doc Smith a website that totally skips over Samuel Barber's musical contributions to only focus on his sexual preferences. Doc Smith was furious that this is all the site was focusing on. Adam Neely and 12tones attempts to implant current year polyticks in to music make me same level of angry. Is this better? More words, and I am not sure it adds much more to the conversation. Will this be deleted too?

[@jeffhirshberg5171]

Many parallels between Schenker and Heidegger.

[@Richard.Atkinson]

I followed my instincts for decades that I should completely ignore this guy. Thank you for making me feel good about that decision in less than an hour!

[@skern49]

Yay ignorance!

[@skern49]

Good introduction to the analysis itself, but the "Elephant in the Room" section is extremely disappointing. Finally, someone with enough knowledge and a decent enough following to push back against the anti-Schenker trend (perpetuated mainly by people who haven't read a word of his theory, but I digress), but instead what you accomplish is some mix of avoiding the issue entirely and muddying the waters. To clarify what I mean, when you say how it is impossible to "separate the theory from the man", you go on to quote his views on the superiority of German music to other composers, how only geniuses can write great music, etc. etc.... All that fairly reprehensible stuff. But is that music theory? Why, when referring to his "theory'" do you then reference his aesthetic judgments on music? Is that now music theory? (I guess the musicologists will be happy to hear that.) The issue is that Schenker hate train does not stop at his aesthetic judgments, but actually focuses directly on the nitty gritty technicalities of the musical analysis itself. For example, Schenker's view that some nationalities are musically superior to others is directly related to the analysis picking some notes as functioning on a deeper, structural level and others as foreground. Schenker's views that some races cannot govern themselves is directly related to the analysis identifying some notes as subordinate to and depending on others because they serve a more ornamental rule. So, the question is not whether Schenker's views impacted his, uh, writings on aesthetics (which is a bit like saying his views impacted his views), but whether they can be seen in the analysis itself. Do you agree with those aforementioned claims? Do you see the act of analyzing some notes as playing a more important role in the structure of a melody as perpetuating Schenker's nationalistic/racist views? Because that is the sort of delusion that is being pushed right now.

[@samhart2532]

I think Schenkerian analysis is important to analyze Western art music (of course not essential by any means), and even though Schenker's racialized perspectives were not always commonplace, classical musicians need to swallow that these gross perspectives are inherent in some way to classical music - personally, it's part of the reason why I changed careers! Schenker and many other composers of his generation very much saw "Germanic" music as some kind of introspection or study, be it on a personal/communal/(proto-)national/ human scale. Western art music has practices and practitioners that consciously seek to step away from this, but just abolishing Schenker doesn't solve anything. Folks, the call is coming from inside the house! Schenker is one member of the vast yet quickly shuddering temple built to dead white men in this industry.

[@jamescomins]

There is a cat.

[@zecifras]

Thanks, Schenker is very important to understand music

[@janco_verduin]

No, it is not.

[@mestremusico]

Wait...Schenker didn't like democracy and didn't like Marxism?

[@ClassicalNerd]

It'd be faster to list the stuff he _did_ like, to tell you the truth.

[@Ludus57]

Ironically, in his book 'Beyond Schenkerism', Eugene Narmour states that in his view, 'A Hegelian (or Marxist attitude towards history will not do.... In my view, Hegelianism in history, Gestaltism in psychology. Lamarkism in evolutionary theory, Chomskyism in linguistics, and Schenkerism in music theory are all similarly defective.' Quite a remarkable list.

[@PristineCXV]

based?

[@alddybalddy]

It thrills me how bad Schenker triggers u fools

[@FelipevonMontfort]

What a bunch of bull. Schenker knew nothing about composition...

[@eai554]

Schenkerian analysis is one big waste of time, except for academic theorists. Let’s move on.