Expressive Meaning and Musical Structure, Chapter 1 ofSchenkerian Analysis

At the time of his death, Steve Larson had competed roughly eleven chapters of a textbook on Schenkerian analysis.The book brings together three key elements not found in a textbook of its kind: 1) an emphasis on expressive meaning and musical forces, 2) a recognition of the central role of pattern in musical experience, and 3) step-by-step instruction in creating and correcting analyses (which Larson called the "strict use" of analytic notation, developed first in Larson 1996).The initial chapters walk students through the basics of his method, beginning with different types of diminution and building up to analyses of entire phrases.Later chapters-thirty-three were planned in all-were to cover the various tonal forms, late nineteenth-century chromaticism, jazz, popular song, and even world music.Here we present-for the first time in print-the opening chapter of the book, "Expressive Meaning and Musical Structure."Larson uses analyses of the Beatles's "Michelle" and Schumann's "Wenn ich in deine Augen seh' " (focusing on their similar settings of the words "I love you"/"ich liebe dich") to explore how expressive meaning in music relies on relations between musical structure and its embellishment, and in the process offers a succinct overview of "strict use" and the idea of musical forces.The chapter concludes with exercises that provide students with model analyses of easy, familiar piano pieces to test their understanding of Schenkerian analytic notation and error-detection exercises that ask them to identify departures from the rules of analytic notation they've been given.The chapter provides a readable and remarkably clear introduction to the precepts of Schenkerian analysis.It could be used in the beginning stages of a Schenkerian Analysis course or as part of an Analytical Techniques course.By its emphasis on expression and meaning, it carefully highlights for students how musical expression arises through departures from more-basic structures.It also clarifies the use of Schenkerian

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