Tension Theory and Structure Layer in Aural Analysis

1. TENSION-THEORY AND STRUCTURE LAYER in Aural Analysis

2. If you focus on the tunes, and the phrases. You may be understanding the piece in a Schönbergian approach, called the PHRASE ANALYSIS

3. If you focus on the slow-fast, or the quiet-loud organization, you may be understanding the piece in a Ernst Kurth’s approach, called the TENSION-THEORY AND STRUCTURE LAYER in music analysis

4. PHRASE ANALYSIS let you see – in objective ways – how the elements of music are organized. But this objective picture can be varied in one way, or another in real-time performance.

5. Knowing the objective ways does not always guarantee us a full vision of an art.

6. Tension theoryallows us to see more into the music than mere noting how tunes are structured; how the harmonies are varied; how the music is organized, etc. It is useful to inform us the differences when the same pieces are played in a variety of ways. Benefit from wave-editing software, Kurth’s tension theory can be a powerful tool for aural analysis

7. Kurth, Ernst(b Vienna, 1 June 1886; d Berne, 2 Aug 1946) Swiss musicologist, studied with Adler and Gund, Kurth was a creative thinker who was able to impart to his deeply intuitive and dynamic approach to music. He published a number of works both to musicology and philosophy. Kurth’s most extensive work was that on Bruckner (1925), where in addition to providing an acute biographical study, he developed his theory of musical form: findings are summarized in Musikpsychologie (1931), where music & sound are regarded as proceeding from the composer’s being – this philosophical basis of Kurth’s thought stems from Schopenhauer’s conception of music as the of music as the manifestation of a will that created both the world and its culture. KURT VON FISCHER