Schenker’s musical gerativism and its application to song analysis: Homologies between superficial, intermediate and deep musical structures and categories of contente in “Trocando em Miúdos”, by Francis Hime and Chico Buarque de Holanda

Abstract

The generative path of meaning is defined as “a succession of levels, each one prone to receive an adequate description showing how meaning is produced and interpreted in a process that unfolds from the simple and abstract toward the concrete and complex (Fiorin, 1992, p. 17). In his 1935 Der Freie Satz, Schenker defends that the analysis of tonal music is bound to reveal a fundamental structure that, by means of an enchainment of complexification stages, crosses a series of strata organized in three superior hierarchical levels until reaching the surface and the materiality of the musical score. Departing from a literature review of some of the most prominent authors in musical semiotics, the present article investigates the application of Schenker’s generativism by Agawu, Hatten and Tarasti, among others, in order to evaluate the resources that this technique, that investigates simultaneously harmonic, contrapontistic and formal elements, may offer to the analysis and the study of the process of construction of meaning in the syncretic context of songs. The chosen corpus is the song “Trocando em miúdos” (roughly translatable as In other words), a composition by Francis Hime with lyrics by Chico Buarque de Holanda, in the composer’s original 1977 recording.