Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music: Clothbound Textbook

This book proves that rigorous analysis isn't separate from the music students actually care about. By showing how tonal coherence operates across 500+ pieces spanning medieval chant through contemporary works, Salzer gives your students a unified lens for understanding musical architecture wherever they encounter it.

Reading Salzer is like learning to see through the surface of music. Each analysis reveals hidden hierarchies of pitch and motion that explain why a passage moves the way it does, transforming random-seeming note choices into logical inevitabilities. The book invites you to trust that coherence exists in music you've never fully understood.

This is essential reading for theory teachers, composition instructors, and advanced students preparing for graduate work in music. Anyone who wants to move beyond harmonic labeling and into genuine structural understanding will find the breadth of examples both clarifying and inspiring.

• Use specific analyses from the book to illuminate passages your students perform; connect the dots between what they hear and what the deeper structure reveals
• Assign students a short piece to analyze using Salzer's framework, then have them perform it to demonstrate how structure informs interpretation
• Reference the medieval and Renaissance examples when teaching those periods; students grasp harmonic principles faster when they see continuity across eras

Use this as your core theory text for upper-level courses, or assign specific chapters to complement your teaching of particular eras. The extensive example collection makes it invaluable for building analysis projects that span your curriculum, giving students consistent analytical tools whether they're studying a Bach fugue or a Bartók piece.

• Identifying deeper structural levels beyond surface harmony
• Tracing melodic and harmonic coherence across entire pieces
• Recognizing tonal organization patterns in non-classical music
• Connecting analytical observation to compositional choices
• Reading and interpreting Schenkerian graphs and reduction notation