First, fear not–Schenker is alive and well in the curriculum at TTU. We use the Musician’s Guide series of textbooks which is one of a new generation of textbooks that are strongly influenced by Schenkerian theory. I’ve also taught an upper-level course in Schenkerian theory, which is now taught by one of my colleagues. The book also draws on the function theory of Hugo Riemann and his cronies, hence my adoption of the T, P, and D labels.

Second, yes, I will mark them wrong if they write a tonic and dominant chord simultaneously, largely because of what you said–they’re not following the directions. But I think there’s a bigger issue that needs to be addressed: the divide between compositional and analytical theory. I consider myself a teacher of analytical theory; others on the faculty teach composition (or theory through composition). Were I teaching composition, I think my approach would be much different.

Many of the students entering our program have never had theory courses; some don’t know how to read bass clef, some don’t know key signatures, most don’t know intervals, triads or seventh chords. By way of analogy, imagine letting students into your undergraduate math program who didn’t know what an integral was, much less had ever heard of Stokes.

Third, I had intended this blog as a resource for students at TTU and elsewhere who are frantically trying to figure out how to complete their homework assignment at 2:00am and turn to Google for answers. There’s quite a lot of garbage on the web and my intent is to offer an easy alternative (which is also part advertisement–”See, theory’s not hard!”).

Fourth, regarding the two Beethoven analyses: I agree with your reading of the Eroica and disagree with *my* reading of the fifth (I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote up that post). I agree that the processes at work are delay and anticipation. My analysis here is directed towards undergraduate students who are just learning about these things (and playing them in orchestra) and want to see how they might make use of the new vocabulary.

As far as your questions about the utility of Roman numerals, that’s another story for another day. In practice they don’t offer terribly much in the way of useful information, but boy are they easy to teach! I think the T, P, and D labels actually convey more important information (and they tend to be used more sparingly across the musical surface).

Thanks for the great post!