Heinrich Schenker

Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935) was a music theorist who defined chords by their relationship to each other and to the overall structure of the piece of music. Schenker believed that after differentiating between chords of structure and chords of prolongation, the listener is able to grasp the structural framework of the music, and thereby enjoy the “prolongations” or the melodic unfolding of the structural chords.