page_title: Fundamental structure
section_title: Fundamental line
hierarchical_section_title: Fundamental structure / Fundamental line
caption_attribution_description: English: Schenker's Urlinie in relation to the tonic triad. Made with Finale and Photoshop
context_page_description: In Schenkerian analysis, the fundamental structure describes the structure of a tonal work as it occurs at the most remote level and in the most abstract form. A basic elaboration of the tonic triad, it consists of the fundamental line accompanied by the bass arpeggiation. Hence the fundamental structure, like the fundamental line itself, takes one of three forms, according to which tonic triad pitch is the primary tone. The example hereby shows a fundamental structure in C major, with the fundamental line descending from scale degree:
  The Urlinie offers the unfurling of a basic triad, it presents tonality on horizontal paths. The tonal system, too, flow into these as well, a system intended to bring purposeful order into the world of chords through its selection of the harmonic degrees. The mediator between the horizontal formulation of tonality presented by the Urlinie and the vertical formulation presented by the harmonic degrees is voice leading.
  The upper voice of a fundamental structure, which is the fundamental line, utilizes the descending direction; the lower voice, which is the bass arpeggiation through the fifth, takes the ascending direction. [...]
context_section_description: The fundamental line (German: Urlinie) is the melodic aspect of the Fundamental structure (Ursatz), "a stepwise descent from one of the triad notes to the tonic" with the bass arpeggiation being the harmonic aspect. The fundamental line fills in the spaces created by the descending arpeggiation of the tonic triad. Its first tone (primary tone, head tone) may be ,  or .
  There are no tonal spaces other than those of —, —, and —. There is no other origin for passing-tone progressions, or of melody.
  Lines from  are rare; some Schenkerians consider them impossible. There appears to exist a tendency, in modern Schenkerian analyses, to prefer lines from .
caption: Urlinie in relation to the tonic triad.
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