Schenkerian Analysis is a method of music analysis developed by the Austrian music theorist Heinrich Schenker in the early 20th century. It focuses on the underlying structure of a musical piece, revealing how surface melodies and harmonies relate to deeper, more fundamental elements. This approach emphasizes the importance of tonal hierarchy and the relationships between different musical lines. The analysis typically involves creating a visual representation of a piece, often called a Schenkerian graph. This graph illustrates the connections between the foreground (the immediate musical material), middleground (the structural relationships), and background (the fundamental tonal framework). By doing so, Schenkerian Analysis helps musicians and scholars understand the compositional techniques used by composers.