In this talk, presented at the Plenary Session of the 2020 Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory, I examine the relationship between time, embodiment, and affectivity in music. I argue that music is temporal not because it unfolds in time, or because it takes time as its vector, or even because it has the capacity to alter our sense of…[Read more]

In 1970, a television-show dance contest in a small California town ended abruptly when the studio was briefly plunged into darkness because of an apparent power failure. The media coverage of the event eventually helped uncover criminal activity at the studio; over the course of this reporting, the narrative was accompanied by select genres of…[Read more]

Review of _Analyzing Schubert_ by Suzannah Clark. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. x, 290 pp. ISBN: 978-0-521-84867-1.

This article presents an overview of a new pre-cadential schema in the galant style: the Volta. The Volta is a two-part schema featuring a prominent chromatic reversal: stage one charges up the dominant with a ♯4–5 melodic string, while stage two releases to the tonic using a ♮4–3 string. The schema sheds light on many aspects of galant music-m…[Read more]

Traditional music theory curricula are increasingly scrutinized. Students regularly misunderstand the scope of epistemology and scope of theory, find theory intimidating and difficult, and fail to see its relevance to their career goals. In this essay, I outline a modular music theory curriculum, which works to address these negative perceptions…[Read more]

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What’s in your research “pantry”? What topics, materials, and data are already on
your shelves or in your files, just waiting to become papers, presentations, or articles? The pandemic may have stopped many of us from some of our usual research, library, and archival work, but there is still a lot we can do using materials and information we have…[Read more]

This chapter presents an approach to musical listening and analysis that privileges the individual perspectives of performers in a rock ensemble. Using passages from Yes’s “And You And I,” this study examines how each musician hears the texture in different ways while each of these “positions” differs from the Ideal Listening Position, which is…[Read more]

This chapter considers the role of popular music in the undergraduate music theory curriculum, proposing three models for integrating pop into theory teaching.

This paper surveys the career of Jimmy Miller and explores his role as producer for the Rolling Stones, with particular emphasis on Beggars Banquet.