interests
My research specializations are in timbre, technology, and popular music. I have developed a new approach to the analysis of timbre that blends spectrogram analysis with cultural studies and ethnographies. I focused there on 1980s popular music and the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer. Since that article, I've given several invited talks on timbre, pop music, and the teaching of those subjects.
The Sega Genesis uses the YM2612 sound chip, which shares most its technology as the Yamaha DX7. This (plus a lifelong love of video games) led me to an interest in ludomusiology, especially video game soundtracks from games released for the Sega Genesis, and multimedia analysis more generally.
My current projects include a collaboration with a percussionist theorizing and analyzing orchestral percussion excerpts. Since beginning this project, I've grown ever increasingly interested in the peculiarities of (especially non-pitched) percussion, both acoustic and electronic. I am also working on an edited collection about methodologies for studying instruments in popular music, under contract with Palgrave Macmillan.
articles
The Common Cold: Using Computational Musicology to Define the Winter Topic in Video Game Music
“Oops! …I Did It Again”: The Complement Chorus in Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, and *NSYNC
In SMT-V 7/6, 2021.
The Cultural Significance of Timbre Analysis: A Case Study in 1980s Pop Music, Texture, and Narrative
In Music Theory Online 26/3, 2020.
Bespoke Music Theory: A Modular Core Curriculum Designed for Audio Engineers, Classical Violinists, and Everyone in Between
In Engaging Students 7, 2019.
“What makes it sound ’80s?”: The Yamaha DX7 Electric Piano Sound
In Journal of Popular Music Studies 31/3, 2019.
Begging to Be Seen: Beyoncé’s Partition
In SAMPLES 22, 2024.
book chapters
/r/musictheory: Making Music Theory on Reddit
Timbre, Rhythm, and Texture within Music Theory’s White Racial Frame
.jpg){kind=link}
selected presentations
This list only includes presentations that were not later published. For a full list of my presentations, see my CV.
In 2023, I started making my presentations using Reveal.js, so you can view the slides as a website.
EDM as Timbre Learning Lab
Instrumental Timbre and Texture in Popular Song
Presented at Timbre and Orchestration in Popular Song, 2025.
Layers of Meaning: Teaching Instrumentation and Texture
Presented at Keynote for Texas Society for Music Theory 2024; also presented at University of Iowa, University of Maryland, and Oxford Seminar in Music Theory & Analysis, 2024.
I Want It That Way: Good Practices for Pop Music Pedagogy
Presented at Utah State University, 2024.
Following are selected, older presentations not on Reveal.js. For a complete list of presentations, see my CV. Feel free to request materials for them (handouts, slides, etc.)
Tracing Music Theory’s (un)Shifting Frames: A Natural Language Processing Approach
Co-authored with Thomas Johnson and Evan Williams
Presented at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory, 2020.
Diversifying the Theory Curriculum: How to Open Multiple Pathways through the Theory Core
Presented at The 2nd Pedagogy Into Practice Conference, 2019.
From Cheesy to Chill: The Shift in Popular Opinions of Digital Synthesis and the 1980s
Following Schenker’s Lead in the Analysis of Stravinsky
Presented at the Music Theory Society of New York State 45th Annual Meeting and the 5th Biennial Student Conference of the Music Theory & Musicology Society of University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, 2016, 2014.
Rhythmic and Timbral Associations in Sufjan Stevens’s “Come On, Feel the Illinoise!”
Presented at the Society for Music Theory 36th Annual Meeting; Music Theory Society of New York State 42nd Annual Meeting; Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic 11th Annual Meeting; Music Theory Forum at Florida State University 29th Annual Meeting, 2013.
reviews
Review of Timbre is a Many-Splendored Thing (2018) conference
In Journal of Popular Music Studies 31/1, 2019.
Review of Robert Fink, Melinda Latour, and Zachary Wallmark (eds), The Relentless Pursuit of Tone (2018)
In Current Musicology 103, 2018.