In 2023, I began making presentations using Reveal.js. This a web-native presentation framework that allows me to easily share my presentations. Access a presentation by clicking its title.
2024
Layers of Meaning: Teaching Instrumentation and Texture
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Keynote for Texas Society for Music Theory 2024; also presented at University of Iowa, University of Maryland, and Oxford Seminar in Music Theory & Analysis
Abstract
Music schools across the English-speaking world are attempting to become more broadly inclusive of different types of musics and students. This talk considers why theorists should—and how we can—incorporate timbre analysis into an undergraduate theory curriculum, and how this can contribute to a more equitable theory curriculum. I present some practical lessons and assessments and identify areas where timbre might fit most easily into a traditional or a modular curriculum. Timbre, instrumentation, and texture are inherent properties of all sound and thus can be studied in (nearly) all music; furthermore, these concepts do not rely on the complex systems of pitch that underlie most music-theoretical topics (and privilege students with access to classical training). While not a panacea, emphasizing the analysis of timbre, instrumentation, and texture is one way of developing a more inclusive pedagogy of music theory.
I Want It That Way: Good Practices for Pop Music Pedagogy
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Presented at Utah State University
Abstract
This talk gives an overview of some prominent scholarly methods for analyzing popular music, and discusses issues surrounding the inclusion of pop music in music curricula. I discuss two common forms of pop music inclusion—through token examples that fit neatly into a classical-music-based curriculum, and through upper-level electives—and show how these approaches undercut popular music’s potential to be inclusive. I advocate instead for pop music to be included early in the curriculum as its own distinct repertoire, and present my own syllabus for a pop music theory course as a model. As time allows, I will elaborate on the analytical and compositional approaches students learn in that course, with the goal of giving audience members an idea of the tools they might use in their own future work with popular music, whether that be analyzing, composing, or teaching to young musicians.
More presentations
These are older presentations not on Reveal.js.
Layers of Meaning: Teaching Instrumentation and Texture
With Andrew Gades and Crystal Peebles. Joint panel presented at The 2nd Pedagogy Into Practice Conference, 2019.
Abstract
Music schools across the English-speaking world are attempting to become more broadly inclusive of different types of musics and students. This talk considers why theorists should—and how we can—incorporate timbre analysis into an undergraduate theory curriculum, and how this can contribute to a more equitable theory curriculum. I present some practical lessons and assessments and identify areas where timbre might fit most easily into a traditional or a modular curriculum. Timbre, instrumentation, and texture are inherent properties of all sound and thus can be studied in (nearly) all music; furthermore, these concepts do not rely on the complex systems of pitch that underlie most music-theoretical topics (and privilege students with access to classical training). While not a panacea, emphasizing the analysis of timbre, instrumentation, and texture is one way of developing a more inclusive pedagogy of music theory.
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
With Andrew Gades and Crystal Peebles. Joint panel presented at The 2nd Pedagogy Into Practice Conference, 2019.
Abstract
The standard undergraduate theory sequence (i.e., four or five courses taken during the first two years of study) leaves little room to add diverse content without either sacrificing important traditional topics or demanding too many credit hours. This panel explores three solutions to this problem by implementing a modular approach to music theory. Not only does a modular approach open the music theory core to diverse repertoires and topics, it sidesteps concerns of adding credit hours to already packed degrees. Representing music programs from a state university, a liberal arts college, and a music conservatory, our panel explores the motivations behind these modular approaches and the challenges in implementing these changes.
A common theme in each of these curricula is the diversification of the student experience in order to meet the needs of a 21st-century musician. Not only does each model engage repertoires beyond the traditional canon (pop, jazz, film music), but students also express thinking in music through diverse modes of discourse, such as exploring intersections with other disciplines, and assessment in these curricula, such as performance quizzes in a music fundamentals course. By allowing students multiple pathways through the theory core, the curriculum becomes student-centered, where students can select music courses that best meet their musical and professional needs.
Topics of discussion in this panel include: how a modular approach allows greater flexibility for faculty, students, and the institution; the paucity of teaching resources for non-standard curricula; learning outcomes and assessment; and examples of syllabi and curricular frameworks. In sharing our experiences, we hope to encourage other institutions to reconceive the curriculum as a process of opening up different pathways, rather than cramming in more topics, through the undergraduate core.
From Cheesy to Chill: The Shift in Popular Opinions of Digital Synthesis and the 1980s
Presented at the 49th Pop Culture Association and American Culture Association annual conference, 2019
Abstract
In 2008, musician and critic Carrie Brownstein wrote about music of the 1980s, and described the public as having “a tacit agreement that the musical production values were cheesy – a veritable act of sonic sterilization.” Only ten years later, present-day representations of the sound of the 1980s in music, film, and TV seem to have taken a turn away from this prior agreement, toward a decidedly more fond remembrance of the ’80s sound. Somewhere within the past ten years, public opinion of ’80s music shifted and became noticeably more nostalgic. This paper begins to track this change by studing the interconnections between the digital ’80s musical aesthetic and modern reiterations, readings, and representations of that aesthetic, with the aim of exploring how the ’80s sound went from “cheesy” to “chill.” An examination of online forum discussion, popular music magazines, and similar critical media alongside scholarly discourse about the ’80s and the digital/analog divide (e.g., Pinch and Trocco 2009, Lavengood 2017) will detail where and how the ’80s-as-cheesy opinion flourished. Similar ethnographic study, complemented by musicological analysis of new media, will document the recent turn toward affection for the 1980s. Case studies will include “’80s covers” of recent pop hits found on Youtube, and the soundtracks of TV examples such as The Americans, Stranger Things, and Glow.
A New Approach to Analysis of Timbre: A Study in Timbre Narratives and Instrumentation in 1980s Pop
Presented at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory; Timbre is a Many-Splendored Thing; 2018
Presented at 26th Annual Meeting of Music Theory Southeast, 2017
Winner, Best Student Paper Award
Abstract
I articulate a new methodology for timbre analysis, which situates spectrogram analysis within a broad cultural context by taking direct account of listener experience, i.e., “perceptualization” (Fales 2002), through the notions of markedness (Hatten 1994). To this end, I propose timbral norms for instrumentational categories and suggest narratives that result from the transgression of these norms. I categorize sounds used in a given track into three groups, or instrumentational categories: a) core sounds, which articulate structural aspects of pitch and rhythm of the song, b) melody sounds, which are the voice and any instrument replacing the voice, or c) novelty sounds, used primarily for coloristic effects. This paper focuses on 1980s popular music; my categorization therefore was determined by analysis of many 1980s singles. A correlation arises between the timbral characteristics of these instruments and their instrumentational category: the coreand melodysounds share unmarked timbral properties, weaving into the groove’s fabric, rather than demanding attention. Noveltysounds are intrinsically difficult to generalize, but tend to feature marked timbral characteristics. Instances of subversion of timbral norms enables the analyst to locate musical meaning created through the manipulation of timbres. By showing a methodology to account for the vital role of timbre in this music’s narrative, my study demonstrates the utility of timbre analysis in music analysis at large.
Analyzing Sound, Analyzing Timbre
Presented at the 19th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, 2017
Everything’s Synth!”: The Problem, or the Charm, of the ’80s Sound
Presented at ›Klang‹: Wundertüte oder Stiefkind der Musiktheorie (16th Annual Meeting of the Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie), 2016
Following Schenker’s Lead in the Analysis of Stravinsky
Presented at the Music Theory Society of New York State 45th Annual Meeting, 2016; 5th Biennial Student Conference of the Music Theory & Musicology Society of University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, 2014
Abstract
Prolongation in post-tonal music is a notorious issue in music theory. Many have attempted to adapt Schenkerian theory to post-tonal music, but ultimately the trend has failed to catch on. This is due primarily to theoretical roadblocks most famously articulated in Straus 1987. Ironically, Schenker himself may have been the most successful in overcoming this issue when he analyzed a section of Stravinsky’s Piano Concerto in Meisterwerk Vol. II. Schenker first composed a reduction that adjusted dissonant harmonies and made them tonally normative. Thus Schenker could rely on pre-established tonal prolongations, instead of inventing new post-tonal prolongations.
Conceivably, when writing in his neoclassical style, Stravinsky could have produced his post-tonal music by distorting a prior tonal prototype. Though determining such a tonal prototype is necessarily speculative work, I argue that for this circumscribed repertoire, it’s not unreasonable for analysts to engage in this activity, and following Schenker’s lead by analyzing a tonal “prototype” is the most effective way of identifying prolongations in post-tonal music.
I analyze excerpts from the second movement of Symphony in Three Movements, an exemplar of Stravinsky’s neoclassical style, by analyzing (strictly adhering to Schenkerian techniques) a hypothetical tonal prototype of the excerpt; then, I import the resulting analysis onto the surface of the piece. Thus I create a trulyprolongational analysis, where sonorities are composed-out via clearly defined traditional Schenkerian methods. This modified approach preserves the attention to detail, insight, and coherence that make traditional Schenkerian analysis such an appealing and engaging process for the analyst.
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.
Abstract
The music of indie pop artist Sufjan Stevens is quickly recognizable through his use of lush textures created by using both electric instruments and acoustic orchestral instruments in Reichian counterpoint with one another, as well as his preference for asymmetrical meters. “Come On, Feel the Illinoise!”, from the album by the same name, is a representative example of Stevens’s output. The song is rather static harmonically, relying on the repetition of either a single chord or a four-chord pattern. Thus, more traditional harmony-based analytical techniques are not of interest when examining this music. Instead, Dora Hanninen’s associative sets and landscapes are a tool that elegantly relates the more salient elements of timbre and rhythm that lend this song its complexity.
Prominent associative sets are defined primarily based on rhythmic associations, and relationships are drawn between them regarding their timbre, i.e., the instrument being played. After this process, the resultant sets are arranged into an associative landscape, which shows the organization of the sets in the temporal dimension. This demonstrates several things: firstly, the music is clearly divided into two largely unrelated sections; secondly, the first section conforms to verse-chorus design, while the second section is formally elusive; thirdly, the deployment of segments within a single subset varies depending on timbre, since the voice has different segments presented horizontally (through time), while the instrumental parts present segments vertically (between instruments). These facets are elucidated through the use of associative sets in a way that other methodologies may not capture.