Advising

Dissertations

Current:

Danny Jenkins: "Issues of Form in Schoenberg's Atonal Period Vocal Music: Three Case Studies"

David Sommerville: "'Subjective Nationalism' and 'Neo-expressionism': Ginastera's First Two String Quartets"

Ben Wadsworth: "Motivic Process in Transitional Music of the Second Viennese School"

Completed

Ed Jurkowski: A theory of harmonic structure and voice leading for atonal music (1998)

Jocelyn Neal: Song structure determinants : poetic narrative, phrase, and hypermeter in the music of Jimmie Rodgers (2002). University of Rochester Sproull Leader's Award. Fall 2005.

Sam Ng: A Grundgestalt Interpretation of Metric Dissonance in the Music of Johannes Brahms (2005)

Austin Patty: A Theory of Pacing Scenarios with Application to the Violin Sonatas of Brahms (2006)
Scott Spiegelberg: The psychoacoustics of musical articulation (2002)

Kristen Taavola: Cyclic shape theory: an approach to modeling modal processes in pieces from Balinese gamelan and Bartok (2002)

Master's Theses

Camille Ditusa. Pitch structure in Ravel's Sonata for violin and violoncello (1988).

Martha Rowell Mesiti. An analysis of Alexander Zemlinsky's Op. 13, No. 1: "Die drei Schwestern" (1988).

Rhonda Kay Wright. Stefan Wolpe's String quartet (1969), 1st movement : an analysis and discussion of its relation to Wolpe's compositional philosophy (1988).

Papers and Presentations

"Rhythmic Form in Berg's Chamber Concerto."
College Band Director's National Association Conference. Ann Arbor, MI, March 30, 2007.
Theory Department Colloquium. Eastman School of Music, the University of Rochester, Fall 2006.

"Oribfold or Befuddled" With Matthew Brown. Theory Department Colloquium. Eastman School of Music, the University of Rochester, Fall 2006.

"Issues of Freedom and Control in Ruth Crawford Seeger's String Quartet." In series Women and Music: Looking Back, Looking Forward. The Humanities Project. The University of Rochester. November 14, 2006.

"Authenticity and Identity in Blues-Rock." Invited seminar class in the Music Department,Cornell University. February 28, 2006.

"A 'Complex' Context for Rhythm in Meters: Berg's Rhythmic Motives from Wozzeck." Invited lecture in the Music Department Colloquium, Cornell University. February 27, 2006.

"Introduction to Music Representation" Eastman / Cornell Cognition Symposium, Fall 2005.

"The Musical and Scientific Revolution of the 16th Century: Vincenzo and Galileo Galilei. With David H. Douglass, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, the University of Rochester.
Provost's Lunch Series, The University of Rochester, Fall 2005.
Colloquium: Physics and Astronomy Jan 26, 2005.
Freshman Colloquium, theEastman School of Music, the University of Rochester. Fall 2004.

"An Expressive and Compact Representation of Musical Sound" with Mark Bocko, Oktay Altun, and Edward Titlebaum, in the session Applications to Music I: Audio and Electroacoustics, at the 2004 meeting of the International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP), in Montreal, Canada.

"The Year of the Blues." Talk given to the Freshman Colloquium, the Eastman School of Music, the University of Rochester. Fall 2003.

"Latency, Musicality, and Network Performance." With Chris Bartlette and Mark Bocko Presented at the 2003 National Conference of the Society for Music Theory. Madison, WI. Also presented at the 2003 Conference of the Society for Music Cognition and Perception. Las Vagas, NV. Presented along with "Acoustics and Psychoacoustics: Dimensions of Human Perception and Cognition" to The Eastman/UR-BCS/Cornell Music Cognition Symposia, March 1, 2002.

"Perle's Theories and Knets." Presented at the 2003 Mannes Institute, Transformational Theory, in the Klumpenhouwer Network Session.

"Blues into Rock: Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page Discover Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters." The Neilly Series Lectures. Rush Rhees Library, the University of Rochester, Fall 2002.

"Acoustics: Recent Developments." Presented to The Eastman/UR-BCS/Cornell Music Cognition Symposia, 1999.

"Viennese Masters: Brahms and Berg." Lecture with live performance with clarinetist Kenneth Grant and pianist Sylvie Beaudette, International Clarinet Festival, Columbus, Ohio, July, 1998.

"Timbral Analysis and Multimedia: The Madigrals of George Crumb." Poster Session on "Computers and the Analysis of Twentieth-Century Music." Presented at the 1997 National Conference of the Society for Music Theory in Phoenix, Arizona.

When confronted with the music of George Crumb, listeners are struck perhaps above all by the mastery in the treatment of timbre, evident in the varied techniques required of the instruments and in the use of sound itself as a motive. Crumb's use of timbre has often been assessed in subjective, qualitative terms, for until recently it has been difficult to discuss the actual sound within the context of the music in any systematic way. Using a MacIntosh computer with digital audio programs (Digidesign's Sound Designer and MATLAB) and multimedia presentation software (Macromedia Director), and taking Crumb's Madrigals (1965-69) as a starting point, the proposed discussion and demonstration analyzes and displays aspects of timbre in these songs. This presentation is not only intended as an accessible analysis of timbre, but also to encourage awareness by teachers and scholars of the importance of timbre and of the efficient, musical, and meaningful ways of exploring it allowed by the computer.

"Computers and Multimedia: Director." Invited presentation at the University of Colorado, Boulder Colorado, November 1997.

"Whole lotta Sound: Timbre in Rock." Presented at the Diversity Session, 1997 National Conference of the Society for Music Theory in Phoenix, Arizona.

One of the most innovative aspects of rock music is the careful attention to timbre. Most groups or singers are identified strongly with their "sound," but it is just this important element that has been neglected in the traditional theory curriculum, largely due to the lack of terminology or technology for analysis. With the advent of widely available and powerful personal computers and sound analysis software, it is now possible to incorporate considerations of timbre into the classroom. Using various Macintosh based sound analysis programs, this presentation will consist of a model lesson in timbre analysis suitable for undergraduates. The repertoire will be songs by Led Zeppelin, particularly 'Whole lotta love," a staple of the rock literature widely available on CD. This song, a reworking of a blues song by Muddy Waters, demonstrates the group's abilities to create large-scale musical structures from strophic models. The added middle section is an extended study in combining timbres of concrete and electronic sounds, and forms an excellent introduction to the importance of timbre in recent popular music.

"Putting Notes Together: Brahms and Berg." Lecture with live performance in the Sam Adler Series, with clarinetist Kenneth Grant, Eastman School of Music, The University of Rochester, September 1997.

"Berg, Sketches, and Numerology." Presented to the International Conference "Austria 996- 1996," in Ottawa, Canada, January 1996.

"Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire." Lecture with live performance in Sam Adler Series, Eastman School of Music, The University of Rochester, October 1994.

"Does the Song Remain the Same? Modernism and Post-Moderism in the Music of Led Zeppelin." Presented at the 1992 Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, American Chapter, in Denton, Tx.

"Berg's Twelve-Tone Sketches: Analytical Issues." Presented at the 1992 Conference of the Music Theory Midwest Society in Columbus, OH.

"Mahler's First Symphony." Pre-Concert Lecture for Rochester Philharmonic Concert, 1991. Rochester, NY

"Schenkerian Theory and The Limits of Tonality: The Problem of #IV." With Matthew Brown. Presented at the 1990 National Conference of the Society for Music Theory in Oakland, CA.

"Blues Transformations in the Music of Cream," part of a session on "Analytical Considerations in 'Underground' Rock Music in the Late 1960's." Presented at the 1990 National Conference of The Society for Music Theory in Oakland, CA; at a Rock Music Sy mposium at University of Rochester, Fall 1990; at the 1990 Conference of The Midwest Music Theory Society in Evanston IL; at the 1990 Conference of The International Society for the Study of Popular Music in New Orleans, LA.

"The Music of Alban Berg." Presented in January 1990 to the Music Department at Bishops University, Lennoxville, Quebec.

"Cyclic Transformations of Pitch Sets." Presented at the 1988 Conference of The Society for Music Theory in Baltimore, MD.

"Rhythm in Tonal Music: Opposing Hypermeasure Lengths." Presented at the 1988 Meeting of the Music Theory Society of New York State in Saratoga Springs, NY.

"Row Structure in Der Wein in Relation to Lulu." Presented at the1986 National Conference of The Society for Music Theory in Bloomington, IN.

"The Derivation of Rows in Lulu." Presented at the 1985 National Conference of The Society for Music Theory in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Professional Activities

Organizer and Chair. "Eastman celebration of George Perle's 90th birthday", a conference and concert for George Perle, Eastman School of Music, Nov. 28th 2005

Chair, Session on "Compositional Process and Analysis." The Society for Music Theory. National Conference, 2005 in Boston, MA.

Member, Committee on Professional Development Resume Review. The Society for Music Theory. National Conference in Seattle, 2004.

Chair, Session on the Music of Luciano Berio at the Eastman School of Music, Spring 2003.

Invited class given a t the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, March 2002. Subject: "The Music of Alban Berg."

Chair, session on the Music of George Crumb at the Eastman School of Music, fall 2001.

Consultant and Reader: The University of Rochester Press, 2001 . The University of Michigan Press, 2003

Chair, Special Session, SMT Popular Music Group: Sketch and Style Studies in Popular Music: A Theorist's Perspective, at the National Conference of the Society for Music Theory, in Toronto, Canada, Fall 2000.

Member, Editoral Board of Music Theory Spectrum 1999-2002.

Chair, Young Scholar Committee, MTSNYN, 1999.

Panel Member, Session on "Reappraising the #IV(bV) Hypothesis." Music Theory Society of New York State 1999 Conference.

Administra tor, Virtual Poster Session , Society for Music Theory 1997-2002.

Organizer and Chair, "Popular Music and The Canon: Old Boundaries Reconsidered." Symposium on Popular Music, Eastman School of Music, Fall 1996.

Invited class given at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, October 1996. Subject: The Music of Alban Berg.

Chair, session on "20th-century music theory" at 1996 MTSNYS Conference, in SUNY, Stony Brook, NY.

Member, Program Committee. Music Theory Society of New York State 1996 Conference.

Program Committee Chair. Music Theory Society of New York State 1995 Conference.

Co-Editor, Music Theory Online, 1993-1997.

Reviewer:
Perspectives of New Music, 1988-92
College Music Symposium 1992
Integral, 2003- 2004
Journal of the American Musicological Society 2003
Journal of Music Theory, 2004
University of Western Ontario Studies in Music, 2002-2004

Editorial Board, Chair of Publications Committee.Theory and Practice. Journal of the Music Theory Society of New York State,1991-96.

Member, Local Arrangements Committee, Exhibits Coordinator. National Conference of The Society for Music Theory, 1987. Rochester, NY.

Discussant in the session "Presence and Function of the Beat" at th e 1986 meeting of the Society For Ethnomusicology at the Eastman School of Music, The University of Rochester

Chair, Michigan Music Theory Conference IV. 1985. The University of Michigan.

Editor, Reviews Editor, In Theory Only, 1983-85, 1994-2000

Current Research

George Perle's Twelve-Tone Tonality and Intersections with Klumpenhouwer Networks

Cyclic Layer Analysis

Computer Models of Berg's 12-tone techiques.

Complexity Theory and Music

Post-tonal music theory at the keyboard

Computer Modelling of Musical Transcription.

Teaching and Current Schedule

Publications

Books

The Music of Alban Berg, in series Composers of the Twentieth Century. Series Editor Allen Forte. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
errata list
Yale University Press listing
Recipient, ASCAP Deems-Taylor Award, 1997. ASCAP Archive

Articles and Book Chapters

"Process in the String Quartets of Alban Berg," in Intimate Voices: Aspects of Construction and Character in the Twentieth-Century String Quartet. Edited by Evan Jones. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2007.

"Learning to Hear Autistically" in Sounding Off: Music and Disability Studies. Edited by Neil Lerner and Joseph Straus. New York: Routledge, 2006: 109-120.
Music Theory Disability Interest Group

"Latency, Musicality, and Network Performance." With Christopher Bartlette, Mark Bocko, and Gordana Velic Music Perception Vol. 24, no. 1 (September 2006): 49-62.

"Walter O'Connell's 'Tone Spaces': An Early View of the Order Position / Pitch-class Exchange." University of Western Ontario Studies in Music Vols. 19-20 (2006): 113-160.

"Integrating Analytical Approaches to George Crumb's Madrigals Book 1, no. 3." In George Crumb & The Alchemy of Sound. Edited by Steven Bruns and Ofer Ben-Amots. Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2005.

"Expressive and Compact Representation of Musical Sound", Mark F. Bocko, Oktay Altun, David J. Headlam, Edward L. Titlebaum, 2004 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. IEEE. Part vol.4, 2004, pp.iv-249-52 vol.4.

"Appropriations of blues and gospel in popular music," in The Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music. Edited by Allan Moore. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002: pp. 158-187.
Cambridge University Press listing.

"Perle's Cyclic Sets and Klumpenhouwer Networks: A Response." Music Theory Spectrum Vol. 24, No. 2 (Fall 2002): 246-56.

"Re-Drawing Boundaries: The Kronos Quartet." in Traditions, Institutions, and American Popular Music. Edited by John Covach and Walter Everett. Special Issue of Contemporary Music Review. Vol. 19, Pt. 1. London: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000: 113-140.

"Blues Transformations in the Music of Cream." in Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis. Edited by John Covach and Graeme M. Boone. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997: 59-92.
Oxford University Press listing

"Multimedia for Music Study on the Web: Macromedia Director." Music Theory Online Vol. 3, No. 5 (September, 1997).
URL: http://boethius.music.ucsb.edu/mto/issues/mto.97.3.5/mto.97.3.5.headlam_frames.html

"The #IV/bV Hypothesis: Schenkerian Theory and the Limits of Tonality." Music Theory Spectrum Vol. 19, no. 2 (1997): 155-83.

"Does the Song Remain the Same? Issues of Authorship and Identification in the Music of Led Zeppelin." in Concert Music, Rock, and Jazz Since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies. Edited by Elizabeth West Marvin and Richard Hermann. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1996: 313-63.
University of Rochester listing

"Tonality and Twelve-Tone Tonality: The Recent Music of George Perle." The International Journal of Musicology. Edited by Elliot Antokoletz and Michael von Albrecht. Vol. 4: Festschrift for George Perle. Edited by Gary S. Karpinski (1995), 301-33.

"Introduction" to The Right Notes by George Perle. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995.

"Sketch Study and Analysis: Berg's Twelve-Tone Music." College Music Symposium Vols. 33-34 (1993-94): 155-71.

"Fritz Heinrich Klein's 'Die Grenze der Halbtonwelt' and Die Maschine." Theoria Vol. 6 (1992): 55-96

"Row Derivation and Contour Association in Berg's Der Wein." Perspectives of New Music Vol. 28, No. 1 (Winter 1990): 256-292.

"The Derivation of Rows in Lulu." Perspectives of New Music Vol. 24, No. 1 (Fall-Winter 1985): 198-233.

"A Rhythmic Study of the Exposition in the Second Movement of Beethoven's Quartet Opus 59, no. 1." Music Theory Spectrum Vol. 7 (1985): 114-138.

"Pedagogically Speaking: Pitch-Class Collections of Limited Transposition." In Theory Only Vol. 7, No. 4 (October 1983): 37-47.

"Pedagogically Speaking: Teaching Hexachordal Combinatoriality." In Theory Only Vol. 7, No. 3 (June 1983): 28-35.

"Comment on Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun." In Theory Only Vol. 6, No. 4 (May 1982): 9-11

Dictionary Entries

"Alban Berg" in The Encyclopedia of Europe 1914-2004. (New York: Macmillan, 2005).

"Atonality" (section 4 and bibliography) and "Twelve-Note Composition" (bibliography) in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Second edition. Edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London, 2001): Vol. 2: 142-45; Vol. 26: 10-11.

"Acoustics" and "Berg: Other Music" in Reader's Guide to Music: History, Theory, Criticism. Edited by Murray Steib. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999: pp. 1-2, 77-79.

Reviews, Concert Notes, Comments, Replies, Communications

With Matthew Brown. Technical Comment on "The Geometry of Chords" by Dmitri Tymoczko. Science 19 January 2007: Vol. 315. no. 5810, p. 330. www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/315/5810/330b.

Concert notes for Berg's Lyric Suite. Musicians from Marlboro concert at the Eastman School of Music, Fall 2005.

Reply to Richard Hermann's review of Dave Headlam, The Music of Alban Berg, Volume 26, no.1 (Spring 2004): 153-57.

Review: of The Atonal Music of Anton Webern by Allen Forte. Music Theory Spectrum Vol. 22, No. 2 (Fall 2000): 246-257.

Review of Style and Idea in the Lyric Suite of Alban Berg by George Perle. Journal of Music Theory Vol. 43, No. 2 (Fall 1999): 349-358.

Review of A View of Berg's Lulu by Patricia Hall, Music Library Association Notes, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Sept. 1998): 121-123..

"Communication (re: Haimo in Vol. 18, No. 2)" in Music Theory Spectrum Vol. 19, No. 2 (1997): 297-99.

Review of Shaping Time: Music, the Brain, and Performance by David Epstein. Theory and Practice 20 (1995): 193-204. Reply to Epstein in 21 (1996): 219

"Communication (re: Cohn in Vol. 14, No. 1)." Music Theory Spectrum Vol. 16, No.1 (1994): 144-46.

Double Review of Alban Berg: Historical and Analytical Perspectives, Edited by David Gable and Robert P. Morgan; Alban Berg by Theodor W. Adorno. Translated with introduction and annotation by Juliane Brand and Christopher Hailey. Music Theory Spectrum Vol. 15, No. 2 (1993): 272-85.

Review of Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music, by William Rothstein. The Journal of Musicological Research Vol. 12 (1993): 327-46.

Triple Review of The Berg Companion, Ed. by Douglas Jarman; Sources for 20th Century Music History: holdings of the Houghton Library of Harvard University and the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek; Wozzeck by Douglas Jarman, in series Cambridge Opera Handbooks. Music Library Association Notes (June 1991): 1139-42.

Review of The Operas of Alban Berg, Volume II: Lulu by George Perle. In Theory Only Vol. 9, Nos. 5-6 (January 1987): 57-76.

Review of Berg's Wozzeck: Harmonic Language and Dramatic Design by Janet Schmalfeldt. In Theory Only Vol. 8, Nos. 4-5 (January 1985): 65-77.