How do we learn the link between speech and money? What is the process of formation that
legitimates the logic whereby speech is equivalent to money? What are the experiences, events, and subjectivities
that render the connection between currency and speaking/listening intuitive? As educators and researchers,
what do we do and say to shore up…[Read more]

Evidence from researches emanating from Nigeria in the field of mathematics education has revealed an over-reliance on broad methods of empirical inquiry. There seem to be a general stereotypical restriction on approaches to conducting investigation across the noble discipline, thereby stifling the spirit of innovation, open-mindedness and…[Read more]

Ever since appearing in Disney’s Saludos Amigos (1942), Ary Barroso’s musical ode to the Brazilian motherland, “Brazil,” is among the most recognizable songs circulating in Western Culture about Brazil. This essay shows how the song became detached from its roots as a nationalist samba to represent in audiovisual media such divergent ideas as tro…[Read more]

Elliott Carter once extolled the visceral, primitive effect of Penderecki’s Threnody on untrained listeners. In this article, I examine how a formalized analytical approach to the central section of the piece contributes positively to a phenomenological experience of the whole piece. Part 1 presents an ear-training progression aimed at bringing t…[Read more]

In this article I demonstrate how listeners understand musical processes with their bodies, and how their gestures can be used to build analytical models. Specifically, I draw on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to argue that situated, active listeners project their motor intentional gestures inside music, where they reconstitute the…[Read more]

Para un niño, la capacidad de relacionarse con el entorno resulta vital para un correcto autoconocimiento y desarrollo individual. Para ello debe recurrir a una realidad primordial, un modelo comunicativo que tenga carácter referencial en su vida como la figura de los padres. Es en ellos en los que podemos hallar un primer estadio prefilosófico –…[Read more]

Composer Donnacha Dennehy could be described as a bi-coastal composer, but in his case that would be the East Coasts of both Ireland and the United States of America. He is known for his work as co-founder of the Crash Ensemble, based in Dublin, and has four collections of his work issued on CDs from Nonesuch, RTE, and NMC. He joined the…[Read more]

Trying to rank Bach’s great moments is like trying to rank miracles in order of impossibility. Yet I’ve caught myself feeling that a moment in the B Minor Mass may be the greatest of all. This short essay, adapted from a chapter in my forthcoming ebook Why Bach?: An Audio-Visual Appreciation, says why. If features highlighted scores that play as a…[Read more]

Companion materials for “Introductory Digital Humanities Curriculum for the High School English Classroom,” also available on Humanities Commons.

This draft handout accompanied in-class discussion and instruction. There are two key objectives: 1) to model the practices of critical note taking, including close reading, connection making, and question asking; and 2) to document the first assigned reading from Becky Chambers’ A Closed and Common Orbit. This handout covers the first three c…[Read more]

The development of the Portuguese entertainment market and the rise of several types of musical theatre are inextricably bound to the complex symbolic and material process through which Portugal was established, presented, developed, and commodified as a modern nation-state between 1865 and 1908. During this period, several fundamental…[Read more]

The development of the Portuguese entertainment market and the rise of several types of musical theatre are inextricably bound to the complex symbolic and material process through which Portugal was established, presented, developed, and commodified as a modern nation-state between 1865 and 1908. During this period, several fundamental…[Read more]

Part One of this study seeks to define the nature of Spanish and Italian printed keyboard sources in the 16th and 17th centuries. In Chapter two, seven Spanish keyboard prints or theoretical works are examined, dating from 1546 to 1626. These works clearly state a conception of the ideals of keyboard playing; they also show the beginnings of a…[Read more]

Musico-analytical examination of Frank Ocean’s album Blonde and the lyrical references and musical allusions to a marijuana high.

Historical, analytical, and critical overview of John Zorn’s celebrated file-card composition, Cobra.

For Arnold Schoenberg, presentation (Darstellung) is an act of conscien- tious composition by which the formal/functional properties of motives and Gestalten, along with any possible development or variation, are real- ized in the creation of a coherent musical artwork. Presentation, then, is the manner by which a musical idea (Gedanke) is made…[Read more]

Book-length examination of the musical, artistic, and aesthetic practices of the American experimental composer and saxophonist, John Zorn.