The expression P3,0 refers to one class of parsimonious voice-leading transformations between seventh chords introduced in a 1998 article by Jack Douthett and Peter Steinbach as Pm,n (Journal of Music Theory 42 (2): 241–63). In addition to tones that may be held in common, the subscripts indicate the number of voices that move by half step (m) o…[Read more]

This article provides a detailed examination of Hauer’s late 12-tone compositions, identifying the practices and procedures employed across a body of more than 100 pieces.

This article explores the influence of sources outside the institutional framework of organized religion (“occult” sources) on Schoenberg’s aesthetic thinking and writing, especially with regard to the musical idea..

This article examines the spiritual dimension of early twelve-tone theoretical writing, with a focus on the writing and music of Arnold Schoenberg and Josef Matthias Hauer.

This article explores the influence of mysticism in early 20th-century Vienna on the palindromic designs that can found n Berg’s music.

The published version of my invited response to the special session on “(Per)Form in(g) in Rock” from SMT Indianapolis.

This article explores the sometimes tricky question of tonality in pop and rock songs by positing three tonal scenarios: 1) songs with a fragile tonic, in which the tonic chord is present but its hierarchical status is weakened, either by relegating the tonic to a more unstable chord in first or second inversion or by positioning the tonic…[Read more]

The introductory essay to my edited volume *Rock Music*, from the Ashgate Library of Essays in Popular Music series (2011).

This article explores the sources of what Dahlhaus calls Schoenberg’s “aesthetic theology” in the philosophical, literary, and mystical writings of late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe.

This chapter examines Schoenberg’s theoretical ideas on musical structure with particular emphasis on his Variations for Orchestra, op 31.

This chapter traces the development of the twelve-tone idea in twentieth-century music theory.

This article explores Schoenberg’s engagement with organicism, casting it as an aesthetic ideal.

This chapter provides a biographical sketch of Hauer’s life and music.

This article traces the reception of Schoenberg’s theoretical ideas in the English-language music theory community.

This chapter focuses on the work of the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), a group that emerged in the immediate wake of the Beatles and whose anxiety of influence towards the Beatles is especially apparent. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, for example, was paralyzed by his anxiety of influence, but Jeff Lynne, ELO’s leader and main composer, saw t…[Read more]

In a seminal 1985 article, Robert Hatten outlines a theory of musical intertextuality with the potential for a broad range of application. He suggests that intertextuality in music operates on two essential levels: stylistic and strategic. Stylistic intertextuality occurs when a composer adopts distinctive features of an earlier style without…[Read more]

In this essay, I present a methodology for analyzing style in pop and rock that confronts the issue of stylistic eclecticism, focusing on a body of work that offers a particularly interesting case study in this regard, namely the music of the Police. Formed in London in 1977, a particularly turbulent year in the history of British pop, this…[Read more]

In *Expression in Pop-Rock Music: Critical and Analytical Essays*, 2nd ed., ed. Walter Everett (Routledge, 2008).

This article examines a variety of compositional procedures that give rise to what the author defines as “accumulative” and “cumulative” forms in pop-rock music, formal processes which are directly linked to the rapid advances in recording technology that occurred mainly from the late 1960s to the 1980s. The article includes detailed…[Read more]

This chapter chronicles George Harrison’s songwriting during the Beatles years.