Review of Borthwick’s book, which approaches music theory from a point of view informed by philosophy.

If Fernando Pessoa was undeniably influenced by Goethe to recreate the legend of Faust, here we argue that a series of other poets and prose writers did also impact, positively and negatively, to a greater or lesser degree, the development of Pessoa’s ‘Faust’. This article intends, thus, to reconstruct these influences, based on evidence found i…[Read more]

A review of: PORTELA, Manuel; SILVA, António Rito [orgs.] (2017). LdoD Archive / Arquivo LdoD / Archivo LdoD [a collaborative digital archive of the Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa]. Centre for Portuguese Literature at the University of Coimbra.

We present here thirteen previously unpublished letters from the Hubert Jennings Papers, including twelve letters signed by members of Fernando Pessoa’s extended family, plus one letter drafted by Hubert Jennings himself. This correspondence covers a period of time of almost three years, dating from 10 February 1967 to 15 January 1970. C…[Read more]

This dossier groups, for the first time, ten poems of Fernando Pessoa attributed to the project “Juliano em Antochia”: two of them being previously unpublished, two others not included in the critical edition, and four presenting new readings in the fixation of the text. Found in three different archives, the texts reveal that, between 1916 and…[Read more]

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 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.

This afterword discusses the Beatles White Album and the essays contained in this volume.

This chapter posits models for musical texture and positional listening and analysis.

This chapter explores the history of the “cover,” distinguishing between covers and versions and focusing on the psychedelic symphonic cover version in the music of Vanilla Fudge and Yes.

This chapter explores the role of popular music in music curricula, considering it in terms of the flattening of the lowbrow/highbrow distinction in American culture and academic culture.

This article considers the historical rise of the high/low brow distinction in American culture since the late 19th century, and posits that the emergence of digital technology and the internet have created something more like a “flat world” in which the low/high distinction is transformed.