Publications and other writings
If you're interested in music theory you probably want to check out my first book.
In recent years I have slowed down my pace of article production; instead, I am working on a new book, tentatively titled Tonality: an owner's manual, which is about three-quarters done.
Mouse over titles for a brief description; click publication info to download. Please do not cite or circulate unpublished items without permission.
Drafts, forthcoming articles, and powerpoints
Many of the powerpoints are intended for a second book on triadic harmony.
- Revisiting post-skip reversals. Revise-and-resubmit from Music Perception which I never got around to revising.
- Intuitive Musical Homotopy (with with Aditya Sivakumar, a high-school student!). Forthcoming in a volume edited by Robert Peck and Mariana Montiel.
- A Study on the Origins of Harmonic Tonality. Powerpoint (incorporated into chapter 4 of my second book).
- Harmonic Extroversion in the Pope Marcellus Mass. Powerpoint (incorporated into chapter 4).
- Rock Logic. Powerpoint (incorporated into chapter 1).
- Yes, but could the Martians understand Bach? Powerpoint (incorporated into chapter 5).
- Noneuclidean Perspectives on the Classical Style. Powerpoint (incorporated into chapter 5).
- OUCH theory, or a dialogue in neo-Fuxian style. Powerpoint (incorporated into chapter 3).
- Local Harmonic Grammar in Western Classical Music. Unpublished article (incorporated into chapter 5, sort of the inspiration for the whole book).
Published scholarly articles
- In Quest of Musical Vectors. Mathemusical Conversations: mathematics and computation in performance and composition. Elaine Chew, Gerard Assayag, and Jordan Smith, eds. Imperial College Press/World Scientific (2016), pp. 256–282.
- Information Theoretical Approach to Chord Classification (with Nori Jacoby and Naftali Tishby) Journal of New Music Research (2015): 1–26.
- Geometry and the Quest for Theoretical Generality Journal of Mathematics and Music 7.2 (2013): 127–144.
- Review of Michael Cuthbert, Music21: a Toolkit for Computer-aided Musicology. Music Theory Online 19.3 (2013).
- The Generalized Tonnez. Journal of Music Theory 56.1 (2012): 1–52.
- Submajorization and the Geometry of Unordered Collections (with Rachel Hall). The American Mathematical Monthly 119.4 (2012): 263–283.
- Mazzola's Model of Fuxian Counterpoint. Mathematics and Computation in Music, eds. Carlos Agon, Moreno Andreatta, Gérard Assayag, Emmanuel Amiot, Jean Bresson, and John Mandereau: Springer (2011): 297–310.
- Dear Stanley. Journal of Music Theory 54.1 (2010): 5–25.
- Generalizing Musical Intervals. Journal of Music Theory 53.2 (2009): 227–254.
- Geometrical Methods in Recent Music Theory. Music Theory Online 16.1 (2010).
- Set Class Similarity, Voice Leading, and the Fourier Transform. Journal of Music Theory 52.2 (2008): 251–272.
- Three Conceptions of Musical Distance. In Mathematics and Computation in Music, eds. Elaine Chew, Adrian Childs, and Ching-Hua Chuan, Heidelberg: Springer (2009), 258–273.
- Recasting K-nets. Music Theory Online 13.3 (2007).
- Lewin, Intervals, and Transformations: A Comment on Hook. Music Theory Spectrum 30.1 (2008): 164–168.
- Generalized Voice Leading Spaces (with Clifton Callender and Ian Quinn). Science 320 (2008): 346-348.
- The Geometry of Musical Chords. Science 313 (2006): 72-74.
- Scale Theory, Serial Theory, and Voice Leading. Music Analysis 27.1 (2008): 1-49.
- Scale Networks in Debussy. Journal of Music Theory 48.1 (2004).
- Voice Leadings as Generalized Key Signatures. Music Theory Online 11.4 (2005).
- Function Theories: A Statistical Approach (published in French, English original here). Musurgia 10.3-4 (2003): 35-64.
- Octatonicism Reconsidered Again. Music Theory Spectrum 25.1 (2003): 185-202.
- Stravinsky and the Octatonic: A Reconsideration. Music Theory Spectrum 24.1 (2002): 68-102.
- The Consecutive-Semitone Constraint on Scalar Structure: A Link Between Impressionism and Jazz. Integral 11 (1997): 135-179.
Annoying polemics
Things I've written responding to criticisms by others, or responding to responses to criticisms of others, etc.
- Basket Cases. Music Theory Spectrum 34.1 (2012): 153–154.
- 'Hey, Wait a Minute!'. Music Theory Spectrum 34.1 (2012): 144-149.
- Round Three. Music Theory Spectrum 33.2 (2011): 211-215.
General audience
Some dating back to the days after I'd been asked to leave philosophy graduate school, when I was thinking about trying to become a freelance intellectual.
- Geometric Listening. Berfrois August 2011.
- The Sound of Philosophy. Boston Review October/November 2000: 42-46.
- The Sublime Beethoven. Boston Review December/January 1999-2000: 40-43.
- What Good is Religion? Boston Review October/November 2000: 42-46.
- The Nitrous Oxide Philosopher. The Atlantic Monthly May 1996: 93-101.
- The End of Jazz? Transition 70 (1996): 72-81.
