Modeling Musical Analysis

Music theory has recently seen burgeoning efforts to make the field more inclusive and diverse. One prominent response involves a concerted effort to collect musical examples by historically marginalized composers for use in the classroom. Less has been done, however, on behalf of the scholars whose work is taught in our classrooms. This collection addresses this concern: scholarship taught in the music theory classroom is often dominated by one particular cultural reality, and this collection is a step toward changing that paradigm by bringing together short essays written by marginalized scholars who model analytical writing for students using a variety of music theories and genres from diverse regions of the world, including for example China, India, Japan, North and South America, and Turkey.

The essays represent current music analytical trends in a substantial breadth of genres, including ballet, chamber music, film music, jazz, musical theater, opera, oratorio, orchestral music, popular music, video game music, and vocal music. Modeling Musical Analysis marks an important step in making the field of music theory, the classroom, and the study of music in general more inclusive by amplifying the representation of, and substantive contributions made by, scholars of color.

Kimberly Goddard Loeffert is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Virginia Tech.
John Peterson is Associate Professor of Music Theory at James Madison University.

Tala as Phrase Meter
Somangshu Mukherji

Prolongation in Turkish Classical Music
Adem Merter Birson

The Role of A-flat in Beethoven's Funeral March from the Eroica Symphony
Jan Miyake

Locating the “Sonata” in Fanny Hensel's Sonata o Fantasia
Catrina Kim

“A Blueprint for Dancers:” the Fiery and Unforgettable Measures of Rosendo Mendizábal's “El Entrerriano”
John Turci-Escobar

Comparing the Choreomusical Styles of Marius Petipa and George Balanchine in the Berceuse of Harlequinade
Kara Yoo Leaman

Analyzing Verismo Opera: “Vissi d'arte” (“I lived on art”) from Puccini's Tosca, Act 2
Ji Yeon Lee

Yamada Kosaku's Inno Meiji: A Portrait of Modern Optimism
Liam Hynes-Tawa

A Rhetorical Strategy to Subvert Artistic Suppression: A “March” That Is Not a 'March' in R. Nathaniel Dett's The Ordering of Moses (1937)
Jeannie Ma. Guerrero

Metrical Dissonance and Phrase Grouping in HWANG Yau-Tai's Oblivion
Joseph Chi-Sing Siu

Reminiscences of the Past and Hybrid Traditions in Yoshinao Nakada's Art Songs
Tomoko Deguchi

Malambo and Motive in The Second Movement of Ginastera's Sonata para piano
David Castro

'That Word in My Bible': Listening Critically to the Louvin Brothers' 'Broad Minded'
Sumanth Gopinath

Writing with Cathy Berberian's Performance of Sequenza III
Vivian Luong

The Restorative Obsession of Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 2
Táhirih Motazedian

Curious Words and Exaggerated Singing-Humor and Satire in Musicals
Wing Lau

Jesus Woodlaají Sin: Translating Singable Navajo Hymns
Renata Yazzie

Motivic development and transformation in Toru Takemitsu's Itinerant (1989)
Robert Hasegawa

Loco Vocable: Semantic Satiation in “Aria Agraria” by Les Luthiers
Fernando Benadon

The Sonic Imagery of Bright Moonlight
Nancy Yunhwa Rao

The Duality of Drums: Exploring Timpani's Melodic and Percussive Potential in Rodis's Colossus
Jose M. Garza, Jr.

The Musical Language of Freedom and Oppression in Richard Danielpour and Toni Morrison's Margaret Garner
Andrew Pau

Celebrating the Underdog: Rhythm and Meter in Pink's “Raise Your Glass”
John Peterson

Storytelling and Meter in clipping.'s “story 2”
Hanisha Kulothparan

The Spiritual Pastoral in The Kansas Rapture for Saxophone Quartet by (Farhad) Forrest Pierce
Kimberly Goddard Loeffert

Melodic Refusal and Racialized Anxiety in Mitski's “Your Best American Girl”
Toru Momii

Harmonizing Uncertainty: Ambiguous Tonicizations in The Music of Summer Walker
Richard Desinord

Texture and Timing in the Score-Stop
Gerardo Lopez