Scholarly Publications
“Beyond Strophic: Prolonged Refrains, Choruses, and Bridges in the Blues, 1923–1966” was published in volume 31, number 1 of Music Theory Online (2025). This article discusses the ways in which blues songs ventured outside of strophic form and used formal approaches that aligned more closely with mainstream popular music. It argues that the songs’ formal hybridity is reflective of the merging of rural and urban influences during the Great Migration.
My paper coauthored with Ralf von Appen, “Measuring the Myth: Microtiming and Tempo Variability in the Music of the Rolling Stones,“ was published in volume 49-50 of the journal Theory and Practice (2025). This article, prompted by career assessments of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts in the wake of his death in 2021, tests claims made about his drumming by empirically analyzing microtiming and tempo variability in the band’s recordings. We found that Watts delayed backbeats more consistently than his contemporaries, particularly in recordings released between 1967 and 1973, and that the band showed a pattern of acceleration in this same time period.
“Generic Norms, Irony, and Authenticity in the AABA Songs of the Rolling Stones, 1963-1971”
11,500-word article published December 30, 2021, in Music Theory Online, the online journal of the Society for Music Theory (article available at https://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.21.27.4/toc.27.4.html). The article, published in volume 27, number 4, addressed the Rolling Stones’ use of AABA form between 1963 and 1971 and its relation to defaults of the time, using corpus research to apply James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy’s theory of dialogic form to popular music repertoire. The paper also critically analyzed the ways that the Rolling Stones attempted to achieve authenticity by connecting with blues and soul music performed primarily by Black musicians and distancing themselves from the traditions of Tin Pan Alley and the Brill Building.
“PUBLIQuartet, What Is American. Bright Shiny Things, BSTC-0171, 2022, CD”: review published March 2025 in the Journal of the Society for American Music vol. 18, no. 3.
Accepted, Forthcoming Peer-Reviewed Publications
“Building Bridges: Rebuilds in Popular Song, 1959–2024,” has been accepted for publication and is forthcoming in 2025 in Intégral: The Journal of Applied Musical Thought, volume 38.
“Tempo Variability in Billboard Hot 100 Songs, 1966–1995: Patterns, Click Tracks, and Historical Change,” co-written with Ralf von Appen, has been accepted for publication and is forthcoming in 2025 in Intégral: The Journal of Applied Musical Thought, volume 38.
Selected Conference and Invited Presentations
“Microtiming and Tempo Variability in Professional Drummers: Studio and Live Fingerprints” (coauthored with Ralf von Appen): accepted for presentation at the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) conference in Paris, France in July 2025.
“Living in the Shadows: Backing Vocals and Their Formal and Social Roles”: presented at the IASPM-U.S. conference in Philadelphia, April 13, 2024.
“‘We All Have a Hunger’: Formal Blends as Rebuilds in Popular Song” (paper selected for the Society for Music Theory annual meeting in Denver, Colorado, presented November 11, 2023).
“Drummers in Crisis: The Rise of Metronomic Regularity in Popular Music, 1965-2020”
Paper co-authored with Ralf von Appen presented by invitation at McGill University in Montreal, Québec, Wednesday, September 20, 2023; also presented June 27, 2023, at the International Association for the Study of Popular Music International Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and presented April 14, 2023, at the “On the drums: Métamorphoses de la batterie” conference in Strasbourg, France.
“Bridging the Blues: Hybrid Forms in the Blues, 1925-1965”
Paper presented November 11, 2022, at the Society for Music Theory annual meeting in New Orleans.
“Measuring the Myth: Tempo and (Micro-)Timing in the Music of the Rolling Stones”
Paper co-authored with Ralf von Appen presented at Rhythm under the Microscope: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Microrhythm and Groove in Popular Music in Vienna, Austria, September 2024; presented at the Rhythm in Music Since 1900 conference at McGill University in Montreal, Canada September 23, 2023; presented October 21, 2022, at the joint meeting of the two German-speaking popular music studies organizations (IASPM D-A-CH and GfPM) in Vienna, Austria; presented by invitation in a public lecture at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, October 19, 2022; presented May 2022 at the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-US) conference at the University of Michigan; also presented in September 2022 at the 2022 International Drum Kit Studies Conference at Boston University.
“‘It’s Just Too Much’: Hypervirtuosity and Genre in the Music of Conlon Nancarrow, Art Tatum, and Black MIDI”
Paper presented In June 2019 at Genre Lines, a new music weekend summit within the 2019 Nief-Norf Summer Festival at the University of Tennessee.
Abstract
“‘Quite Vaudeville in a Way’: The Rolling Stones’ Selective Appropriation of a Declining Form”
Paper presented at the February 2017 conference of the U.S. branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-US) in Cleveland, Ohio, at the April 2017 Pacific Northwest Regional Conference of The College Music Society in Vancouver, British Columbia, and at the 2017 National Conference of The College Music Society in San Antonio, Texas, in October 2017.
Dissertation
“‘The Connection Between New and Old’: Rhythmic Process in Late Webern, Late Stravinsky, and Their Predecessors”
Dissertation on the use of isorhythm and canon in late Webern and late Stravinsky and on these composers' relationships to Machaut, Dunstaple, and Isaac.