Musical styles are like languages: within a given style there are certain probabilities for one note or harmony to follow another. In language, this is what gives computer algorithms the…
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We present our second THINK THEORY! crossword. Answers come from recent issues, so diligent readers will recall these music theory-related terms. Click the crossword puzzle for a full-size downloadable image…
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After the Bridge…the Chorus? Music theory treats meter, or the measurement of time, hierarchically: elements can either be divided into smaller parts, or organized into larger groups. Here is a…
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Welcome to New Faculty Leah Frederick joined the department as Assistant Professor this fall, and Karin Buer was promoted to Assistant Teaching Professor. Their pedagogy and fields of research broaden the department’s…
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Bebop saxophonist Charlie Parker is one of the central architects of modern jazz. His improvisations provided a blueprint for virtually all subsequent jazz soloists. His improvised solos create a kind…
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CU ON THE WEEKEND From Aretha Franklin to Paul Simon to the Sex Pistols, popular performers and bands from the 1970s made waves that ripple through music and culture today.…
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Entrainment occurs when some aspect of biological activity synchronizes with regularly recurring events. Here are fireflies in Thailand synchronizing to computer-controlled LEDs. Here are metronomes on a floating system synchronizing…
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Video in Music Theory Three vignettes: 1. the speech-to-song illusion, made famous by Diana Deutsch in 2011 (Elizabeth Margulis, “Repetition and Musicality,” SMT-V 1.1 (2015))Founded in 2014, SMT-V is the…
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The College of Music Advisory Board consists of over thirty community members, all deeply engaged with music. They advocate for the College of Music locally, statewide, and nationally. Several members…
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Watch Yonatan Malin’s CU on the Weekend presentation, “Reflections on Musical Time,” for a glimpse of how time in music from Franz Schubert, Bob Dylan, Hamilton, and others connects to poetry,…
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The five undergraduate students in the Linking Music Theory and Practice project presented their work to an enthusiastic audience last spring. This issue of Think Theory! publishes their lecture-recitals with multimedia elements. Links below…
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Music theory at CU reaches across boundaries in multiple ways. Here are five: JAZZ, DADA, AND THE MUSIC OF PARIS AFTER WORLD WAR I CU on the Weekend Keith Waters…
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WE INVITE YOU! Explorations in Analysis and Performance: Berio, Childs, Ravel, Weber, and Jazz Composition As the outcome of a collaboration between the CU theory department and five performance studios,…
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This fall, as part of the worldwide Bernstein at 100 celebration, the theory department presented “Bernstein as Teacher: Exploring the Language of Music,” another installment in our Musical Conversations series in…
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With this issue of THINK THEORY! we inaugurate a gallery in which we feature projects from students in our classes. STUDENT GALLERY The first project, by Katherine Scholl, junior flute…
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What is unique about the major scale? The scales that composers use are a bit like alphabets: they constrain possible words and even (to some degree) syntax. Major scale The…
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Whistle a Happy Tune, by Philip Chang The notion that music can influence our emotions is at least as old as Plato’s Republic. It’s an idea explored by many writers…
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We present our inaugural THINK THEORY! crossword. Intriguing facts from the world of music theory, for both musicians and non-musicians! If you have read our previous THINK THEORY! issues, you…
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Phase Shifting, by Daphne Leong Did you know that the phase-shifting (gradual shifting of a pattern against itself) in Steve Reich’s* music often follows an underlying structural principle? The principle…
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Listen to “I Got Rhythm.” When George Gershwin wrote the music to “I Got Rhythm” for the 1930 musical Girl Crazy, he likely had no idea that it would become…
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For years, I have played around with “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in my mind, listening to the rhythms, the melody, and the feeling of free abandon. “I…
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Music is an art. Music is a language. Music is therapy. Music is a clinical tool. Music is a weapon. Music is an area of humanistic inquiry. Music is math. Music is…
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When we talk about the music of composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, or Brahms, or of the Beatles or Scott Joplin, we often talk about triads, 3-note chords stacked in…
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