Music Theory Now and Then 40 years of Histories and Discourse

Heidlberger, McKinney, Santa, Clifton, Weaver, & Bakulina

Since 1978 music theory has seen substantial developments. In light of the foundation of SMT, TSMT, and other regional societies, music theory has created its own voice as an academic discipline, reflected in scholarship and institutional as well as curricular developments. While traditional fields of music theory - aural skills, counterpoint, "written theory," have been stable and continuous as disciplines of basic skill training, new approaches have been established, paving the way for the broad range of analytical and theoretical scholarship that can be seen today. In the course of the last twenty years a "millennial theory" has emerged: cognitive theory, Neo-Riemannian and transformational theories broadened the perspectives toward multi-disciplinary and historical scholarship in music theory. New repertoires further challenged traditional analytical approaches by widening the horizon toward popular music and non-Western cultures. The critical assessment of the relationship between composition and performance further widened the scholarly horizon of music theorists around the country and beyond. It is the purpose of this panel to review and discuss developments of music theory over the course of the last forty years, with the goal to better understand current opportunities, and challenges. This discussion will not be comprehensive, but will provide a number of exemplary topics, including early-music research, curricular challenges, skill-levels of current students, the emergence of new scholarship of phrase structure and form, the role of jazz theory, and finally the challenges of professional development that graduate and junior colleagues in music theory face in current academia.