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Theory & Composition

Doctoral Seminars & Dissertations

Theory Doctoral Seminars

The diverse doctoral seminars in music theory offered at FSU reflect the range of our faculty’s interests. The following are recent and upcoming doctoral seminars:

  • Video Game Music (Julianne Grasso, spring 2024)
  • Music Computation and Machine Learning (Clifton Callender, fall 2023)
  • Rhythm and Meter (Gilad Rabinovitch, spring 2023)
  • Music Cognition Research Methods (Nancy Rogers, fall 2022)
  • Analyzing Schubert (Evan Jones, spring 2022)
  • Analysis of World Music (Jane Piper Clendinning, fall 2021)
  • Form and Meaning in Musical Theater (Michael Buchler, spring 2021)
  • Music by Composers of Color (Rachel Lumsden, fall 2020)
  • Improvisation Studies (Gilad Rabinovitch, spring 2020)
  • Music Computation and Machine Learning (Clifton Callender, fall 2019)
  • Music Cognition Research Methods (Nancy Rogers, spring 2019)
  • Music and Meaning (Joseph Kraus, fall 2018)
  • Transformational Analysis of Tonal Musics (Evan Jones, spring 2018)
  • 20th- and 21st-Century Composers in Context (Jane Piper Clendinning, fall 2017)
  • Musical Theater Analysis (Michael Buchler, spring 2017)
  • American Ultramodernism (Rachel Lumsden, fall 2016)
  • Theories of Sonata Form (Mark Richards, spring 2016)
  • Computational Methods in Music Research and Composition (Clifton Callender, fall 2015)
  • Music and Meaning (Joseph Kraus, spring 2015)
  • Music Cognition for Music Theorists (Nancy Rogers, spring 2014)
  • Theories and Analysis of World Music (Jane Piper Clendinning)
  • Recent Analytical Methodologies: Criticism and Hybridity (Michael Buchler)
  • Text-Music Relations (Matthew Shaftel)
  • Rhythm and Form in Twentieth-Century Music (Evan Jones)
  • Ligeti and His Influences (Clifton Callender)
  • Analyzing Postmodern and World Music (Jane Piper Clendinning)
  • Theories of Form in Tonal Music (James Mathes)
  • Drawing Musical Associations Transformation, Process, and Similarity in Music Since 1984 (Michael Buchler)
  • Musical Structure and Dramatic Subtext in Opera (Matthew Shaftel)
  • Topics in Voice Leading and Prolongation (Evan Jones)

Theory Doctoral Dissertations

  • Zachary Lloyd, “From Stereotypes to Nuance: Representations of Male Queerness in Two Musicals by Jeanine Tesori” (2024). Advisors: Michael Buchler and Rachel Lumsden
  • John Combs, “Formal and Dramatic Implications of Reprise in Two Musicals by Jeanine Tesori” (2023). Advisor: Michael Buchler
  • Jennifer Harding, “Applications of the Discrete Fourier Transform to Music Analysis” (2021). Advisor: Michael Buchler.
  • Lauren Hartburg, “Uniform Triadic Transformation Spaces: Structure and Sequences in the Triadic Music of Alfred Schnittke” (2021). Advisor: Evan Jones
  • Sara Everson, “La Structure Sans Maître: Considering Subjective Analysis through Three Analytical Vignettes of Recent Chamber Works by Women Composers” (2020). Advisor: Michael Buchler.
  • Stanley Fink, “Analyzing Pitch in Benjamin Britten’s Parables for Church Performance” (2020). Advisors: Evan Jones and Rachel Lumsden.
  • Joshua Tanis, “Elaborations of Classical-Model Sentences and Periods in Richard Strauss’s Songs for Voice and Piano” (2019). Advisors: Michael Buchler and Joseph Kraus.
  • Micah Lomax, “The Computationally-Assisted Analysis of Select Songs by Sergei Prokofiev” (2018). Advisor: Jane Clendinning.
  • Andrew Selle, “Experiencing Sound: A Hybrid Approach to Electronic Music Analysis” (2018). Advisor: Evan Jones.
  • Jose Garza, “Adapt and Prevail: New Applications of Rhythmic and Metric Analysis in Contemporary Metal Music” (2017). Advisor: Jane Clendinning.
  • Richard Lee, “An Agential Exploration of Tragedy and Irony in Post-1945 Orchestral Works” (2017). Advisor: Joseph Kraus.
  • Jeremy Robins, “Phrase Structure, Hypermeter, and Closure in Popular Music” (2017). Advisor: Jane Clendinning.
  • Daniel Thompson, “Interpreting Hard Bop: Topics, Narrative, and Subjectivity” (2017). Advisor: Evan Jones.
  • Daniel Tompkins, “Early Seventeenth-Century Harmonic Practice: A Corpus Study of Tonality, Modality, and Harmonic Function in Italian Secular Song with Baroque Guitar Accompaniment in Alfabeto Tablature” (2017). Advisor: Evan Jones.
  • Shannon Groskreutz, “A Paradigmatic and Gestural Approach to Musical Meaning in Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Oboe and Piano” (2016). Advisor: Evan Jones.
  • Cara Stroud, “Juxtaposition, Allusion, and Quotation in Narrative Approaches to Music Composed after 1975” (2016). Advisors: Michael Buchler and Joseph Kraus.
  • Brian Jarvis, “Analyzing Film Music Across the Complete Filmic Structure: Three Coen and Burwell Collaborations” (2015). Advisor: Matthew Shaftel.
  • Kimberly Loeffert, “Association and Interpretation in Recent Chamber Music: Gesture and Dialogue in Three Compositions by Franco Donatoni” (2015). Advisor: Evan Jones.
  • Gillian Robertson, “Variations on a Theme by Paganini: Narrative Archetypes in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Variation Sets” (2015). Advisors: Joseph Kraus and Matthew Shaftel.
  • John Peterson, “Intentional Actions: A Theory of Musical Agency” (2014). Advisors: Joseph Kraus and Matthew Shaftel.
  • Andrew Gades, “Music, Image, and Text: A Multi-Domain Analytical Approach to Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience” (2013). Advisor: Matthew Shaftel.
  • Emily Gertsch, “Narratives of Innocence and Experience: Plot Archetypes in Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet and Piano Quartet” (2013). Advisor: Joseph Kraus.
  • Judith Ofcarcik, “A Structural-Aesthetic Study of the Variation Movements of Beethoven’s Late Period” (2013). Advisor: James Mathes.
  • Gregory Decker, “The Language of Baroque Opera: Topic, Structure, and Characterization in Handel’s Italian-Language Operas” (2011). Advisor: Matthew Shaftel.
  • Dave Easley, “‘It’s Not My Imagination, I’ve Got a Gun on My Back!’: Style and Sound in Early American Hardcore Punk, 1978-1983” (2011). Advisor: Jane Clendinning.
  • Bryn Hughes, “Harmonic Expectation in Twelve-Bar Blues Progressions” (2011). Advisor: Nancy Rogers.
  • Crystal Peebles, “The Role of Segmentation and Expectation in the Perception of Closure” (2011). Advisor: Nancy Rogers.
  • Greg McCandless, “Rhythm and Meter in the Music of Dream Theater” (2010). Advisor: Jane Clendinning.
  • Sarah Sarver, “Embedded and Parenthetical Chromaticism: A Study of Their Structural and Dramatic Implications in Selected Works by Richard Strauss” (2010). Advisors: Michael Buchler and Joseph Kraus.
  • Alan Theisen, “A Multifaceted Approach to Analyzing Form in Elliott Carter’s Boston Concerto” (2010). Advisor: Michael Buchler.
  • Sean Atkinson, “An Analytical Model for the Study of Multimedia Compositions: A Case Study in Minimalist Music” (2009). Advisor: Matthew Shaftel.
  • Megan Fogle, “Understanding Electronic Music: A Phenomenological Approach” (2009). Advisor: Evan Jones.
  • Kathleen Biddick Smith, “Musical Process in Selected Works by Michael Torke” (2009). Advisor: Michael Buchler.
  • Ya-Hui Cheng, “The Harmonic Representation of the Feminine in Puccini” (2008). Advisor: Matthew Shaftel.
  • Christopher Endrinal, “Form and Style in the Music of U2” (2008). Advisor: Jane Clendinning.
  • Alexander Sanchez-Behar, “Counterpoint and Polyphony in Recent Instrumental Works of John Adams” (2008). Advisor: Michael Buchler.