RESEARCH
Research Interests
Screen Music
I am fascinated by music in film, television, and especially video games. These musical contexts are also freighted with metaphor, as they primarily provide emotional direction. They are not emotions themselves, but serve as markers that communicate emotional vectors. In 2011, I gave a paper at the International Conference on Music Since 1900 that combined my interest in both old and new by comparing how film music’s tropes work in ways similar to the tropes of seventeenth-century theory of Affektenlehre. Now, I plan to turn these ideas toward topic theory. More recently (2014, 2015) I've given talks about the music in the video game Bioshock Infinite, both music licensed for the game as it is used to inform the narrative, and music by Garry Schyman original to the game. I currently have a book chapter under review related to Bioshock Infinite. In May 2016, I was pleased to present some of my experiences with soundtrack choices in Beat Hazard Ultra at the Music and the Moving Image conference.
Pedagogy
These interested center around pedagogical philosophy and its implementation in the classroom from the micro to the macro level. My essay in Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy might serve as an example of the genesis of my pedagogical direction. The autonomy of my position has granted me the privilege to developed the curriculum I current use; and its structure is an outgrowth of that essay. The four-semester sequence in theory and aural skills has been meticulously crafted to coordinate the conceptual abstraction of theory with the practical application of aural skills, all the while pushing students from grammar, to dialectic, to rhetoric. Additionally, I am currently converting this curriculum over to audio-visual content dissemination to better customize content and make it more modular with less expose for students.
Graphic Neo-Riemannian Theory and Geometric Musical Representation
The neo-Riemannian Tonnetz is a spatial metaphor for harmonic space that I find helpful and has found some intersection with my research into Renaissance music. While many treatments of music falling under the umbrella of transformational theory rely on more abstract approaches (e.g., algebraic formulae) I prefer the more readily accessible geometric representations. My doctoral dissertation is built on the foundation of the Tonnetz and expanded by adding dimensions that accommodate seventh sonorities since more complex sonic objects require more complex geometric spaces. These ideas continue to fuel my research, as I look for ways to develop the versatility of the model for a wider range of repertoire.
Early Music
I long enjoyed the music of the sixteenth century, and artful mastery of its principles is a task in its own right. However, what has intrigued me more are the aberrations that hint at something below the surface. My master’s thesis, New Theories for Old Music: An Analysis of Lamentations Settings by Thomas Tallis and William Byrd was concerned in particular with some of the forward-looking techniques employed by Tallis and Byrd that, I speculated, suggest some of the musical developments to come in the next three centuries. To do this, I translated points of imitation into spatial representations and diagrams. More recently, I have done work in applying neo-Riemannian concepts to works by Carlo Gesualdo and Luca Marenzio. In between other projects, I am studying medieval philosophy, cosmology, and alchemy to understand how they were used as symbols in other contemporaneous art forms. All of these avenues into early music, in one way or another, rely on metaphors. First my translating music into a spatial metaphor to simplify comparison, and secondly to understand contemporary metaphors about the universe and man’s place within it to see how it translated to music.
I am fascinated by music in film, television, and especially video games. These musical contexts are also freighted with metaphor, as they primarily provide emotional direction. They are not emotions themselves, but serve as markers that communicate emotional vectors. In 2011, I gave a paper at the International Conference on Music Since 1900 that combined my interest in both old and new by comparing how film music’s tropes work in ways similar to the tropes of seventeenth-century theory of Affektenlehre. Now, I plan to turn these ideas toward topic theory. More recently (2014, 2015) I've given talks about the music in the video game Bioshock Infinite, both music licensed for the game as it is used to inform the narrative, and music by Garry Schyman original to the game. I currently have a book chapter under review related to Bioshock Infinite. In May 2016, I was pleased to present some of my experiences with soundtrack choices in Beat Hazard Ultra at the Music and the Moving Image conference.
Pedagogy
These interested center around pedagogical philosophy and its implementation in the classroom from the micro to the macro level. My essay in Engaging Students: Essays in Music Pedagogy might serve as an example of the genesis of my pedagogical direction. The autonomy of my position has granted me the privilege to developed the curriculum I current use; and its structure is an outgrowth of that essay. The four-semester sequence in theory and aural skills has been meticulously crafted to coordinate the conceptual abstraction of theory with the practical application of aural skills, all the while pushing students from grammar, to dialectic, to rhetoric. Additionally, I am currently converting this curriculum over to audio-visual content dissemination to better customize content and make it more modular with less expose for students.
Graphic Neo-Riemannian Theory and Geometric Musical Representation
The neo-Riemannian Tonnetz is a spatial metaphor for harmonic space that I find helpful and has found some intersection with my research into Renaissance music. While many treatments of music falling under the umbrella of transformational theory rely on more abstract approaches (e.g., algebraic formulae) I prefer the more readily accessible geometric representations. My doctoral dissertation is built on the foundation of the Tonnetz and expanded by adding dimensions that accommodate seventh sonorities since more complex sonic objects require more complex geometric spaces. These ideas continue to fuel my research, as I look for ways to develop the versatility of the model for a wider range of repertoire.
Early Music
I long enjoyed the music of the sixteenth century, and artful mastery of its principles is a task in its own right. However, what has intrigued me more are the aberrations that hint at something below the surface. My master’s thesis, New Theories for Old Music: An Analysis of Lamentations Settings by Thomas Tallis and William Byrd was concerned in particular with some of the forward-looking techniques employed by Tallis and Byrd that, I speculated, suggest some of the musical developments to come in the next three centuries. To do this, I translated points of imitation into spatial representations and diagrams. More recently, I have done work in applying neo-Riemannian concepts to works by Carlo Gesualdo and Luca Marenzio. In between other projects, I am studying medieval philosophy, cosmology, and alchemy to understand how they were used as symbols in other contemporaneous art forms. All of these avenues into early music, in one way or another, rely on metaphors. First my translating music into a spatial metaphor to simplify comparison, and secondly to understand contemporary metaphors about the universe and man’s place within it to see how it translated to music.
RECENT
Guest blog post "How to Chant the Psalms in Plainsong, Pt. 1: How to Read a Psalm Tone," Anglican Pastor, 21 January 2019.
Presentation/Workshop at Anglican Diocese of the South Annual Synod, November 2018
"Singing and Making Melody to the Lord with Your Heart: Chanting in Personal and Corporate Worship"
"Singing and Making Melody to the Lord with Your Heart: Chanting in Personal and Corporate Worship"
Publication of “Choose Your Own Audio-venture: Soundtrack Choices in Beat Hazard Ultra” in the Autumn 2017 issue (no. 3) of Musicology Research (Issue 3: “Music on Screen: From Cinema Screens to Touchscreens, Part II).
Presentation at Music and the Moving Image, May 2016
"Choose Your Own Adventure—Sort Of: Soundtrack Choices in Beat Hazard Ulta” (20-minute version)
"Choose Your Own Adventure—Sort Of: Soundtrack Choices in Beat Hazard Ulta” (20-minute version)
Lightning Talk at the Film and Multimedia Interest Group meeting at SMT, November 2015.
“Choose Your Own Adventure—Sort Of: Soundtrack Choices in Beat Hazard Ulta” (5-minute version)
“Choose Your Own Adventure—Sort Of: Soundtrack Choices in Beat Hazard Ulta” (5-minute version)
Book Review in Notes
My review of The New Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics published in Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association, March 2015.
My review of The New Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics published in Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association, March 2015.
Presentation at the Second North American Conference on Video Game Music, January 2015
"Lighter than Air: A Return to Columbia."
"Lighter than Air: A Return to Columbia."
Presentation at the First North American Conference on Video Game Music, January 2014
"There’s Always a Lighthouse: Commentary and Foreshadowing in the Diegetic Music of BioShock Infinite."
"There’s Always a Lighthouse: Commentary and Foreshadowing in the Diegetic Music of BioShock Infinite."
Doctoral Dissertation :: open access
My dissertation A New Geometric Model and Methodology for Understanding Parsimonious Seventh-Sonority Pitch-Class Space is available as a PDF for those interested in reading it.
The document itself is available here.
Supplementary audio and video files can be accessed here.
The document itself is available here.
Supplementary audio and video files can be accessed here.
Content on this this page is copyright Enoch S. A. Jacobus 2013–2015