"Music Theory" Blogs & Blog Posts

I recently reflected on how Abby Whiteside’s book Indispensables in Piano Playinghad helped bring into focus thoughts I had been toying with about the mapping of the structures of a body that plays music onto structures implicit in the music itself...

Sometimes you find a thought sloshing around the back of your mind in an intriguing but unfocused way for quite a while, when suddenly you come across something that brings it sharply into focus. I’ve had a couple of these recently, both sparked by...

I wrote a while back about the experience of listening out for our favourite bits in familiar music, and the obligations thus placed upon performers to make those eagerly-anticipated moments special. This opened up the question as to how we identify...

Jay's selfie captures to joy in the room The weekend saw the first in-person BABS Directors Academy since 2020 (and my first since 2019, as I missed the last one). We had Dr Jay Dougherty as our guest educator, who brings with him a deep and abiding...

9/4, 17/8, and 7/4. Musicians will recognize these as time signatures. The vast majority of pop music is written in 4/4. Gabriel Faro, a drummer, and composer from Pelotas, Brazil, posts short videos of him jamming across different time signatures, w...

There are those who attempt to make music theory into a fully-rational and systematic endeavour, but those of use working at the sharp end of music-making* know that it is messier than that. Yes, you can organise a lot of it into logical patterns tha...