Conference Proposals
Since entering the field of music theory in 2013, I have enjoyed a reasonably high acceptance rate for conference proposals. Here, I will publish every solo-authored proposal I have ever sent to a conference for consideration, in the hopes that they will serve as useful models for new scholars in music theory.
Please note also that the Professional Development Committee of the Society for Music Theory maintains a page with conference writing guidelines and sample proposals from a variety of authors. My very first proposals were modeled directly on the 2007 proposal-writing handout prepared by Straus!
Proposals are listed in reverse chronological order.
(2024) "Markedness Correlations and the Constraints of Operatic Multimedia"
ACCEPTED: MTSE / SCSMT 2024, SMT 2024, AMS 2024
Unpublished
(2023) "Statistical Learning in the Music Theory Classroom: Lessons from Teaching Classical Form and Galant Schemas"
ACCEPTED: Defining the Galant: Music, Style, Terminology 2023.
PUBLISHED: Forthcoming in the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy
(2022-23) "Cue Schemas" / "Toward a Structural and Social Analysis of Musical Cueing: Distributed Cognition in the Performance of a Crooked Bluegrass Standard"
ACCEPTED: SMT interest group on improvisation 2022, MTSE 2023, SMT 2023
PUBLISHED: Music Theory Online 30 no. 3 (as "On Meter and the Social Dynamics of Cueing in Bill Monroe's 'Muleskinner Blues'")
(2022) "Rethinking Phrase Structure in Eighteenth-Century Music: Situation-Specific Models and ad hoc Hybrids"
ACCEPTED: SMT 2022
Unpublished
(2022) "'The Song that Started Bluegrass Music Off': Bill Monroe, ‘Muleskinner Blues,’ and the Crooked Performance of Bluegrass’s Origins"
ACCEPTED: IASPM 2021
PUBLISHED: Music Theory Online 30 no. 3 (as "On Meter and the Social Dynamics of Cueing in Bill Monroe's 'Muleskinner Blues'")
(2022) "Toward a Conceptual Status Analysis of (Musical) Metaphors: A Lakoffian Discussion Prompt"
REJECTED: Naming, Understanding, and Playing with Metaphors 2022
Unpublished
(2021-23) "Rethinking the Metastasian Metaphor"
ACCEPTED: AMS 2021, SECM 2023
Unpublished
(2021) "Variations on a Theme by K. K. Slider: Variation Sets and the Hourly Music of Animal Crossing: New Horizons"
ACCEPTED: NACVGM 2021, SMT 2021
PUBLISHED: SMT-V 9 no. 4
(2019) "On Metrical Structure and Cueing Systems in Monroe’s ‘Muleskinner Blues’"
ACCEPTED: MTSE 2019, SMT 2019
PUBLISHED: Music Theory Online 30 no. 3 (as "On Meter and the Social Dynamics of Cueing in Bill Monroe's 'Muleskinner Blues'")
(2018-2020) "The 'Se cerca' Script"
ACCEPTED: MTMW 2018, Society for Eighteenth-Century Music 2020, SMT 2020.
REJECTED: MTSNYS 2019
Unpublished
(2017-18) "Distinguishing Cecchina: Pastoral Sensibility in Eighteenth-Century Italian Opera"
ACCEPTED: AMS 2018
REJECTED: AMS 2017 (no changes were made to the proposal between 2017 and 2018)
Unpublished
(2016-17) "The Volta: A Galant Gesture of Culmination"
ACCEPTED: MTSMA 2016 (as "The Amoroso"), MTMW 2016 (as "The Amoroso"), SMT 2017.
REJECTED: MTSNYS 2016
PUBLISHED: Music Theory Spectrum 42 no. 2 (2020)
(2015) "Zerlina on the Metrical Stage: The Dramatic Fluidity of Metrical Consonances"
ACCEPTED: SMT 2015
Unpublished
(2014) "Sharp as a Tack, Bright as a Button: Timbral Metamorphoses in Saariaho's Sept Papillons"
ACCEPTED: MTMW 2014, SMT 2014
Unpublished