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Unpublished

Proposal (2024) Markedness Correlations and the Constraints of Operatic Multimedia.pdf

(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

Proposal (2022) Cue Schemas.pdf

(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'")

Proposal (2022) Cue Schemas.pdf

(2022) "Rethinking Phrase Structure in Eighteenth-Century Music: Situation-Specific Models and ad hoc Hybrids"

ACCEPTED: SMT 2022

Unpublished

Proposal (2022) Rethinking Phrase Structure in Eighteenth-Century Music.pdf

(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'")

Proposal (2021) The Song that Started Bluegrass Off.pdf

(2022) "Toward a Conceptual Status Analysis of (Musical) Metaphors: A Lakoffian Discussion Prompt

REJECTED: Naming, Understanding, and Playing with Metaphors 2022

Unpublished

Proposal (2022) Toward a Conceptual Status Analysis of Musical Metaphors.pdf

(2021-23) "Rethinking the Metastasian Metaphor

ACCEPTED: AMS 2021, SECM 2023

Unpublished

Proposal (2021) Rethinking the Metastasian Metaphor.pdf

(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

Proposal (2021) Variations on a Theme by KK Slider.pdf

(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'")

Proposal (2019) On Metrical Structure and Cueing Systems in Monroe’s Muleskinner Blues.pdf

(2018-2020) "The 'Se cerca' Script

ACCEPTED: MTMW 2018, Society for Eighteenth-Century Music 2020, SMT 2020

REJECTED: MTSNYS 2019

Unpublished

Proposal (2020) The Se cerca Script.pdf

(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

Proposal (2017) Distinguishing Cecchina.pdf

(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)

Earlier proposal draft (as "The Amoroso")

Proposal (2017) The Volta.pdf

(2015) "Zerlina on the Metrical Stage: The Dramatic Fluidity of Metrical Consonances

ACCEPTED: SMT 2015

Unpublished

Proposal (2015) Zerlina on the Metrical Stage.pdf

(2014) "Sharp as a Tack, Bright as a Button: Timbral Metamorphoses in Saariaho's Sept Papillons" 

ACCEPTED: MTMW 2014, SMT 2014

Unpublished

Proposal (2014) Sharp as a Tack, Bright as a Button.pdf