Guitarist and analytical musicologist specializing in twentieth-century music. Research interests include post-tonal theory, formal analysis, and rock music, particularly improvisation and psychedelia.

Selected Papers and Publications

“More Weir(d) Guitar.” Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference. Chicago, IL. March 29, 2024.

“Weir(d) Rhythm Guitar.” Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference. San Antonio, TX. April 7, 2023.

“Rambling and Wandering: Grateful Dead Harmonic Progressions.” In The Grateful Dead Studies Association Proceedings, Volume 2 (2022): 46–61. Originally presented at the Popular/American Culture Association Conference. Virtual Conference (Seattle, WA). April 15, 2022.

“Workingman’s Dead?” Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference. Albuquerque, NM. February 21, 2020.

“‘Silence in the Studio!’: Collage as Retransition in Pink Floyd’s ‘Atom Heart Mother Suite’.” The Routledge Companion to Popular Music: Expanding Approaches, edited by Ciro Scotto, Kenneth Smith, and John Brackett. Routledge, 2018.

“Psychedelic Masquerade: Sgt. Pepper and the Summer of Love.” Revisiting the Summer of Love, Rethinking the Counterculture. San Francisco, CA. July 29, 2017. Also presented at the Summit of Creativity: A Celebration of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Ann Arbor, MI. June 1, 2017.

“There’s Nothing Like A Grateful Dead Analysis.” “All Graceful Instruments,” The Grateful Dead in Context – An Interdisciplinary Symposium. New York, NY. June 23, 2017.

“The Road[s] Not Taken.” Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference. Albuquerque, NM. February 16, 2017.

“Formal Design in a ‘Playing’ Palindrome.” “So Many Roads”: The World in the Grateful Dead, San Jose State University, CA. November 6, 2014. An earlier version was presented as “Harmonic Relations in a 1973 Palindrome.” Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference, Albuquerque, NM. February 9, 2012.

“Pink Floyd’s Interstellar Journey to The Dark Side of the Moon.” Institute for Popular Music Virtual Conference, University of Rochester, NY. May 27, 2014. Also presented as part of the Institute for Popular Music Lecture Series, University of Rochester, NY. September 18, 2013.

“Pink Floyd and the Academy.” Pink Floyd: Sight, Sound, and Structure Interdisciplinary Conference. Princeton University. April 12, 2014.

“A Preliminary Taxonomy of Garcia’s Solos.” Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference. Albuquerque, NM. February 21, 2014.

“The Big Bang and the Formation of ‘Space’.” Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference, San Antonio, TX. April 21, 2011.

“American Chaos: Charles Ives and the Grateful Dead.” In The Grateful Dead in Concert: Essays on Live Improvisation, edited by Jim Tuedio and Stan Spector, 58–70. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Publishers, 2010. Earlier versions were presented as: “Uncle Charles’s Band: More on Charles Ives and the Grateful Dead.” Southwest/Texas Popular/American Culture Association Annual Conference, Albuquerque, NM. February 14, 2008; “American Chaos: Charles Ives and the Grateful Dead.” Unbroken Chain: The Grateful Dead in Music, Culture, and Memory, Amherst, MA. November 17, 2007.

“Embracing Relational Abundance.” Music Theory Online 13.3 (2007).

“Bobby, Béla, and Borrowing in ‘Victim or the Crime’.” In All Graceful Instruments: The Contexts of the Grateful Dead Phenomenon, edited by Nicholas Meriwether, 38–51. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007.

“Review of What to Listen for in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis by Ken Stephenson (Yale University Press, 2002).” Music Theory Spectrum 28.1 (2006): 132–140.

“‘On the Path’: Tracing Tonal Coherence in Dark Side of the Moon.” In “Speak to Me”: The Legacy of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, edited by Russell Reising, 87–103. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2005.

“If-Only Networks and Analytical Desire.” Dublin International Conference on Music Analysis, Dublin, Ireland. June 24, 2005.

“Sailing to the Sun: Revolver's Influence on Pink Floyd.” In “Every Sound There Is”: The Beatles' Revolver and the Transformation of Rock and Roll, edited by Russell Reising, 69–86. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing. 2002.

• Pink Floyd
• Fretboard Skills
• Rock Analysis
• Post-Tonal Theory
• Tonal Harmony

Ph.D., Music Theory  (1997)
Graduate Center, City University of New York