Articles by Matthew Hough
Music Theory Online (Society for Music Theory), Mar 2015
This article examines demo recordings of three songs by Stevie Nicks in terms of compositional st... more This article examines demo recordings of three songs by Stevie Nicks in terms of compositional style and in relation to conventions of rock harmony. Sections from two of Nicks’ unreleased solo demo recordings are compared to publicly released versions of the same songs, revealing distinctive stylistic elements and their subsequent normalization. Compositional applications for rock music based on structural and contrapuntal techniques found in these demo recordings are also presented.
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Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press), Jan 13, 2015
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Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press), Jan 13, 2015
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Talks by Matthew Hough
College Music Society National Conference, 2019
The development of listening skills is a crucial component of musical training at any level. Such... more The development of listening skills is a crucial component of musical training at any level. Such development is often done through dictation, a process by which students put into notation elements of music that they hear. Through my recent work with college-level music students I have developed a new approach to dictation founded on the practice of peer performance: students performing music for each other in a guided, active listening environment. The introduction of this technique into a number of different theory and aural skills courses that I teach has resulted in improved student engagement and faster progress toward listening-specific learning outcomes including identification of pulse groupings and meter, tonic pitch recognition and relative relationships, and harmonic and cadential identification. This poster presents evidence of this method's success, including practical and written exam outcomes, sample lesson plans with corresponding student performance recordings, and written feedback from students in several different courses. One section addresses challenges I have faced in attempting to incorporate peer performance into my classes and how I have worked to overcome these challenges. For example, how to make the process of peer-driven dictation equitable? How to choose suitable repertoire? How best to allocate time for these activities? How to relate this process to specific topics within a course? Another section presents conclusions about why this method has been effective and how I am now working to expand the role of peer performance in the teaching of theory and aural skills.
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Analytical Approaches to World Music International Conference, 2016
For nearly forty years, singer, composer and bandleader Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi (b. Harare, 1952) ... more For nearly forty years, singer, composer and bandleader Oliver “Tuku” Mtukudzi (b. Harare, 1952) has cultivated a unique style blending diverse traditional and popular musical influences from inside and outside his native Zimbabwe. This study describes a pedagogical method designed to teach “Tuku Music” through active participation using “modular loops,” complete and flexible sets of notated instrumental and vocal parts corresponding to a looped recording of a portion of a larger work. Evidence of this method’s success in teaching Mtukudzi’s music to undergraduate
musicianship students, including recorded video of modular loop performances by student groups, will also be presented.
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Ann Arbor Symposium IV: Teaching and Learning Popular Music, University of Michigan, 2015
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Wagner College "Innovation Celebration" Teaching and Learning Symposium, 2014
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Wagner College ACE (Academic and Cultural Enrichment) Lecture Series, 2014
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Women Composers Festival of Hartford, 2014
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Conference Presentations by Matthew Hough
Pedagogy into Practice: Teaching Music Theory in the 21st Century. Michigan State University, 2022
In 2021, I successfully proposed to my institution and later taught the first offering of a new, ... more In 2021, I successfully proposed to my institution and later taught the first offering of a new, advanced undergraduate elective course for music majors called Popular Music Theory. Drawing on research and practice from various music subfields, as well as fields traditionally outside of music scholarship, this course is intended as a first step toward what I hope will become a new curriculum that is centered around the study and practice of popular music, broadly defined.
Beginning with the course description "materials and techniques of popular music across global and historical styles including new and current practices", I set out to create a framework for study that enables the following goals: 1) foreground aspects of musical structure which derive from Sub-Saharan Africa and the diaspora ("Black Music") in a way that will inform popular music theory studies across stylistic, historical and geographic boundaries; 2) de-emphasize (but not eliminate) the reading and writing of staff notation in order to engage more deeply the ear and the body, and counteract the primacy of the eye that is typically involved in the traditional music theory curriculum; 3) to involve students in research and creative work that may advance the discipline in terms of scholarship and pedagogy.
Having just completed the Fall 2021 semester and the first offering of this course, my presentation will share specifics about the course structure, research underpinnings, reading and study material, listening lists, assignments, examples of student work (including abstracts of mock conference papers and recordings of original popular music compositions) and feedback from students. Additionally, I will present some of my own reflections on the efficacy of these pedagogical approaches, and ideas about to improve and create more opportunities for students to engage in popular music theory study.
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Pedagogy into Practice: Teaching Music Theory in the 21st Century. University of California, Santa Barbara, 2019
The development of listening skills is a crucial component of musical training at any level. Such... more The development of listening skills is a crucial component of musical training at any level. Such development is often done through dictation, a process by which students put into notation elements of music that they hear. Through my recent work with college-level music students I have developed a new approach to dictation founded on the practice of peer performance: students performing music for each other in a guided, active listening environment. The introduction of this technique into a number of different theory and aural skills courses that I teach has resulted in improved student engagement and faster progress toward listening-specific learning outcomes including identification of pulse groupings and meter, tonic pitch recognition and relative relationships, and harmonic and cadential identification. This poster presents evidence of this method's success, including practical and written exam outcomes, sample lesson plans with corresponding student performance recordings, and written feedback from students in several different courses. One section addresses challenges I have faced in attempting to incorporate peer performance into my classes and how I have worked to overcome these challenges. For example, how to make the process of peer-driven dictation equitable? How to choose suitable repertoire? How best to allocate time for these activities? How to relate this process to specific topics within a course? Another section presents conclusions about why this method has been effective and how I am now working to expand the role of peer performance in the teaching of theory and aural skills.
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Pedagogy into Practice: Teaching Music Theory in the 21st Century. Lee University, 2017
Here I will describe an integrated approach to theory pedagogy (including analysis, recomposition... more Here I will describe an integrated approach to theory pedagogy (including analysis, recomposition and performance) applicable to a wide range of cycle;based popular music. This method is facilitated by what I call a modular loop: a complete, notated set of parts corresponding to a cycling portion of a larger work (see Example 1). Initially, a modular loop can be treated as the object of analysis. This analysis should include a discussion of melody, harmony, meter, rhythm, timbre, attack density and the interaction of these elements. The loop's component parts (modules) can then be altered by students in small groups to create arrangements that these groups will perform for the class. Students may also be assigned to recompose the entire loop in order to shift one or more global elements (e.g. meter or harmonic pattern). Potential further study includes comparing a loop to other loops from the same work or other works. Combined with collaborative performance, such comparative study can lead to important, often fundamental questions about texture, style, structure and general musicianship. Using example loops from a variety of popular music genres, I will share some of the success I have had with this method in the classroom. I will provide examples of student analyses, recompositions, and video recorded performances of student arrangements.
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Articles by Matthew Hough
Talks by Matthew Hough
musicianship students, including recorded video of modular loop performances by student groups, will also be presented.
Conference Presentations by Matthew Hough
Beginning with the course description "materials and techniques of popular music across global and historical styles including new and current practices", I set out to create a framework for study that enables the following goals: 1) foreground aspects of musical structure which derive from Sub-Saharan Africa and the diaspora ("Black Music") in a way that will inform popular music theory studies across stylistic, historical and geographic boundaries; 2) de-emphasize (but not eliminate) the reading and writing of staff notation in order to engage more deeply the ear and the body, and counteract the primacy of the eye that is typically involved in the traditional music theory curriculum; 3) to involve students in research and creative work that may advance the discipline in terms of scholarship and pedagogy.
Having just completed the Fall 2021 semester and the first offering of this course, my presentation will share specifics about the course structure, research underpinnings, reading and study material, listening lists, assignments, examples of student work (including abstracts of mock conference papers and recordings of original popular music compositions) and feedback from students. Additionally, I will present some of my own reflections on the efficacy of these pedagogical approaches, and ideas about to improve and create more opportunities for students to engage in popular music theory study.
musicianship students, including recorded video of modular loop performances by student groups, will also be presented.
Beginning with the course description "materials and techniques of popular music across global and historical styles including new and current practices", I set out to create a framework for study that enables the following goals: 1) foreground aspects of musical structure which derive from Sub-Saharan Africa and the diaspora ("Black Music") in a way that will inform popular music theory studies across stylistic, historical and geographic boundaries; 2) de-emphasize (but not eliminate) the reading and writing of staff notation in order to engage more deeply the ear and the body, and counteract the primacy of the eye that is typically involved in the traditional music theory curriculum; 3) to involve students in research and creative work that may advance the discipline in terms of scholarship and pedagogy.
Having just completed the Fall 2021 semester and the first offering of this course, my presentation will share specifics about the course structure, research underpinnings, reading and study material, listening lists, assignments, examples of student work (including abstracts of mock conference papers and recordings of original popular music compositions) and feedback from students. Additionally, I will present some of my own reflections on the efficacy of these pedagogical approaches, and ideas about to improve and create more opportunities for students to engage in popular music theory study.