Current Trends in Music Theory Pedagogy

The project “Current Trends in Music Theory Pedagogy” (CTMTP) aims to provide participants in the project with knowledge about current international trends and pedagogical developments in the field of harmony, counterpoint, analysis, form, and aural training. CTMTP will also disseminate recent developments in Scandinavian music theory to make them known internationally.

The impulses that are generated by this project will influence and develop teaching practices at the NMH.

Proposed general topics for CTMTP

Although the content of this project will be developed by the participants, there are a few general topics that are expected to influence the project: 1) Current research on music cognition, 2) current research on improvisatory approaches to counterpoint and harmony, and 3) integrative approaches in music theory.

Invited experts

CTMTP will gather six music theorists of international repute to visit the NMH in the period 2018–2020. Each visit will consist of two parts:

• In the first part the invited music theorist will meet with the group of project participants
• In the second part the invited music theorist will teach, publicly or as part of the master programme in music theory at NMH

The first visit took place 5–7 November 2018, with Robert Gjerdingen as invited expert. Gjerdingen is a professor of music theory and cognition at Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University, USA.

The project will host a conference 26-27 September 2019 located at the Norwegian Academy of Music.

A publication consisting of approximately 13–15 articles will be published during the final year of the project (2021–2022). Participants in the CTMTP project are expected to submit an article on a topic of their choice showing how some of the impulses from the project have generated some kind of pedagogical experiments and results. Additionally, invited experts are invited to contribute with a written article in the same publication.