Conversational Musicology: A Composer's Perspective

The book suggests that music research is suffering from too many experts with their own jargon, while practitioners wander off in dismay. Therefore, a new category is proposed - the Conversational Musicologist - who can serve as both spy and interpreter. The associated idea of accepting more casual forms of discussion while working in Big Picture mode is illustrated by the author's musings on various topics in music which could benefit from interdisciplinary discourse. These range from aesthetics to pedagogy to acoustic ecology, and include critical reflection on common terms and ideas such as pitch and notation. Appendices include a sketch of the author's proposed Tool Kit for Music Analysis.