The Croatian Association of Music Theorists was founded in Zagreb on 1 March 1997. Today the HDGT has more than 300 members who teach music theory and music history at specialized music schools from elementary to higher educational levels, at general education institutions, or promote music theory and practice in different ways. The HDGT strives to promote music theory, advance the teaching of music theory and the art of music, and participate in all kinds of pedagogical activities relating to music theory.
We wish to celebrate our important anniversary by bringing together relevant experts from different parts of the world for discussions and an exchange of ideas related to our core activity: teaching music theory. Our main goal is to meet new friends along with the old ones, promoting our discipline based on the harmony of tradition and contemporaneity, inclusion, multiculturality, tolerance and mutual understanding.
Music theory teachers from across the discipline are invited to submit proposals on their teaching practices, theories, experiences, and related research.
Subject categories:
1. Teaching and music theory today
2. Teaching music theory and musical practice
3. Theories & anniversaries: Rameau – Lučić – Devčić – ... revisited
4. Other related topics
Detailed description of the subject categories:
1. Teaching and music theory today
Today, music theory teachers are faced with many traditional and contemporary challenges, depending on their teaching environments, teaching level, student’s needs and predispositions, expectations of different participants in the educational process and many more. The field of music theory encompasses various subdisciplines, such as aural training, harmony, counterpoint, musical forms, analysis, and history of music theory. In addition, music theorists are often expected to take part in teaching practical subjects (score reading, conducting) and leading school ensembles. Contemporary music theory teachers also need to make important decisions about the conceptual nature of their teaching approaches: subject-oriented or integrative, traditional or innovative, practice-oriented or theoretical, normative or historically sensitive… We are looking forward to hearing about your experiences and opinions on these and many other challenges you meet in your teaching practice.
2. Teaching music theory and musical practice
Music theory is generally taught to all music students at all levels of music education. Depending on the teaching context, music theory courses correspond with music performance and composition in many aspects. You are invited to share your experiences and ideas about correlation and integration of music performance and creation in your music theory teaching practices.
3. Theories & anniversaries: Rameau – Lučić – Devčić – ... revisited
The year 2022 is marked by many important anniversaries of international and local importance for the general field of music theory:
• the 300th anniversary of Jean Philippe Rameau’s (1683 – 1764) Traité de l'harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels (Paris 1722)
• the 50th anniversary of the death of Croatian music theorist, composer, and organist Franjo Lučić (1899 – 1972) and the 100th anniversary of his Elementarna teorija glazbe i pjevanja (Elementary theory of music and singing, Zagreb 1922), which was further developed in his later treatises, Harmonija (Harmony, Zagreb 1924), Zborno pjevanje (Choral Singing, Zagreb 1933), Kontrapunkt (Counterpoint, Zagreb 1951), and Polifona kompozicija (Polyphonic Composition, Zagreb 1954)
• the 25th anniversary of the death of Croatian music theorist, composer, and pianist Natko Devčić (1914 – 1997), the author of Harmonija (Harmony, Zagreb 1975) and other important writings.
The contributors are invited to reflect on historical and contemporary aspects of these and other seminal treatises and important scholars in the general field of music theory, with particular attention to their relevance in teaching music theory today.
4. Other related topics
Keynote speakers:
Thomas Christensen, University of Chicago
Steven G. Laitz, Juilliard School, New York