Peer Learning Program workshops are three-hour seminars led by prominent scholars. They provide the opportunity to learn—from the workshop leader as well as from peers—new perspectives on fundamental issues in music theory, and to apply that learning to research and teaching. The topics range widely across music-theoretical research and teaching interests.
History
The program is intended to encourage “thinking together,” in the spirit of the Mannes Institute founded by Wayne Alpern and organized by him during the years 2001–11.
Eligibility and selection
- The workshops are open to all members of the Society who have completed a doctoral degree. (Separate workshop opportunities are also available to those who have not completed a Ph.D.)
- Participants are selected by a random draw from the pool of eligible applicants.
- Prior PLP participants are permitted to apply, but preference will be given to first-time applicants.
- To encourage interaction, each workshop is limited to approximately 10–12 participants.
Application
The application deadline is June 15, 2026.
Commitments
- Please note that PLP workshops will take place the morning of Thursday, November 5; by applying you are committing to arrive at the conference in time to participate in the workshop.
- Some reading and mental preparation are required, but not extensive written assignments, in consideration of the professional responsibilities of the participants.
Cost
There is no fee to participate in the program. Participants are responsible, however, for the cost of SMT membership and conference registration (but not at the time of application), as well as for other expenses of attendance, including transportation, housing, and meals.
2026 Workshops
Theorizing Timbre and Harmony in Contemporary Music
Robert Hasegawa (McGill University)
A significant and growing body of twenty-first-century concert music explores the intersection between timbre and harmony. While timbre is a central concern of many composers today, it remains relatively undertheorized in comparison to other musical parameters. Many definitions of timbre associate it with the sonic qualities of a single source—for example, the Oxford Dictionary of Music defines it as “that which distinguishes the quality of tone or voice of one instrument or singer from another.” But composers frequently combine individual sound sources into fused or composite events, which necessitates the expansion of this definition to include the multi-source timbres of chords, simultaneities, and textures.
Since Helmholtz, theorists have recognized that the waveform of a tone determines the frequency spectrum of its overtones (and vice versa). Pitch and timbre are inextricably linked, and it is impossible to talk about the acoustic and psychoacoustic effects of timbral combinations without also considering their harmonic organization. Composers’ approaches to timbre-harmony interactions draw on a wide variety of theoretical models, including overtone-series chords, spectral analysis and resynthesis, and extended just intonation as well as more intuitive and context-dependent strategies. This workshop will focus on a selection of recent works by Raven Chacon, Rebecca Saunders, and Chiyoko Szlavnics, introducing analytical tools for exploring the relationships between timbre, spectrum, and harmony.
Three Chords and the Truth: Theories and Analyses of Songwriting
Jocelyn Neal (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
The workshop will consider the intersection of formalist music theory and analysis with the craft of songwriting in contemporary popular genres, not only in the analysis of extant songs but also in the prescriptive, theoretically informed modeling that informs the act of writing new songs. The source material for our workshop will include copious recent discourse on form, harmonic language, metric structure, and text-setting in popular music. Yet we will also examine trade publications on songwriting, pedagogical materials constructed for songwriters, and conversations with songwriters, where we find attention paid to entirely different musical domains. Underpinning our explorations will be a philosophical question of what constitutes the essence of a particular song, distinct from any arrangement or actual performance of that song, and how that might inform both analysis and pedagogy.
As music theorists seek to offer more public-facing work to an ever-widening audience, and seek to engage students who have a broad array of musical ambitions, we have much to gain from asking what music theory knows about songwriting. These inquiries will let us reconsider the musical domains for which our models account, our conceptual hierarchies within harmonic language, and the notation systems on which we rely. Our main outcome will be an increased attention to process, wherein the consummate analysis of songwriting yields, as its output, new songs.
Contact
For additional information, please contact the Chair of the Committee on Workshop Programs.