The UBC Music Colloquium Series is an academic forum hosted by the UBC School of Music, featuring presentations by faculty members and invited scholars on a wide range of musicological subjects, encompassing historical inquiry, theoretical analysis, and critical discourse.
This week:
Dr. Justin London (Carleton College)
Getting Closer to Music as Heard: From Rhythm to Expressive Timing to Microrhythm and Groove.
Abstract: In 1983, Thomas Clifton’s book of Music as Heard was published, five years after Clifton’s death. It argued for an approach to music theory and music analysis grounded in phenomenology, most especially that of Edmund Husserl. Clifton’s book was influential on a number of music theorists working in the 1980s and 1990s, including James Tenney and Jonathan Kramer. A listener-centered approach to music analysis led to the development of the “Many Meters Hypothesis” in Professor London’s Hearing in Time, which argues that understanding of musical rhythm is not only based particular rhythms at particular tempos, but also on the ways those patterns are actually performed, that is, with their expressive timings included. Our latest research takes the Many Meters Hypothesis one step further, as it adds the micro-rhythmic aspects of timing–the influence of the shape(s) of individual notes–to the way we hear and interact with music, especially the musical styles and genres with which we are most familiar. Microrhythm can have a particular influence on our perception of “groove,” where the music compels us to move with it.
Bio: Justin London is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Music, Cognitive Science, and the Humanities at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, where he teaches courses in Music Theory, Music Psychology, Cognitive Science, The Philosophy of Music, and American Popular Music. He received his B.M. in Classical Guitar and M.M. in Music Theory from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and he holds a Ph.D. in Music History and Theory from the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked with Leonard Meyer. His research interests include rhythm and meter in western and non-western music, music perception and cognition, and musical aesthetics. He has held teaching and research appointments at The University of Cambridge, the University of Jyäskylä, Finland (both on Fulbright Fellowships), as well as The University of Oslo, and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt. He served as President of the Society for Music Theory in 2007–2009, and as President of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition in 2017–2018. In 2022 he received a lifetime achievement award for the Society for Music Perception and Cognition. He is also the guitarist in the “Spare Niche” jazz trio.
