Classes
Publications
Feature
Performance
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LZ with guitar--photo by Dan Dry

Lawrence Zbikowski

I am chair of the Department of Music and Associate Professor of Music and the Humanities at the University of Chicago.

My principal research interests involve applying recent work in cognitive science (especially that done by cognitive linguists and cognitive psychologists) to various problems confronted by music scholars, with a particular focus on music theory and analysis.

Classes

Autumn through Spring Terms 2012–2013
Proposal Development Seminar

Winter term 2013
Music 37200: The History of Theory II

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Publications

“Remembering Music,” for the Dutch Journal of Music Theory [in press]. (pdf)

“Listening to Music,” to appear in Speaking of Music, ed. Keith Chapin and Andrew Clark (Fordham University Press) [in press for 2013]. (pdf, version of January 2010)

Bewegungen zwischen Hören und Sehen

“Music and Movement: A View from Cognitive Musicology,” in Bewegungen zwischen Hören und Sehen: Denkbewegungen über Bewegungskünste, edited by Stephanie Schroedter (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2012): 151–162. (pdf)

“Music, Dance, and Meaning in the Early Nineteenth Century,” the Journal of Musicological Research 31:2–3 (2012): 147–165. (pdf)

“Music, Language, and What Falls in Between,” Ethnomusicology 56/1 (Winter 2012): 125–131. This brief essay is a response to Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson’s “Consilience Revisited: Musical and Scientific Responses to Chinese Performance,” published in the same issue. (pdf)

“Music Theory, Music History, and Quicksand,” Music Theory Spectrum 33/2 (Fall 2011): 226–228. This brief essay is a response to Richard Taruskin’s “Catching up with Rimsky-Korsakov,” published in the same issue. (pdf)

“Music, Emotion, Analysis,” Music Analysis 29/i-ii-iii (2011): 37–60. (pdf)

Musical Consciousness

“Music, Language, and Kinds of Consciousness.” In Music and Consciousness: Philosophical, Psychological, and Cultural Perspectives, edited by Eric Clarke and David Clarke (Oxford University Press, 2011): 179–192. (pdf)

Music and Gesture 2

“Musical Gesture and Musical Grammar: A Cognitive Approach,” in New Perspectives on Music and Gesture, ed. Anthony Gritten and Elaine King (Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2011): 83–98. (pdf).

“An Introduction to voiceXchange,” voiceXchange 3/1 (Spring 2009): 1–2. (pdf)

“Ole Kühl’s Musical Semantics: Cognitive Musicology and the Challenge of Musical Meaning,” Musicæ Scientiæ13/2 (Fall 2009): 441–473. (pdf)

“Musicology, Cognitive Science, and Metaphor: Reflections on Michael Spitzer’s Metaphor and Musical Thought,” Musica Humana 1/1 (2009): 81–104. (pdf)

Multimodal Metaphor

“Music, Language, and Multimodal Metaphor,” in Multimodal Metaphor, eds. Charles Forceville and Eduardo Urios-Aparisi. (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2009): 359–381. (pdf)

Communication in Eighteenth Century Music

“Dance Topoi, Sonic Analogues, and Musical Grammar: Communicating with Music in the Eighteenth Century,” in Communication in Eighteenth Century Music, ed. Danuta Mirka and Kofi Agawu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 283–309. (pdf)

Musik im Kontext

“Cognitive Science, Music Theory, and Music Analysis,” in Musiktheorie im Kontext: V. Kongress der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie Hamburg 2005, ed. Jan Philipp Sprick, Reinhard Bahr, and Michael von Troschke (Berlin: Weidler Buchverlag, 2008): 447–463. (pdf)

Cover of The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought

“Metaphor and Music,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, ed. Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 502–524. (pdf)

Cover of The Artful Mind

“The Cognitive Tango: Music, Mind and Brain,” in The Artful Mind: Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity, ed. Mark Turner (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). (pdf)

“Aspects of Meaning Construction in Music: Toward a Grammar of Music,” prepared for Almen Semiotik 17 but journal ceased publication. (pdf)

“Music Theory, Multimedia, and the Construction of Meaning” (invited review of Nicholas Cook’s Analysing Musical Multimedia), Intégral 16/17 (2002/2003) [published summer 2005]: 251–268. (pdf)

“Modelling the Groove: Conceptual Structure and Popular Music,” the Journal of the Royal Musical Association 129/2 (December 2004): 272–297. (pdf) Reprinted in Pop Music and Easy Listening, ed. Stan Hawkins (Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing, 2011): 241-266.

Review of Taylor Aitken Greer, A Question of Balance: Charles Seeger’s Philosophy of Music, Music Theory Spectrum, 26/2 (Fall 2004): 305–313. (pdf)

Cover of book

Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis, AMS Studies in Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). Conceptualizing Music was winner of the Society for Music Theory's 2004 Wallace Berry Award.

Des Herzraums Abschied: Mark Johnson's Theory of Embodied Knowledge and Music Theory,” Theory and Practice 22–23 (1997–98; published Autumn 2000): 1–16. (pdf)

“The Blossoms of ‘Trockne Blumen’: Music and Text in the Early Nineteenth Century,” Music Analysis 18/3 (October 1999): 307–345. (pdf)

“Musical Coherence, Motive, and Categorization,” Music Perception 17/1 (Fall 1999): 5–42. (pdf)

Cover of Understanding Charles Seeger

“Seeger’s Unitary Field Theory Reconsidered,” in Understanding Charles Seeger, Pioneer in American Musicology, edited by Bell Yung and Helen Rees (University of Illinois Press, 1999), 130–149. (pdf)

“Metaphor and Music Theory: Reflections from Cognitive Science,” in Music Theory Online 4/1 (January 1998).
Table of contents for Music Theory Online 4/1.

“Conceptual Models and Cross-Domain Mapping: New Perspectives on Theories of Music and Hierarchy,” the Journal of Music Theory 41/2 (Fall 1997): 193–225. (pdf)

“Musical Concepts and Categories,” Music Theory Online 1/4 (July 1995).
Table of contents for Music Theory Online 1/4.

“Cooperative Learning in the Music Theory Classroom,” with Dr. Charles K. Long; the Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 8 (1994): 135–157. (pdf)

Review-article on Eugene Narmour’s The Analysis and Cognition of Basic Melodic Structures for the Journal of Music Theory 37/1 (Spring 1993): 177–206. (pdf)

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Feature

LZ with Gibson L6S in Fulton Hall

The news office of the University of Chicago recently featured my work in a feature that includes a brief video clip.

The photograph at the right is by Dan Dry, and was used in the feature (Dan is also responsible for the photo at the top of the page). It was taken in Fulton Hall, the recital hall for the Department Music. The guitar here is a 1975 Gibson L6S.

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Performance

LZ with guitar at the NHCI have a range of experience as a practical musician. In a recent concert, I performed works by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Joaquin Rodrigo, Richard Rodney Bennett, Toru Takemitsu, Augustin Barrios, and Peter Maxwell Davies.

On occasion, I also provide auditory illustrations for my lectures, most recently with works by Hans Werner Henze, Toru Takemitsu, Julio Sagreras, Antonio Lauro, and Mauro Giuliani. The classical guitar I’m shown with here was built in 1983 by Steve Kakos.

Although most of my energies are directed toward classical guitar, I've explored somewhat lighter fare as a member of the South Side Swedes, led by John Berquist.

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Contact

Department of Music
Goodspeed Hall 313
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
(773) 702-8500
e-mail:larry[AT]uchicago[DOT]edu

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