Interview Questions Flashcards
Why did you apply for this position? What are your goals?
- I want to start teaching to give back some of my knowledge and share it with students.
- This position will help me take the next step in my career and grow as a teacher and researcher.
- Expanding the nature of the courses I’ve taught and what I research, providing me new perspectives on musical learning (at a different place).
What interests you the most about coming here/this position?
- I want to start teaching to give back some of my knowledge and share it with students.
- This position will help me take the next step in my career and grow as a teacher and researcher.- Expanding the nature of the courses I’ve taught and what I research, providing me new perspectives on musical learning (at a different place). Big research place.
- The comprehensive take on music at this school is really exciting to me, with lots of different programs
What will your courses/electives be like?
- Dissertation stuff, EDM analysis, shapes, form, hermeneutics
- EDM history: ontology, sociology, genres, identities
- Pop music analysis and composition
- Schenkerian Analysis
- 20th century topics
- Videogame music: interactivity, nostalgia, fan culture
How will you be inclusive in your teaching and in your departmental outreach?
- EDM and pop history: black and queer
- Stevie Wonder, Tina Turner, Parliament/Funkadelic, Childish Gambino
- Joan Towers, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Ursula Mamlok
How will your pedagogy be innovative?
- Incorporating multimedia, videos (scores that move)
- Improvisation
- R. Murray Schafer HearSing, embodiment,
- puzzles of chord progressions
- trivia questions out of a hat for review
- finding examples of chord progressions in the music they love, transcription journal
- singing assignments where they record themselves
What textbooks would you use for fundamentals and the theory core?
- Aldwell/Schachter, Schenkerian, good but hard, classical
- Laitz, good take on sequences and good musical examples, but sometimes unclear assignments
- Musician’s Guide series by Clendinning and Marvin is good, colorful, online
- Burstein/Straus has good online materials too, but is too vertical, e.g. calls neighboring 6/4 IV chord
How have you grown as a teacher? What was a tough experience you learned from?
- Learning to listen, deal with different learning styles/preferences.
- Slowing down pace of class, not being dismissive
- Dealing with students who find theory very hard or annoying, showing them the benefits (hearing, understanding what they love)
- Mental crises in students. Listening, allowing for flexibility, encouraging effort, recommending counseling services on campus
How have you grown as a researcher?
- Being pushed to be more interdisciplinary (STS, sociology, history, cultural studies)
- Learning more about the production side
What are your future research plans?
- publishing my dissertation: shapes, functions, salience, hermeneutics, climax, form, energetics
- expanding to pop music analysis, guitar slides, distortion, vocal gestures, timbre changes.
- MM paper, remixes, fan culture
- musical memes, audile technique, acoustemology,
How will you reach out and grow the program?
o Have EDM, videogame music, top 40 music, use repertoire they know in classes,
o Have my students reach out to their friends on campus to get them interested
o Go to school concerts, and other events at the college to recruit students interested in music classes
o Host events, guest lectures/visits of public music theorists
o Advertising through emails, posters,
How do you engage with public music theory, and how can you tie this into outreach?
o Talk about your experience running @theorytutor twitter, how it got to 500 followers and there was a steady stream of people asking questions. What did they ask? Why did you stop? (too much PhD work)
o What do you think is the value of @theorytutor? Other programs? Bringing people in to our field.
o Recommend resources like musictheory.net, 8-bit theory, Disney music theory to students
o *Host events at the college, host people like darkmusictheory, Disney music theory (list their names, mention that you know them/met at SMT and have interacted online)
• Talk about a specific assignment or lesson plan you did that went well, and how you would implement it here.
- puzzles of chord progressions for syntax
- trivia review game: list PD chords, what would you double in cadential 6/4?
- teaching aug 6th chords, combination of Phrygian cadence and V/V
- transcription assignment, then analysis of it
- singing while recording
- composition assignment: combinatorial, set-classes, modes,
• Talk about a specific assignment or lesson you did that did NOT go well, and how you would modify it.
- students complaining in class after doing too many exercises (Maggie and Ben, listen, slow down, and explain your pedagogy, offer resources outside class)
- students complaining after trichord and tetrachord dictation (Kelley, listen to, explain strategies, benefits)
- Species counterpoint: rules contradicting Laitz text, students didn’t get the point (next time I made it clear, explained the implications on later music)
• How would you handle a student saying they hate theory because they don’t get it or the point of it? A bored student?
o Show the value of theory and listening, expanding the toolbox to understand pieces and music we love and create more new things like it. Don’t make things too abstract. Give clear instructions and achievable goals.
How would you handle a student saying they’re bored because it’s too easy?
- Give them new ideas, readings, assignments,
- For dictation, writing out more parts, or analyzing, or composing another phrase
