Dr. John S. Cotner

Theory

Dr. John S. Cotner (Ph.D., UW-Madison; M.M. and B.M., University of Arizona) is currently Adjunct Associate Professor of Music in the Department of Music, teaching all levels of undergraduate music theory. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as undergraduate theory and aural skills at Baylor University and the University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ), among other state and community colleges. Additionally, Dr. Cotner is a guitarist, composer, conductor, and scholar.

Dr. Cotner's research has been presented at regional and national conferences of SMT, IASPM, and SAM. Now in press with the Journal of the Society for American Music (forthcoming 2008) is a review of Analyzing Popular Music (2003); see also his review of What to Listen for in Rock (2001) in the 2006 summer edition of the same journal. His publications also include "Il ritmo testurale in Careful with that axe, Eugene," In Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2003) - an Italian translation by Gruppo Analisi e Teoria Musicale (GATM), University of Bologna, Italy, of his dissertation chapter contribution to the book Progressive Rock Reconsidered (2001), and "Music Theory and Progressive Rock Style Analysis: On the Threshold of Art and Amplification" in Reflections on American Music (Pendragon Press, 2000).

Dr. Cotner's scholarship focuses on the relation between written and oral musical traditions in Western culture, and draws on historical musicology, cultural and performance theory, cognitive psychology, and other academic disciplines. Particularly, his work addresses philosophical and methodological problems associated with the theory and analysis of "popular" music in relation to "art music" in the traditional sense. His current project is a critical analysis of contemporary scholastic debates about popular music theory and analysis, and explores both structural and nonstructural approaches.

Email: jcotner@odu.edu or jscotner307@yahoo.com