Matthew W Butterfield Professor of Music, Department Chair of Music
BiographyMatthew Butterfield specializes in American music, particularly jazz and blues. Trained
as a jazz pianist, he received his bachelor鈥檚 degree in music from Amherst College
in 1991, and then earned a Ph.D. in music theory from the University of Pennsylvania
in 2000. His work has been published in a several of the leading journals of music
theory and jazz scholarship. He has taught courses in music theory and history at
West Chester University of Pennsylvania, Eastern Illinois University, and the University
of Virginia, and served as a post-doctoral fellow in music theory at the University
of Chicago. His current research explores the elusive rhythmic quality known as 鈥渟wing鈥
from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including music theory and perception,
critical race theory, and ethnographic social theory. Future projects include a book
on jazz rhythm and another on jazz and rock appropriations of the blues, focused broadly
on the function of race in American popular music and culture. |
EducationPh.D., Music Theory, University of Pennsylvania, May, 2000. Course InformationMUS 200: Theory 1: Tools and Concepts |
Presentations
鈥淲hen Swing Doesn鈥檛 鈥楽wing鈥: Competing Conceptions of an Early Twentieth Century Rhythmic Quality.鈥 Harvard University, Music in Time: Phenomenology, Perception, Performance 鈥 Conference in honor of Christopher Hasty. October 19, 2013.
鈥淪ome Perspectives on Race in Early New Orleans Jazz." Society for Music Theory, New Orleans, LA. November 2, 2012.
鈥淔orm and Meaning in Early New Orleans Jazz.鈥 Colloquium presentation, West Chester University of Pennsylvania. February 22, 2012.
鈥淪wing as the Rhythmic Essence of Jazz: A History of Its Early Meanings.鈥 American Musicological Society, San Francisco, CA. November 11, 2011.
鈥淢ultiparametric Complexity in Charlie Parker鈥檚 鈥楥onfirmation.鈥欌 Society for Music Theory, Indianapolis, IN. November 5, 2010.
鈥淧articipatory Discrepancies and the Perception of Beats in Jazz.鈥 Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Indianapolis, IN. August 3, 2009.
鈥淲hy Do Jazz Musicians Swing Their Eighth Notes?鈥 Colloquium presentation, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC. October 17, 2008.
鈥淩ace and Rhythm: The Social Component of the Swing Groove.鈥 Colloquium presentation, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC. October 20, 2008.
鈥淭he Power of Anacrusis: Engendered Feeling in Groove-Based Musics.鈥 Society for Music Theory, Los Angeles, CA. November 3, 2006.
鈥淏lue Notes and Blackness: The Formation of Identity in American Popular Musics.鈥 Representations of Blackness: Performing Africa in the Diaspora and the Diaspora in Africa (11th Annual Africana Studies Conference of the Central Pennsylvania Consortium). April 1, 2005.
鈥淐an You Feel It? Engendered Feeling and the Analysis of Rhythmic Groove.鈥 Colloquium presentation, University of Chicago. April 2, 2004.
鈥淢usic Analysis and the Social Life of Jazz Recordings.鈥 Jazz Symposium, Carolina Jazz Festival, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. March 1, 2002.
鈥淓thnic Rhythm in the Chains of Meter: Gunther Schuller and the Definition of Swing.鈥 Society for Music Theory, Toronto. November 2, 2000.
鈥淭he Influence of Academic Institutions on the Aesthetics of Jazz Performance.鈥 Society for Ethnomusicology, York University, Toronto. November 1, 1996.
Publications
鈥淲hen Swing Doesn鈥檛 Swing: Competing Conceptions of an Early Twentieth-Century Rhythmic Quality,鈥 in Music in Time: Phenomenology, Perception, Performance, ed. Suzannah Clark and Alexander Rehding (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016), 257-277.
鈥淢ultiparametric Complexity in Charlie Parker鈥檚 鈥楥onfirmation鈥,鈥 in Musical Implications: Essays in Honor of Eugene Narmour, ed. Lawrence F. Bernstein and Alexander Rozin (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2013), 57-71.
鈥,鈥 in Oxford Bibliographies Online: Music. Ed. Bruce Gustafson. New York: Oxford University Press, 1 July 2011.
鈥淲hy Do Jazz Musicians Swing Their Eighth Notes?鈥 Music Theory Spectrum 33/1 (2011): 3-26.
鈥淩ace and Rhythm: The Social Component of the Swing Groove.鈥 Jazz Perspectives 4/3 (2010): 301-335.
鈥.鈥 Music Theory Online 16/4 (2010).
鈥淧articipatory Discrepancies and the Perception of Beats in Jazz.鈥 Music Perception 27/3 (2010): 157-175.
鈥,鈥 Music Theory Online 12.4 (December 2006).
鈥,鈥 Music Theory Online 13.3 (September 2007).
鈥淭he Musical Object Revisited,鈥 Music Analysis 21 (2002): 327-380.
鈥淢usic Analysis and the Social Life of Jazz Recordings,鈥 Current Musicology 71-73 (2001-2002): 324-352.
鈥淩eview of Robert Hodson, Interaction, Improvisation, and Interplay in Jazz. New York and London: Routledge, 2007.鈥 Jazz Research Journal 1/2 (2007): 239-249.