David Carson Berry
Encyclopedia
David Carson Berry is an American music theorist
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
and historian, writer about music, and college professor. Among his diverse research interests are American popular music of the 1920s-60s, including a focus on Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
and Jimmy Van Heusen; the theory and aesthetics of music of the mid-eighteenth through mid-twentieth centuries, including a focus on Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
; and Schenkerian theory
Schenkerian analysis
Schenkerian analysis is a method of musical analysis of tonal music based on the theories of Heinrich Schenker. The goal of a Schenkerian analysis is to interpret the underlying structure of a tonal work. The theory's basic tenets can be viewed as a way of defining tonality in music...
and its reception history in the U.S.
Berry was born in 1968, in Paragould, Arkansas
Paragould, Arkansas
-Health & Education:Paragould is home to Arkansas State University Paragould, Arkansas Northeastern College, Black River Technical College, and Crowley's Ridge College. Paragould has two public school districts, the Greene County Technical School District and the Paragould School District, as well...
, as the only child of Jimmy Shelton Berry and Melba Moore Berry. The family moved to Marked Tree, Arkansas
Marked Tree, Arkansas
Marked Tree is a city in Poinsett County, Arkansas in the United States, along the St. Francis River, at the mouth of the Little River. The population was 2,800 at the 2000 census. It is included in the Jonesboro, Arkansas Metropolitan Statistical Area....
in 1969. The parents taught in the town's only school district: the father, social studies; and the mother, home economics. Berry completed primary and secondary school there, graduating as the valedictorian of Marked Tree High School in 1986.
Berry attended Arkansas State University
Arkansas State University
Arkansas State University is a public university and is the flagship campus of the Arkansas State University System, the state's second largest college system and third largest university by enrollment. It is located atop on Crowley's Ridge at Jonesboro, Arkansas, USA...
in Jonesboro, Arkansas
Jonesboro, Arkansas
Jonesboro is a city in and one of the two county seats of Craighead County, Arkansas, United States. According to the 2010 US Census, the population of the city was 67,263. A college town, Jonesboro is the largest city in northeastern Arkansas and the fifth most populous city in the state...
, where music composition was his major and trombone performance was a secondary interest; he graduated magna cum laude in 1990, with a Bachelor of Music degree in composition. He next attended Memphis State University (now University of Memphis
University of Memphis
The University of Memphis is an American public research university located in the Normal Station neighborhood of Memphis, Tennessee and is the flagship public research university of the Tennessee Board of Regents system....
), where he initially began working on a masters degree in composition. He changed his focus while there, and graduated with a Master of Music degree in music theory in 1993. His thesis, completed under the advisement of David Russell Williams, was entitled "Portrait with Retouches: The Adaptation and Transformation of Stravinsky's Pulcinella Finale." He was subsequently accepted as a doctoral student and teaching fellow at the University of North Texas
University of North Texas
The University of North Texas is a public institution of higher education and research in Denton. Founded in 1890, UNT is part of the University of North Texas System. As of the fall of 2010, the University of North Texas, Denton campus, had a certified enrollment of 36,067...
; he was enrolled there from 1993 to 1995, and studied with John Covach, Graham Phipps, Janna Saslaw, David Schwartz, and others. He left the program after spring 1995, in order to apply to other schools. In fall 1996, he began doctoral studies at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. While there he studied with Kofi Agawu, Gianmario Borio, Allen Forte
Allen Forte
Allen Forte is a music theorist and musicologist. He was born in Portland, Oregon and fought in the Navy at the close of World War II before moving to the East Coast. He is now Battell Professor of Music, Emeritus at Yale University...
, Michael Friedmann, David Kopp, Patrick McCreless, Robert Morgan, Claude V. Palisca
Claude V. Palisca
Claude Victor Palisca was an internationally recognized authority on early music, especially opera of the renaissance and baroque periods, and was Henry L. and Lucy G. Moses Professor Emeritus of Music at Yale University...
, and Leon Plantinga. After his coursework was completed he taught "Elementary Studies in Analysis and Composition I and II," for which he was awarded a "Prize Teaching Fellowship" in 2001, in recognition of "outstanding performance and promise as a teacher." His dissertation, completed in 2002 under the advisement of Forte, was entitled "Stravinsky's 'Skeletons': Reconnoitering the Evolutionary Paths from Variation Sets to Serialism." Work on it was facilitated by a fellowship from the Whiting Foundation, and upon its completion the dissertation was accepted as "distinguished" by the Yale Music Department.
After receiving his Ph.D. in music theory in 2002, Berry was appointed a lecturer at Yale for the 2002-03 academic year. In fall 2003, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
The University of Cincinnati – College-Conservatory of Music is the performing arts college of the University of Cincinnati and is one of the nation's leading music conservatories. In its most recent rankings, U.S. News & World Report ranked Cincinnati sixth nationally among university programs...
; and in 2009 he was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor.
In 2006 Berry was awarded the Society for Music Theory's "Emerging Scholar Award" for "The Meaning(s) of 'Without': An Exploration of Liszt's Bagatelle ohne Tonart," 19th-Century Music 27/3 (2004): 230-262. The article was described by the SMT awards committee as a "careful and detailed analytical study, of a single piece with a tantalizing title, [that] places the music within the framework of 19th-century musical thought, in particular the evolving theories of chromaticism that would eventually lead to Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's radicalism and beyond. The author shows that Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
's 'Bagatelle without Tonality' is not so much 'without tonality' as a piece without the fulfillment of a tonic. In doing so, he makes a telling contribution to what many consider the central story of music theory: the story of the circumvention of tonality."
To date, Berry has published 19 articles and reviews, and has delivered roughly 30 papers on diverse topics at various academic venues in the U.S. and Europe. His book, A Topical Guide to Schenkerian Literature: An Annotated Bibliography with Indices (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2004), is the largest reference work devoted to writings about the music theorist Heinrich Schenker
Heinrich Schenker
Heinrich Schenker was a music theorist, best known for his approach to musical analysis, now usually called Schenkerian analysis....
and his approach to analysis; it contains 3600 entries, representing the work of 1475 authors.
Berry is currently the editor of Gamut: The Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic
Gamut: The Journal of the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic
Gamut is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It is a fully online journal, sponsored by the and published by , a digital imprint of the University of Tennessee Libraries...
. He is a past editor of Theory and Practice
Theory and Practice
Theory and Practice is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It is the annual journal of the Music Theory Society of New York State, which was "[t]he first regional theory organization" in the U.S., having "held its initial meeting in 1971 at the Eastman...
(the journal of the Music Theory Society of New York State), and a past reviews editor of the Journal of Music Theory
Journal of Music Theory
The Journal of Music Theory is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established by David Kraehenbuehl in 1957....
.
Publication List
- "Dynamic Introductions: The Affective Role of Melodic Ascent and Other Linear Devices in Selected Song Verses of Irving Berlin," Intégral 13 (1999): 1-62.
- "The Popular Songwriter as Composer: Mannerisms and Design in the Music of Jimmy Van Heusen," Indiana Theory Review 21 (2000): 1-51.
- Review of Irving Berlin: Songs from the Melting Pot: The Formative Years, 1907-1914, by Charles Hamm, Contemporary Music Review 19/1 (2000): 157-166.
- Review of Irving Berlin: A Life in Song, by Philip Furia, Music Theory Online 6/5 (2000). Accessible at http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.00.6.5/mto.00.6.5.berry_frames.html.
- "Gambling with Chromaticism? Extra-Diatonic Melodic Expression in the Songs of Irving Berlin," Theory and Practice 26 (2001): 21-85.
- Review of Irving Berlin: American Troubadour, by Edward Jablonski, Notes [Journal of the Music Library Association] 57/4 (2001): 917-919.
- Review of Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring, by Peter Hill, Notes [Journal of the Music Library Association] 58/2 (2001): 357-358.
- "On Teaching 'Tonal Mirror Counterpoint': A Guide to Concepts and Practice," Journal of Music Theory PedagogyJournal of Music Theory PedagogyJournal of Music Theory Pedagogy is a peer-reviewed, academic journal specializing in the teaching and pedagogy of music theory and analysis. It began publication in 1987, under the auspices of The Gail Boyd de Stwolinski Center for Music Theory Pedagogy, at the University of Oklahoma.The...
16 (2002): 1-56. - "The Role of Adele T. Katz in the Early Expansion of the New York 'Schenker School,'" Current Musicology 74 (2002): 103-151.
- "Hans Weisse and the Dawn of American Schenkerism," Journal of Musicology 20/1 (2003): 104-156.
- "The Meaning(s) of 'Without': An Exploration of Liszt's Bagatelle ohne Tonart," 19th-Century Music 27/3 (2004): 230-262.
- A Topical Guide to Schenkerian Literature: An Annotated Bibliography with Indices (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2004).
- "Victor Vaughn Lytle and the Early Proselytism of Schenkerian Ideas in the U.S.," Journal of Schenkerian Studies 1 (2005): 92-117.
- "Schenkerian Theory in the United States: A Review of Its Establishment and a Survey of Current Research Topics," Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie 2/2-3 (2005): 101-137.
- "Stravinsky, Igor," in Europe 1789 to 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire, editors-in-chief John Merriman and Jay Winter (Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006): vol. 4, 2261-2263.
- "Hans Weisse (1892-1940)," in Schenker-Traditionen: Eine Wiener Schule der Musiktheorie und ihre internationale Verbreitung [Schenker Traditions: A Viennese School of Music Theory and Its International Dissemination], ed. Martin Eybl and Evelyn Fink-Mennel (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2006): 91-103.
- "Journal of Music Theory under Allen Forte’s Editorship,” Journal of Music TheoryJournal of Music TheoryThe Journal of Music Theory is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established by David Kraehenbuehl in 1957....
50/1 (2006): 7–23. - "The Roles of Invariance and Analogy in the Linear Design of Stravinsky's 'Musick to Heare,'" Gamut 1/1 (2008). Accessible at http://dlc.lib.utk.edu/web/ojs/index.php/first/article/view/43.
- "The Twin Legacies of a Scholar-Teacher: The Publications and Dissertation Advisees of Allen Forte," in A Music-Theoretical Matrix: Essays in Honor of Allen Forte (Part I), ed. David Carson Berry, Gamut 2/1 (2009): 197-222. Accessible at http://dlc.lib.utk.edu/web/ojs/index.php/first/article/view/105.
- "'Verborgene Wiederholungen'? Schenker's (Hidden?) Influence in America in the 1930s. Part I: George Wedge and the Filtering of Schenker's Ideas for the 'Average' Person," Theory and Practice (forthcoming).