I got my first taste of teaching in middle school, when my choir director asked me (the designated piano player) to run sectionals. It still ignites me to help other people get better at making music. I've taught kids (as young as five), amateur adults, and working musicians. I'm a Lecturer of Music at Mount Holyoke College where I teach courses like "Pop Song / Jazz Tune" and "Music Theory and Difference." I previously taught for three years at Oberlin Conservatory and six years at the University of West Georgia, where I was both the music theorist and the Director of Jazz Studies.
In recent years, much of my attention has been devoted to issues of equity in music instruction. My mission is to reform music curricula to ensure that students encounter all kinds of music and musical creators - not just the European-oriented ones that dominate music education.
The centerpiece of this work is my free textbook, Music Theory in Mind and Culture, (2021) which has been used at DePauw University, the University of New Hampshire, Ithaca College, the University of Michigan, and other institutions. I hope Music Theory in Mind and Culture can offer both a model for how a more equitable music theory curriculum might be designed, and some practical materials for implementing it.