Research Strengths

The Faculty of Music boasts vibrant and diverse Research and Creation foci. See below for a summary of Faculty Research and Creation interests, and visit the People and Area pages for additional details on Researcher-Creators and their affiliated projects.

Musicology, Ethnomusicology & Music Theory

Musicology, Ethnomusicology & Music Theory

Musicology

  • Afrosonic innovations and notions of the human
  • ballet culture and repertoire
  • Enlightenment aesthetics
  • formation of musical genres
  • gender and ethnicity in opera 
  • Glenn Gould
  • Haydn studies
  • information literacy
  • Istvan Anhalt
  • John Eccles
  • mechanics of innovation within aural musical communities
  • medieval studies
  • music entrepreneurship
  • politics of musical reception
  • piano cultures
  • sheet music publications in early Canada
  • sound, landscape and environment
  • sound media and technology
  • traditional music from Quebec

Ethnomusicology

  • Afrodiasporic performance
  • anthropology of sound and music in modern Korea and Japan
  • Brazilian music
  • celebrity
  • cultural theory
  • ethnography of the “everyday”
  • Iranian popular music
  • music and technoculture
  • music cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean
  • music's linkages to other forms of social expression
  • politics of popular culture
  • popular music
  • transnational media publics
  • vistas of ethnomusicology beyond music
  • voice studies

Music Theory

  • analysis of large-scale instrumental music
  • Arnold Schoenberg
  • atonal voice leading
  • cognitive science
  • ethnicity
  • gender
  • history of music theory
  • improvisation
  • motional qualities in the music of Brahms
  • music and the mind
  • performance timing
  • polyrhythms
  • Priaulx Rainier
  • public engagement
  • Rabindranath Tagore
  • race
  • Richard Wagner
  • sexuality
  • scherzo across the nineteenth century
  • social and political dimensions of music

Music Education

Music Education

  • activism
  • anarchism
  • anti-racism, anti-fascism, and anti-discrimination in music education
  • creative musical play
  • critical theories in music education
  • cultural perspectives
  • curriculum studies
  • education policy
  • equity, diversity and social justice
  • examinations of music in higher education
  • formal gospel music pedagogy
  • hip hop music education
  • history of percussion performance and pedagogy
  • improvisation pedagogy
  • movement and music cognition
  • music and memory
  • musical affect
  • narrative research methodology
  • necropolitics
  • philosophies of music education
  • politics of diversity in music education
  • popular music pedagogy
  • professional identity
  • psychological dynamics of private music lessons
  • reflective practice
  • research foundations
  • rhythmic organization in repetitive idioms
  • sound studies
  • Syriac chants in the Indian Orthodox Church in Canada
  • trauma
  • Truth & Reconciliation
  • youth in the Canadian Justice System

Music and Health

Music and Health

  • advanced techniques in neurologic rehabilitation
  • clinical applications of music and rhythm to motor, speech/language, and cognitive training in neurologic disorders
  • community music
  • dementia
  • improvisation and songwriting
  • intersections between the performing arts and music therapy through storytelling and performance
  • medically assisted dying
  • mental health
  • music and motor control
  • music as a tool for optimal wellness
  • music for pain
  • music therapy
  • music therapy methods in neuro-rehabilitation
  • neural and psychophysical basis of music and rhythm perception
  • Neurologic Music Therapy
  • oncology, palliative and end of life care
  • piano technique, music therapy methods and counseling for psychiatric populations
  • relationship completion for individuals at end-of-life
  • singing protocols for persons diagnosed with dementia
  • Telehealth music therapy
  • vibroacoustic therapy

Music Technology & Digital Media

Music Technology & Digital Media

  • artistry
  • audio production research
  • Canadian musical culture
  • colours of technology
  • computation
  • computer-assisted composition
  • computer analysis of keyboard temperaments
  • digital marketplaces
  • interactive performance
  • methodology for evaluation of recorded music masters
  • Michelangelo Rossi
  • music startups
  • new technologies for digital media creation & distribution
  • open audio engineering resources
  • perception, operation, and design of dynamic range compressors
  • personal history
  • reactive video
  • rhythmic gadgetry
  • statistical data analysis and experiment design  
  • sustainability of communities through multi-national music initiatives

Composition

Composition

  • climate change
  • environmental consciousness
  • geopolitical diversity
  • Indigenous issues
  • instrumental practices
  • integrative electronic and instrumental music
  • human rights
  • migration
  • post-digital audiences
  • sculptural practices of composition
  • social unrest
  • sound art
  • sound worlds
  • spatial interactive audio-visual work for both concert and installation settings

Performance

Performance

The Faculty of Music offers several different programs with Research and Creation components. Please visit individual area pages for additional details regarding faculty research and creation specialties. 

Have a question?

The Faculty of Music Research Office is a great resource for research and creation support.