Back in my undergraduate days, I was determined to be a music performer, until I realized how much hard practice that would entail. I was pretty sure I couldn’t actually write music, so I did what a lot of academics do, I decided to pursue a degree in analyzing others’ works. In my first year as a graduate student in music theory, I found out that such study wasn’t as simple and noncontroversial as I thought, either, brought home when I was told by the chair of the department that no music written after 1900 was worth studying. (!!!)

Music theorists aren’t scientists, in the way we usually think of them — there isn’t a fixed world out there waiting to be studied and discovered, like it is for a physicist. A music theorist is there to help us understand the music we already like and listen to. It’s a part of musicology, a discipline that includes the study of social/historical contexts, general aesthetics, even the physiology of music production, among other things. But, again, music came before musicology — one can argue that the development of music was inevitable, but its study couldn’t precede its existence.

In the back of my mind is a serious case of “imposter syndrome” — the idea that the work I do isn’t of high enough quality to deserve attention, doesn’t meet the standards applied by theorists (and musicologists in general). This problem was pushed to the forefront when I was selected to present on my writings to a symposium of University of Kentucky professors and graduate students who teach and study music theory and composition. What will I say? Does my work have enough technical quality to be of interest to them? What if they hate it, find it trivial or unlistenable?

But I’m just studying for fun, producing things for my own consumption/celebration. It doesn’t take a lot of confidence to clear the bar that that sets. And since I’ve had a premiere of one of my works (“20-20: A Choral Suite”), at least a few others have pushed me over a somewhat higher bar, and I’m very much appreciative of that. But that misses the point — the collection of theorists and composers that assemble to hear my presentation have the work to do, not me. My compositions exist. They will need to decide how those works fit with those that historically preceded them, and whether the style of writing I’m pursuing points to anything worth expanding and developing by future composers.

The selection of any piece of music for study requires interest, and interest can’t be assumed. If someone decided to teach an entire course on the study of my music, it would probably fail to gain any enrollment. But my theory professor from 1972 was operating under the assumption that the popularity of the theory underlying the music from J.S. Bach to Gustav Mahler eliminated the need to study further. A lot of wonderful music has been written and performed since 1900. Theorists have a responsibility to study it. Could it be that my body of work might, someday, be a part of that conversation?