Robert O. Gjerdingen is a scholar of

music theory Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...

and

music perception ''Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by University of California Press five times a year. It was founded by Diana Deutsch. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has ...

, and is an emeritus professor at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. His most influential work focuses on the application of ideas from cognitive science, especially theories about schemas, as an analytical tool in an attempted "archaeology" of style and composition methods in ''galant'' European music of the eighteenth century. Gjerdingen received his PhD from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

in 1984 after studying with

Leonard B. Meyer Leonard B. Meyer (January 12, 1918 – December 30, 2007) was a composer, author, and philosopher. He contributed major works in the fields of aesthetic theory in music, and of compositional analysis. Career Meyer studied at Columbia Un ...

and Eugene Narmour. His 2007 book ''Music in the Galant Style'', an authoritative study on

galant schemata Galant Schemata, as described by Robert Gjerdingen in '' Music in the Galant Style'', are "stock musical phrases" in Galant music. The concept of a musical schema is based on schema theory in psychology. Each schema has discernible internal charact ...

, received the

Wallace Berry Wallace Berry (10 January 1928 – 16 November 1991) was an American music theorist and composer who taught at the University of Michigan and later at the University of British Columbia. Mid-way through his career, Berry shifted focus from music ...

award from the

Society for Music Theory The Society for Music Theory (SMT) is an American organization devoted to the promotion of music theory as a scholarly and pedagogical discipline. It currently has a membership of over 1200, primarily in the United States. In the 1970s, few schoo ...

in 2009 and has become influential in the field of music theory.In a 2011 review of the book for the journal ''Theory and Practice'', Paul Moravitz Sherill writes that the book "is a work that needs little introduction. In 2009, it received the Society for Music Theory's Wallace Berry Award, and papers extending the project of 'Music in the Galant Style''have garnered attention at several regional and national conferences". Gjerdingen was also editor of the journal ''

Music Perception ''Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by University of California Press five times a year. It was founded by Diana Deutsch. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has ...

'' from 1998 to 2002.

Publications

*''Music in the Galant Style: Being an Essay on Various Schemata Characteristic of Eighteenth-Century Music for Courtly Chambers, Chapels, and Theaters, Including Tasteful Passages of Music Drawn from Most Excellent Chapel Masters in the Employ of Noble and Noteworthy Personages, Said Music All Collected for the Reader’s Delectation on the World Wide Web'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). *''Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality'' n English translation of Carl Dahlhaus's ''Untersuchungen über die Entstehung der harmonischen Tonalität'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). *''A Classic Turn of Phrase: Music and the Psychology of Convention'' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988). In addition to these monographs, Gjerdingen has also edited two volumes of historical

partimenti A Partimento (from the Italian: ''partimento'', plural ''partimenti'') is a sketch (often a bass line), written out on a single staff, whose main purpose is to be a guide for the improvisation ("realization") of a composition at the keyboard. A ...

by Italian composers who taught at the conservatories in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

References

External links

Partimenti.org
Personal Page.

Faculty page at Northwestern. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gjerdingen, Robert Living people Northwestern University faculty Music theorists Year of birth missing (living people)