On the Founding of the Society for Music Theory: An Autobiographical Perspective

I have always been grateful to the Society for Music Theory for the many ways it has provided opportunities for an increasingly wider range of scholarship. However, at the time of its founding, I was more of an outsider—as much observer as participant. Thus, my perspective on the creation of the Society was based on a different (if complementary) vision for music theory, informed by intellectual currents that had yet to be fully absorbed into the mainstream. In this essay, I recall my own formative experiences and cite the work of several less-mentioned scholars to construct an alternative context for understanding the Society’s early development. Nearly fifty years ago, as a doctoral student in music theory at Indiana University, I was driving my Honda Civic through a dark November evening to Evanston, Illinois, home of Northwestern University. I was excited to be attending a national conference sponsored by the College Music Society and the American Musicological Society that included, for the first time, an entire series of sessions devoted to music theory.1 Keeping me company was fellow doctoral student Roy Wheldon, who was to give a joint paper with his friend Randy Dipert (soon to become a professor of philosophy) on their application of set theory to music.2 Theirs was an approach far different from Allen Forte’s, based instead on the philosophical/mathematical field of axiomatic set theory. The first part of their theory had just been published,3 and Dipert had recently offered a critical review of the first part of Allen Forte’s The Structure of Atonal Music in the first issue of the student-formed journal, Indiana Theory Review.4 Although their approach would not become mainstream, I mention it as representative of the creative ferment in which new ideas were being explored at the time of SMT’s founding. Other young theorists leading the way included Marion Guck, Edwin Hantz, Marianne Kielian-Gilbert, and Charles J. Smith at the University of Michigan, where, under the mentorship of Richmond Browne, they had been publishing In Theory Only since 1975. Thus, along with the interest in a dedicated theory society expressed by leaders in the field, I was aware of several young scholars with a palpable enthusiasm for theory-building and critique.