PODCAST · music
The Theory Behind It
by Adam Moffett, Livi Handley, Seth Weesner
The Theory Behind It! A podcast for musical conversations with Adam, Livi, and Seth.
Episodes
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Session Two: TTBI Meets Carla Salas-Ruiz!
Adam, Livi, and Seth interview pianist Caral Salas-Ruiz. Their conversation includes how she journeyed into the music world and her thoughts on piano pedagogy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contact: [email protected] Follow:...
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Session One: Music Theory and The Imposter Syndrome
Adam, Livi, and Seth tackle how the imposter syndrome affects one going through undergraduate and graduate studies in music. 01:00 Helpful or Not: Chrome Music Lab 12:30 Main Topic: Music Theory and The Imposter Syndrome 38:50 Closing Segment Contact: [email protected]…
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TTBI Meets Dan Elphick (Cult of Musicology)
This week we are thrilled to share our conversation with musicologist Dr. Daniel Elphick. Dan is a faculty member at Royal Holloway, University of London, as well as the man behind the Cult of Musicology Youtube channel. Check out our discussion about his research, writing in music theory, and…
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TTBI Meets DJ A.D.
Oh hey, we're not dead! TTBI is back with a brand new season of music theory and theory adjacent content (oftentimes very adjacent). Back in July, we had the chance to interview Memphis' own DJ A.D. We spoke with A.D. about the musical skills a DJ needs to possess, the worst wedding DJ ever, and...
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TTBI Recaps Reddit
Welcome to the first ever edition of Reddit Recap! The gang takes a peek at the top of the month on r/musictheory to see if they can answer any questions or have anything to add to the conversation. Plus, some questionable Jeopardy clues from the week: what's the most colorful scale?
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Let's Argue: Music Notation
Welcome back to another edition of Let's Argue! This week, Livi's questions about music notation nearly bring Seth and Adam to fisticuffs. Are double dotted notes good? Should we notate timbres? Modes bad? Listen and find out!
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Agency in Music, with Aubrey Leaman
As Seth calls it, welcome to narrative-land. This week, TTBI welcomes Aubrey Leaman, a Music Theory and Cognition PhD student at Northwestern University, to discuss her work with subjectivity and agency in music. Check out her SCSMT 2021 paper at the link below to see where our conversation…
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Adam and Taylor Pick The 7 Best Kanye Albums
Special guest and friend of the show, Taylor Burks, returns to draft the top 7 best Kanye West albums with Adam. Listen back to the previous episode with Taylor for some non-mandatory backstory, and then check out his new website and upcoming EP! https://www.tjbpercussion.com/
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TTBI Talks Race, Music Theory, and Schenker
This is a heavy one. Building off our conversation with The Score last episode, we dig into Dr. Phillip Ewell's writing on music theory's white racial frame, how it applies to us, and some things we can do to help. We talk about the problems with Schenkerian analysis and break down the academic...
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TTBI Meets The Score!
For the first new episode of our new season, we had the incredible pleasure of talking with Eric and Justin from The Score, an urban music education podcast. We wanted to get their insight into building a more inclusive curriculum that connects with today's students, as well as the place of music...
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TTBI Drafts the Best Christmas Songs of All Time
It's the final episode of this season of TTBI! And what better than a holiday themed episode to close out the year. In this episode, Seth, Livi, and Adam collaborate to draft and rank the 11 best Christmas songs ever. It gets a little heated, but hopefully some of your favorites made it on. Let…
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2020 Spotify Wrapped (And Some Movies?)
Welcome back to our...music theory podcast? Where we spend an inordinate amount of time discussing early to mid 2000s Disney animated films? As we wrap up season 2 of the podcast, we investigate our Spotify Wrappeds to see what the algorithm decided we were into this year. Who spent the most time...
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Let's Argue: The Land Before College
Coming at you, hot off the press: it's a new episode of Let's Argue! This week, Seth has devised questions about the role of music theory from elementary to high school music programs. Who will come out on top? Did those music ed degrees pay off? Find out this week!
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Adam Introduces TTBI to DOOM
As promised in the last episode, Adam has prepared a brief introduction to the music of the masked madman himself, MF DOOM. Enjoy hearing about the twisty, overlapping personas, as well as Adam's incredulity at Seth and Livi's favorite tracks. Follow along with the episode playlist!
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TTBI Reads Kyle Adams' "Harmonic, Syntactic, and Motivic Parameters of Phrase in Hip-Hop"
Hey, everybody! Bit late on this one ("a bit"), but the good news is you get an episode on rap music today and another one tomorrow! This episode was supposed to come out last Friday, but kept getting delayed. Check here again tomorrow for this week's normally scheduled episode. In this episode,...
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The Theses We Didn't Write
In some form or another, each of us came up with a potential thesis idea for our master's that just didn't pan out. So today, we're talking about these ideas, what the complications or problems were, and how we ended up with what we did write! (Please don't steal any of our left behind ideas;...
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Adam Finally Makes a U2 Episode
Yes, it's true. Time has caught up with the podcast and Adam has enforced his will against the show. In this week's episode, Adam and special guest his father draft the top 9 U2 albums of all time. It's another Screendrafts rip-off for the ages!
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Let's Argue: r/musictheory, Part 2
Seth and Adam's battle to not lose every Let's Argue they've debated in comes to a close! Find out who takes home the gold (or the silver or something, I dunno, It's not a great metaphor). We answer more of your questions from r/musictheory, and hopefully come out as friends.
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Oursatz Rebrands!
Just announcing the new name for the podcast, The Theory Behind It. We feel it's a much better name for actually sharing and talking about the podcast, and we're excited to see what comes next!
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Let's Argue: r/musictheory, Part 1
After a break last week (oops), Livi has prepared a Let's Argue of her own, this time featuring questions gathered from the music theory subreddit. Will Adam maintain his sanity? Will Seth or Adam will break their Let's Argue curse? Will Livi somehow win another Let's Argue as moderator? All this...
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Oursatz Recommends...
Livi, Adam, and Seth talk about some of the stuff they've been listening to lately. This episode features a bad Joseph Gordon-Levitt joke, a follow up on Harry Potter from last week, and surely something that was on topic hopefully. Here's the playlist with the favorites of our recommendations!
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Oursatz Catches Up
After all the higher concept episodes we've done recently, we thought it'd be a nice change of pace to relax and have a more laidback episode this week. We meander through discussion of musical notation and graphic design, the Harry Potter books and movies, presenting at an online conference, and...
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Oursatz Drafts the Best Chord of All Time
This week we ripped off the podcast Screendrafts and competitively collaborated to find out what the best chord of all time is! The parameters were basic chords most students learn in their 2 years of music theory classes. Sevenths could be considered for each chord, but were not a separate...
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Let's Argue: Theory Pedagogy Edition, Part 2
We round off the debate with the final 3 questions in this Music Pedagogy edition of Let's Argue. Talking points include borrowed chords, the importance of music history, snails, and incredulously even more Schenker talk. Who wins? How biased was the host? (I would like to make an addendum that...
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Let's Argue: Theory Pedagogy Edition, Part 1
In this two part episode, Adam pits Livi and Seth against each other in a new edition of Let's Argue. This time around we're discussing opinions on the teaching of music theory. Topics include cadential V chords, teaching Schenkerian analysis to undergrads, and a heck of a lot about modes.
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Oursatz Meets Taylor Burks!
Hey, everybody! Sorry for the delay, but we've got a very special episode for you today: our interview with percussionist Taylor Burks! In this episode, we talk about band pedagogy, a work Taylor commissioned and performed, Taylor's review of Ye, and the various impressions Adam can do.…
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Three Articles, Part 3 (Duinker)
In this, the final part of the Three Articles series, Adam presents an article discussing chord progressions and tonality in pop music. Ben Duinker writes about how chordal loops can increase ambiguity when locating tonic and that we should consider bitonality or "hybrid tonics" when thinking…
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Seth's Hodgepodge
In a thematic sequel to Borrowing in Pop Music, Seth returns with more examples of topics and allusions in pop music. After that...it gets a little weird. Hope you're prepared to hear our takes on things that stopped being relevant over 3 months ago when we recorded. Talking points include…
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Three Articles, Part 2 (Beavers)
This week we discuss Jennifer Beavers' article "Beyond Mere Novelty: Timbre as Primary Structural Marker in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major". We talk about timbre as formal quality, the place of timbre in analysis, and a bit about the music of Ravel. There is a brief shout-out to theremins....
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Oursatz Meets Ryan Connors!
This week we got the opportunity to interview Ryan Connors from Dynamo. After we talked about their album in Three Albums, Part 2, we reached out and got the chance to talk to Ryan. We had lots of great discussion about Dynamo's album Celina, improvisation, and the differences between…
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Three Articles, Part 1 (Bleij)
We decided to each read an article from the Music Theory Online journal and discuss it with each other. This week Livi tells us about Barbara Bleij's article 'Three Multifaceted Compositions by Wayne Shorter: “E.S.P.,” “Infant Eyes,” and “Virgo”'. We talk about jazz theory, finding tonic, and a...
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Let's Argue: Music Theory Edition, Part 2
Alright, if you listened to last week's episode, you know that Seth's diabolical plan to use music theory to destroy a friendship likely didn't work, mostly because Adam and Livi generally agreed the whole time. But that doesn't mean part 2 of the debate will be any less juicy. What is the most...
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Let's Argue: Music Theory Edition, Part 1
In this episode, Seth attempts to destroy Adam and Livi's friendship by forcing them to argue about music theory topics as he sees fit. Will their bond overcome debates on German augmented sixth chords, Schenkerian analysis, and minimalism? Or will Seth's twisted game tear them apart? Find out in...
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Three Albums, Part 2
In the thrilling conclusion to last week's discussion, Livi presents Dynamo's 2017 album Celina and Adam presents Kanye West's 2018 album Ye. Is Ye a bad album? What does it mean for music to be authentic? Will we get to interview somebody from Dynamo? Listen to find out! (Once again, apologies…
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Three Albums, Part 1
This week we decided to each present an album to the other two, listen to it throughout the week, and then report back on what noticed, appreciated, and thought about it. In part 1, we cover Seth's pick: Adele's 2008 album 19. But before that, since this is the first of the 2020 albums, we give a...
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Deep Dive: Change My Mind
In the inaugural appearance of the potentially recurring Deep Dive, we take a look at songs and albums that could change your opinion or view of a musician/band. We each pick a song that is either surprising or unique to a catalogue and discuss, and we do the same with chunks of albums we…
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Why Music Theory?
In this episode, we discuss how and why we got into music theory. Plus, some Imagine Dragons!
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Borrowing in Pop Music
A much anticipated episode from a time nearly since forgotten... It's the return of Oursatz! This is an episode that previously went unpublished after being recorded at the beginning of 2018. We're going to clear out the backlog and start getting new episodes posted soon. In this episode, Seth...
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Classical Samples in Rap Music
After a "brief" hiatus, we're back with hard-hitting discussions about trap music, Busdriver, and hummus. Oh, also we talk about rap songs that utilize classical music as samples and what it could mean.
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Bonus Episode: More Album Talk
We started recording for next week's episode and realized we still had a bunch to say about albums! So we decided to chop it up and deliver it to you guys this week ahead of next week's episode. Hop over to the Facebook to talk with us about how you prefer to listen and experience music. See you...
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Album vs. Playlist: Beefin' with Drake
We start off this episode with a detailed discussion of types of stews. But don't worry, we do eventually have a conversation about what makes an album great, what makes an album cohesive, and what the difference is between an album, a playlist, and a mixtape. Let us know on our Facebook about…
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Microtonality 11/1/17
Episode 1: Seth, Livi, and Adam embark the podcast with a discussion of maybe the nichest thing possible: microtonality.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Theory Behind It have?
The Theory Behind It currently has 42 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Theory Behind It about?
The Theory Behind It! A podcast for musical conversations with Adam, Livi, and Seth.
How often does The Theory Behind It release new episodes?
The Theory Behind It has 42 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Theory Behind It?
You can listen to The Theory Behind It on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Theory Behind It?
The Theory Behind It is created and hosted by Adam Moffett, Livi Handley, Seth Weesner.
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