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Education

2005: Ph.D. in Music Theory and Acoustics, Stanford University
1994: Masters of Arts in Music Theory, State University of New York at Stony Brook
1992: Bachelor of Arts in Music Theory, The Ohio State University

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Awards, Scholarships and Grants

2019: Michigan State University, undergraduate research assistant support
2019: Society for Music Theory Publication Subvention grant for The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy
2018: MSU Humanities and Arts Research Program
2018: Michigan State University, undergraduate research assistant support
2015: Vice Provost for Research and Graduate Studies Research Grant Leave
2014: Michigan State University Humanities and Arts Research Program
2009: Vice Provost for Libraries, Computing and Technology Special Research Grant
2007: Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies Special Research Grant
2007: MSU Lilly Teaching Fellowship Program
2005: MSU IRGP Grant
2003: Stanford Dissertation Research Support Grant, Stanford University

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Publications

VanHandel, L. (forthcoming 2021) nPVI as a musicological tool. In The Oxford Handbook of Music and Corpus Studies, ed. by Daniel Shanahan, Ashley Burgoyne, and Ian Quinn.

VanHandel, L. (2020) Music theory and working memory. In The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy, Routledge Press.

VanHandel, L. (ed.) (2020) The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy, Routledge Press.

VanHandel, L. (2019–)Ask Dr. Van – an ongoing public music theory/music cognition project in which I answer music theory and music cognition questions from students who find me on the internet. Available at www.askdrvan.org.

Gotham, M., Jonas, P., Bower, B., Bosworth, W., Rootham, D., and VanHandel, L. (2018) Scores of Scores: an OpenScore project to encode and share sheet music. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Digital Libraries for Musicology.

VanHandel, L., Drotos, A., and McAuley, D. (2018) Relation between melodic characteristics and tempo determination. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition/European Society for the Cognition of Music. 

Lambrecht, L. and VanHandel, L. (2018) The perception of stable tones in polytonal structures. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition/European Society for the Cognition of Music. 

Jonker, A., and VanHandel, L. (2018) Human perception of melodic similarity in theme and variation pieces. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition/European Society for the Cognition of Music.

VanHandel, L. (2018) Relation between melodic characteristics and tempo determination. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition/European Society for the Cognition of Music.

VanHandel, L. (2016) The war of the Romantics: An alternate hypothesis using nPVI for the quantitative anthropology of music. Empirical Musicology Review, Vol. 11, No. 2.

VanHandel, L. (2014) Articles in Thomson, W.F. (Ed), Music in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Encylopedia. (Articles: Chords. Modulation. Rules of voice-leading. Scales.) Sage Publications Inc., New York.

Temperley, D. and VanHandel, L., Eds. (2013) Special Issues on Corpus Methods. Music Perception, Vol. 31/1, September 2013, and Vol. 31/3, January 2014. [This is a two volume series focusing on corpus methods in music cognition and perception. Temperley and I served as co-editors of the two volumes.]

VanHandel, L. and Temperley, D. (2014) Introduction to the Second Special Issue on Corpus Methods. Music Perception, Vol. 31/3, February 2014.

Temperley, D. and VanHandel, L. (2013) Introduction to the Special Issues on Corpus Methods. Music Perception, Vol. 31/1, September 2013.

VanHandel, L. (2013) Music Theory Skill Builder: An online musical fundamentals environment. Oxford University Press.

VanHandel, L. (2012) What can music theory pedagogy learn from mathematics pedagogy? Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, Vol. 26.

VanHandel, L. and M. Callahan. (2012) The role of phrase location in key identification by pitch class distribution. In E. Cambouropoulos, C. Tsougras, K. Mavromatis, K. Pastiadis (Eds.), Proceedings of ICMPC-ESCOM 12 (Thessaloniki, Greece).

VanHandel, L. (2012) Using computer-based music fundamentals drills to reinforce learning with adaptive strategies. Tehnologii Informatice si de comunicatie in domeniul muzica (Information, Communication and Technology in Musical Fields. Music Academy Gheorghe Dima, Romania.

VanHandel, L. (2011) Supplemental electronic and online material for 2nd edition of Clendinning/Marvin, The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis. Contracted by W.W. Norton & Company.

VanHandel, L. and T. Song. (2010) The role of meter in compositional style in 19th century French and German art song. Journal of New Music Research, 39(1), 1-11.

VanHandel, L., J. Wakefield, and W. Wilkins. (2011) Towards the role of working memory in pitch processing in language and music. In J. Hawkins, I. Cross, M. Rohrmeier and P. Rebuschat (Eds.), Language and Music as Cognitive Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

VanHandel, L. (2009) National metrical types in nineteenth century art song. Empirical Musicology Review, 4(4), 134-145.

VanHandel, L. and B. Rhodes. (2009) mfp: An online music fundamentals environment. Software produced in conjunction with Michigan State University’s Virtual University Design and Technology group, licensed by Oxford University Press.

VanHandel, L. and T. Song (2009) Influence of Linguistic Rhythm on Individual Compositional Style in 19th Century French and German Art Song. In Proceedings of ESCOM 2009: 7th Triennial Conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, Jyväskylä, Finland, 2009. (download)

VanHandel, L. (2007) Supplemental electronic and online material for Clendinning/Marvin, The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis. Online and supplemental materials for the Clendinning/Marvin textbook series, W.W. Norton & Company. Electronic resource available online from W.W. Norton.

VanHandel, L. (2006) Trends in/over time: Rhythm in speech and music in 19th century art song. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Music and Perception and Cognition. Bologna, Italy: Bononia University Press, 2006.

VanHandel, L. (2006) Trends in/over time: Rhythm in speech and musical melody in 19th century art song. In SMC06: Third Sound and Music Computing Conference Proceedings. Marseille, France: GMEM – Centre National de Creation Musicale, 2006.

Larson, S., and L. VanHandel. (2005) Measuring Musical Forces, Music Perception Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 119-136.

VanHandel, L. (1995) Inherent Primitivism in Morton Subotnick’s All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis. Proceedings of the McGill Graduate Theory Conference (June 1995), and in Music Research Forum, vol. X (August 1995).

VanHandel, L. (1994) From Ghost Score to CD-ROM: the Interactive Music of Morton Subotnick (Von “Geister-Partituren” zur CD-ROM: Die interaktive Musik von Morton Subotnick). Positionen: Beiträge zur neuen Musik, vol. 21 (November 1994).

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Presentations

Conference Presentations:

Karpinski’s Aural Skills Acquisition and cognition: Twenty years later
11/20 Society for Music Theory (virtual conference)

Music, memory, and cognition
11/19 Joint session, “Intersections of Music, Disability, and Cognition,” Music and Disability and Music Cognition Interest Groups, Society for Music Theory, Columbus, OH

I is for Impostor
11/19 Informatics Interest Group meeting, Society for Music Theory, Columbus OH

Effects of pitch characteristics on perceived musical tempo
6/19 17th Rhythm Production and Perception Workshop (RPPW), presented by Drotos, A., Vroegop, B., Eberle, A., Traverse City, MI

Pay attention to memory: strategies for assisting students with memory deficits
5/19 Pedagogy into Practice 2019, Santa Barbara, CA

How fast should this melody go? Melodic cues for tempo determination
5/19 Music Theory Midwest, Cincinnati, OH

Some of us still worry!
11/18 Music Cognition Interest Group Meeting, Society for Music Theory, San Antonio, TX

Theory fundamentals and working memory
11/18 Society for Music Theory, San Antonio, TX

Scores of scores: an OpenScore project to liberate sheet music and musical file formats
9/18 5th International Conference on Digital Libraries for Musicology, Paris, FR (presented by Mark Gotham)

Relation between melodic characteristics and tempo determination
7/18 International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC), Montreal, CA

Ask a theorist: historically informed corpus studies
6/18 Scores of Scores: Possibilities and Pitfalls with Musical Corpora, Cambridge, UK

Working memory and music theory pedagogy
5/18 Music Theory Midwest, London ON, CA

Melodic characteristics and tempo determination
8/17 Society for Music Perception and Cognition, San Diego, CA

Musical factors influencing tempo determination
7/16 International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC), San Francisco, CA

An investigation of tempo determination
1/16 Northeast Music Cognition Group (NEMCOG), Cambridge MA

Empirical research for music theorists – a workshop with Joshua Albrecht, Michael Schutz, and Daniel Shanahan
11/15 Society for Music Theory, St. Louis, MO

Voice-leading distribution and judgments of distance between tetrachords (joint authored with Joseph Vander Stel)
8/13 Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Toronto, Canada

What can music theory pedagogy learn from mathematics pedagogy?
6/13 MACRO Analysis Conference, Madison, WI

What happens at the beginning should stay at the beginning: The role of beginnings, middles, and ends in key-finding models
11/12 Society for Music Theory, New Orleans, LA

The role of phrase location in key identification by pitch class distribution
7/12 12th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition and 8th Triennial Conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, Thessaloniki, Greece

Helping DMA students fill a niche: the Masters degree in music theory pedagogy (a panel presentation with Michael Callahan and Bruce Taggart)
10/11 College Music Society, Richmond, VA

Rhythm and meter as compositional ‘footprints’ in 19th century art songs
7/11 13th International Rhythm Perception and Production Workshop, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany

What can music theory pedagogy learn from mathematics pedagogy?
4/11 Dutch Society for Music Theory, Enschede, Netherlands
10/11 College Music Society, Richmond, VA

National metrical types in nineteenth century art song
5/10 Music Theory Midwest, Oxford, OH
11/10 Society for Music Theory National Conference, Indianapolis, IN

Basic musicianship through technology
9/10 College Music Society, Minneapolis, MN

Technology in the music theory pedagogy classroom: incorporation and results
9/10 Association for Technology in Music Instruction (ATMI), Minneapolis, MN

mfp: An online music theory fundamentals learning environment
10/09 Association for Technology in Music Instruction, Portland OR

Incorporating keyboard-oriented mastery learning into the music theory curriculum: two studies
10/09 College Music Society, Portland OR (pdf of poster)

Influence of linguistic rhythm on individual compositional style in 19th century French and German art song
8/09 7th Triennial Conference of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music, Jyväskylä, Finland

Incorporating keyboard-oriented mastery learning into the music theory curriculum: two studies
5/09 Music Theory Midwest, Minneapolis, MN

‘Above all, nothing which resembles singing’: Rousseau and changing compositional styles in 19th century French art song
8/07 8th Conference of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Montreal, CA

Rethinking pitch in language and music
5/07 Language and Music as Cognitive Systems, Cambridge, UK

What rhythm Goethe? A study of poet influence on art song rhythm
2/07 Music and the Written Word: A Symposium of Research in Music Theory and Musicology, Bloomington, IN

Trends in/over time: Rhythm in speech and melody in 19th century art song
11/06 Society for Music Theory, Los Angeles, CA

How ‘German’ is Schumann? A quantitative analysis of compositional style
9/06 Schumann Perspectives: A View Across the Disciplines, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

Trends in/over time: Rhythm in speech and musical melody in 19th century art songs
2/06 The Intersection of Music and Poetry Symposium, Depauw University, Greencastle, IN
5/06 Music Theory Midwest, Muncie, IN
5/06 SMC06: Sound and Music Computing Conference, Marseilles, France
8/06 9th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Bologna, Italy

The Classic(al) Dada Work: Kurt Schwitters’ Ursonate
4/02 West Coast Conference for Music Theory and Analysis, Victoria BC

Measuring Musical Forces
11/00 Society for Music Theory/Society for Music Perception and Cognition joint panel Art Meets Science: Collaboration Between Music Theorists and Music Psychologists, at the Musical Intersections conference, Toronto, Canada

Potential Applications of Intonational Analysis to Musical Analysis
10/01 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Composer’s Forum, Urbana IL
3/00 University of New Mexico Composer’s Symposium, Albuquerque NM
8/99 Society for Music Perception and Cognition, Chicago IL

Categorical Perception, Ordering Effect, and Interval Boundaries
5/99 CCRMA Affiliates Meeting, Stanford CA
4/99 WCCMTA/RMSMT Joint Meeting, Stanford CA (Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Award)

Composition and Collage: Morton Subotnick’s The Key to Songs
4/98 Music Theory Society of New York State, New York NY
3/97 Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory, Boulder CO
2/97 CCRMA Colloquium Series, Stanford CA
5/96 Music Theory Midwest, Kalamazoo MI (Honorable Mention, Arthur J. Komar Best Student Paper Award)

Inherent Primitivism in Morton Subotnick’s All My Hummingbirds Have Alibis
4/96 Rocky Mountain Society for Music Theory, Tucson AZ
4/96 West Coast Conference for Music Theory and Analysis, Davis CA
3/95 McGill Graduate Theory Conference, Montreal, Canada
5/94 Music Theory Midwest Conference, Bloomington IN

Invited Presentations:

Keynote speaker, Future Directions of Music Cognition
5/20 (postponed due to COVID-19) Invited keynote speaker, Ohio State University, Columbus OH

Invited speaker, MIDAS Computational Music Theory Symposium
4/20 (postponed due to COVID-19) Invited speaker, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI

Faculty Fellow, Workshop in Music Theory Pedagogy (five keynote lectures)
6/19 University of Massachusetts, Amherst MA

Working memory and music theory fundamentals
5/19 Invited Speaker, UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Melodic influences on tempo determination
5/19 Invited Speaker, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Melodic influences on tempo determination
3/19 Invited Speaker, Music, Cognition and the Brain Speaker Series, University of Western Ontario, Ontario Canada

Rhythm and its role in the ‘War of the Romantics’
9/18 Invited speaker, Interdisciplinary Approaches to Music and Language, East Lansing MI

Melody, tempo, and the auditory kappa effect
6/18 Invited speaker, Centre for Music and Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge UK

“I don’t belong here”: Impostor syndrome in (and out) of the academy
2/17 Invited speaker, Women in Music Lecture Series, East Lansing, MI

Working memory in the music theory fundamentals classroom
9/16 Invited keynote speaker, Oklahoma Music Theory Roundtable, Stillwater OK

Working memory in the music theory classroom
4/16 Invited speaker, Music and the Mind Series, Bates College, Lewiston ME

Memory, attention, and music theory pedagogy
3/16 McGill Doctoral Colloquium Series, Montreal QC, CA

Conceptual and procedural knowledge in math and music theory
11/14 Invited speaker, Musicology Lecture Series, Youngstown State University, Youngstown OH

Rhythm and meter as a compositional fingerprint
4/11 Invited panel participant/speaker at McGill’s Distinguished Lecture Series, Montreal, Canada

The role of meter in compositional style in 19th century French and German art song
10/10 Featured speaker for the Voices in (e)motion Conference, Feldkirch, Austria

‘Above all, nothing which resembles singing’: Rousseau and changing compositional styles in 19th century French art song
8/07 The University of Edinburgh/Queen’s University International Interdisciplinary Summer Workshop on Music, Language and Movement, East Sussex, UK

Setting a Menu to Music: Rhythm and Melody in 19th–century Art Songs
5/06 University of Iowa Colloquium Series, Iowa City, IA

Media:

As guitarras renascem na quaratena (Guitars are reborn in quarantine), Veja (Brazil), print edition 2709, October 14, 2020. Online edition: October 9, 2020.
https://veja.abril.com.br/cultura/as-guitarras-renascem-na-quarentena/

Coronavirus: Musicians offering livestreams, use virtual tip jars as more people turn to music during COVID-19 pandemic, March 27, 2020, MassLive.com
https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/coronavirus-musicians-offering-livestreams-use-virtual-tip-jars-as-more-people-turn-to-music-during-covid-19-pandemic.html

The perfect productivity playlist, according to brain science: How to pick the right music to boost your focus, motivation, and mood, November 1, 2019, Forge.
https://forge.medium.com/the-perfect-productivity-playlist-according-to-brain-science-975fd9876575

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Professional Activities

Boards, invited, and elected positions:
2019–present: Chair (elected), Music Theory Pedagogy Interest Group, Society for Music Theory
2019: Faculty Fellow, Workshop in Music Theory Pedagogy, U Mass Amherst
2019–present: Editorial Board, Music Perception
2018–present: Advanced Placement Music Theory Development Committee
2018–present: Executive Board (elected), Society for Music Theory
2017–2020: Editorial Board, Music Theory Spectrum
2016: Curriculum consultant, Bates College, Lewiston ME
2012–2014 Editorial Board, Music Theory Online
2012–2014 Executive Board (elected), Society for Music Perception and Cognition
2011–2015 Editorial Board, Journal of Music History Pedagogy

Program committee activities:
2019 Society for Music Perception and Cognition
2018 International Society for Music Information Retrieval
2018 International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition
2017 Society for Music Perception and Cognition
2017 International Society for Music Information Retrieval
2016 International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition
2016 International Society for Music Information Retrieval
2015 International Society for Music Information Retrieval
2014 Society for Music Theory
2013 Society for Music Perception and Cognition
2013 Midwest Cognition Symposium
2006 Music Theory Society of New York State
2002 CSW/SMT-Jazz Special Session, “Women in Jazz: Roles and Voices”

Service to professional societies:
2018 Chair, Nominations Committee, Music Theory Midwest
2017 Arthur J. Komar Student Paper Award Committee, Music Theory Midwest
2014 Arthur J. Komar Student Paper Award Committee, Music Theory Midwest
2011–2015 Chair, Publications Committee, Music Theory Midwest
2009–2011 Member, Publications Committee, Music Theory Midwest
2009–2012 Area I Representative to the Executive Board, Music Theory Midwest
2005–2009 Web manager, Society for Music Theory
2003–2005 Networking Committee, Society for Music Theory
2002–2005 Secretary/Treasurer, West Coast Conference for Music Theory and Analysis
2000–2005 Member and Web Goddess, Committee on the Status of Women, Society for Music Theory

Peer reviewer:
Music Theory Online
Music Theory Spectrum
Psychology of Music
Music Perception
Music Psychology
Musicae Scientiae
Auditory Perception and Cognition
Applied Cognitive Psychology
Psychomusicology: Music, Mind and Brain
Empirical Musicology Review
Journal of New Music Research
Journal of Music History Pedagogy
STM–Online (Journal for the Swedish Musicological Society)
ReCUR (MSU’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Arts Journal)
Routledge Press book reviewer
Oxford University Press textbook reviewer
W.W. Norton Press textbook reviewer