Drew Nobile

Interview with Drew Nobile, conducted by Annie Liu, Spring 2024

Annie Liu — How did you get into music theory?

Drew Nobile — That one’s kind of more boring with me. I was a violinist, right? And, you know, in high school, I was just into music theory. I played jazz guitar also. So, I was into music theory, and my music teacher at my high school gave me a bunch of music theory exercises because he thought that I should learn music theory.

So I learned how to part write. I went to Boston University School of Music for violin performance for one year. I placed out of two years of music theory and everybody was like, whoa, you’re like, good at music theory and oral skills.

Then I transferred to Brown, kind of moving away from performance. And it sort of was a natural fit. And I also was a math major. I didn’t want to be a performer by the time I was graduating from college. I did want to go to graduate school. I was into math and music theory, and so I didn’t want to continue to study math because that stopped being fun by the time I was a senior in college. So it was kind of a natural path. And then, you know, it’s one of those things where it seemed like a good idea.

And then I kept sort of being fine at it, being able to do it, getting into schools and things and eventually getting a job. It’s not like, something fell on my head and I realized that music theory was my calling.

AL — Well, your transition into popular music theory, I feel like might be the more interesting part. That was an abrupt shift.

DN — So the reason that I went to the University of Washington for my master’s program was on the recommendation of my college theory professor, Jim Baker, basically saying they have music, music and math. This guy John Ron was there who did music theory and math. And I was like, cool. I applied, got in, got an assistantship. So that was my master’s thesis. And when I showed up at CUNY, the reason I went to CUNY for my PhD was that Joe Strauss was there, and some other people like Sean O’Donnell, who did post tonal voice leading and mathematical models.

So that’s sort of what happened. The math theory stuff, which, I’m not sure how aware of it I was at the time, was starting to fall out of favor in the field. That was the big kind of late-90s, early-2000s thing. But it was fading a little bit.

And popular music was coming up. I was just getting a little disenchanted with math and music. I mean, you know, it was sort of fun to move things around and make cool things. And again, it was one of those things where I had this math background. And I was able to do it. And I knew the terminology the way that many music theorists didn’t.

So I was getting a lot of positive feedback on that. But then at some point I was just like, this is, I’m just like, I’m not saying anything about music. It was just kind of, I don’t know, one of those academic wormholes. So I took a seminar on the Beatles and I wrote my final paper on sort of their music and strategic use of the four chord. And it was a good paper, and my professor in that class, Mark Spicer, was sort of, by happenstance, co editing a special issue of music theory online on popular music theory. They had an SMT session that they were turning into publications, but they wanted to expand with other articles. So he was just like, Hey, this is a great paper from the seminar. Would you like to publish it in this journal? So I got, again, positive feedback from that, was already getting disenchanted with the math stuff, got a publication, you know, early on in that thing, so and then I just kind of ran with that.

So it was a pretty abrupt shift. And then, I mean, I didn’t do this on purpose, but I was just like in the right time, like, everybody, by 2014 when I was on the job market, it was like the entire field had realized that popular music was like, the thing, and all of the schools were like, we don’t have anybody who can teach popular music, so we need, we need somebody who can teach popular music. And that worked out.

AL — What do you think is special about music theory here University of Oregon?

DN — A lot, and a lot has changed since I got here. I mean, the, the University of Oregon, well, music theory as a discipline is very location based. The West Coast doesn’t have a whole lot of music theory.

AL — Wow, I didn’t realize this was an island.

DN — It’s an island, and it’s like, well, we could have gone one of two directions. We could have just kind of said, well, there’s no one else, so we can just kind of sit here and we’ll get the occasional music theorist and kind of just let the area not have music theory.

But I think that we have taken the other approach, which is to try to really make it a magnet for music theory in the area where there isn’t.

AL — Well, it is. I mean, how many music theory students presented at SMT last year?

DN — I’m so proud of that. Us, we’re doing that. I mean, it really required a culture shift since I came here.

I’ve told this story a lot, but I arrived here in the middle of September and about a month later was the SMT conference. So, I didn’t really know anything about UO yet. I had just gotten here and I show up and I’m the only theory faculty there. And there was one grad student kind of roaming the halls, not presenting, just kind of there.

And I just felt, I’m not at a school that has a national presence. And then you fast forward, you know, eight years. I mean, I’m not taking credit for this. I’m just saying that there was a period, you know, like Steve Larson was a big force and he passed away in 2011. And there was a little bit of a rebuilding period. But just to, to shift that culture to, where we’re nationally active.

I think that also, you know, with such a small faculty, with three tenure line faculty, we’re able to cover a whole lot of bases in our advising. So, yeah, that’s special. But also, I don’t want us to just be another generic music theory place that is on the West Coast. And I think that we’re finding our identity as a program. We’ll see where that goes. I think the popular music stuff is exciting because there’s things happening across areas. Like Zach [Wallmark] does some music theory, for example. And then there’s people like Jon Bellona in the other areas. So I think that there’s room for growth there.

AL — What can students do with a degree in music theory? Any student who might want to come through this program, what could they expect after they graduate?

DN — Despite all of our efforts, and these are good efforts, to kind of diversify the careers that we have, I mean, music theory and musicology degrees are academic degrees, and the goal…no one should sign up for a PhD in music theory if they aren’t planning at that time to get an academic job in music theory.

Often plans change, you realize that research isn’t your thing or whatever, and having a PhD in music theory can lead to other careers and can actually benefit you in those other careers. But that’s pretty much how it, where it is. And you know, maybe that should and will change. Right. But that’s, that’s still the, that’s still the situation. The stats nationwide for the humanities are that about 40 percent of PhDs in the humanities are employed in their field five years after the degree, so you can’t really say, well, not all of our graduates are in the academic world.

But there are some schools where really nobody gets, nobody kind of stays in the field. They just, they just don’t place people. And I think that the encouraging thing here is the students who come here, do good work, and keep it up and want to go into the field are able to find something, are able to find something good and are able to succeed.

AL — Definitely. So this one’s kind of a random one. What is your go-to coffee or tea order?

DN — Well, I just make coffee at home. So, when I go out, I like to get something a little fancier. I usually just get some kind of vanilla latte.

 

 

Read the longer version of this interview.