SMT-Pod

Society for Music Theory

Music Music Commentary

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62 episodes

Episode 2 - Idiomatic Improvisation: Where Theory Meets Aural Skills - Alexandrea Jonker and Peter Schubert
10/7/2025 | 24 mins.
This is the second episode in Alex Jonker and Peter Schubert’s five-episode mini-series on “idiomatic improvisation” as a pedagogical technique in the music theory and aural skills classroom. In this episode, students improvise a melody over a longer ground bass progression, now in a standard common practice harmonic context including some chromatic harmony.
This episode was produced by Amy Hatch & Katrina Roush along with Team Lead Caitlin Martinkus. Special thanks to peer reviewers Phil Duker and Joseph Straus.
SMT-Pod’s theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/
Episode 5 - Idiomatic Improvisation: Where Theory Meets Aural Skills - Alexandrea Jonker and Peter Schubert
10/7/2025 | 20 mins.
This is the final episode in a five-episode mini-series on “idiomatic improvisation” as a pedagogical technique in the music theory and aural skills classroom. In this episode, Alex Jonker and Peter Schubert ask students to improvise classical phrase continuations that modulation to the dominant, drawing on basic musical instincts about phrase lengths and tonality.
This episode was produced by Amy Hatch & Katrina Roush along with Team Lead Caitlin Martinkus. Special thanks to peer reviewers Phil Duker and Joseph Straus.
SMT-Pod’s theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/
Episode 4 - Idiomatic Improvisation: Where Theory Meets Aural Skills - Alexandrea Jonker and Peter Schubert
10/7/2025 | 18 mins.
This is the fourth episode in Alex Jonker and Peter Schubert’s five-episode mini-series on “idiomatic improvisation” as a pedagogical technique in the music theory and aural skills classroom. In this episode, students improvise a Renaissance first-species canon with Peter, teaching them to listen, think, and sing all at the same time in a simple diatonic context.
This episode was produced by Amy Hatch & Katrina Roush along with Team Lead Caitlin Martinkus. Special thanks to peer reviewers Phil Duker and Joseph Straus.
SMT-Pod’s theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/
Episode 3 - Idiomatic Improvisation: Where Theory Meets Aural Skills - Alexandrea Jonker and Peter Schubert
10/7/2025 | 15 mins.
This is the third episode in Alex Jonker and Peter Schubert’s five-episode mini-series on “idiomatic improvisation” as a pedagogical technique in the music theory and aural skills classroom. This episode is the only one in the series where the improvisation uses notation, asking students to harmonize a chant melody with a very limited set of rules in order to introduce unfamiliar sounds, like parallel perfect fourths.
This episode was produced by Amy Hatch & Katrina Roush along with Team Lead Caitlin Martinkus. Special thanks to peer reviewers Phil Duker and Joseph Straus.
SMT-Pod’s theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/
Episode 1 - Idiomatic Improvisation: Where Theory Meets Aural Skills - Alexandrea Jonker and Peter Schubert
10/7/2025 | 37 mins.
This is the first episode in a five-episode mini-series on “idiomatic improvisation” as a pedagogical technique in the music theory and aural skills classroom. In this episode, Alex Jonker and Peter Schubert invite students to improvise doo-wop songs which take place in a simple harmonic context while offering a lot of freedom, and a lot of fun!
This episode was produced by Amy Hatch & Katrina Roush along with Team Lead Caitlin Martinkus. Special thanks to peer reviewers Phil Duker and Joseph Straus.
SMT-Pod’s theme music was written by Maria Tartaglia, with closing music by Yike Zhang. For supplementary materials on this episode and more information on our authors and composers, check out our website: https://smt-pod.org/episodes/

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About SMT-Pod

Check out our website: www.smt-pod.org SMT-Pod is a creative venue for timely conversations about music, with episodes chosen through an open, collaborative peer review process. Audio-only podcasts offer a unique—though non-traditional—way of engaging with music, analysis, and contemporary issues in the field. This new publication medium affords our society both the ability to face outwards, by engaging in public scholarship, and inwards, by hosting meaningful conversations about the activity of music analysis. The variety of episode topics will reflect the diversity of the scholars and their scholarship in our field, making SMT-Pod an invaluable publication for music analysts at any stage. Through its goal of promoting a sense of community and inclusivity, SMT-Pod will reach beyond the boundaries of the SMT at this critical moment of calls for the revitalization of our field.

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