Jonathan De Souza
Office: TC 218
Phone: (519) 661-2111 x85198
Email: jdesou22@uwo.ca
Jonathan De Souza holds a PhD in music theory and history from the University of Chicago, an MMus from Royal Holloway, University of London, and a BMus from Western University. He joined the faculty at Western in 2013.
De Souza’s research combines music theory, cognitive science, and philosophy. It examines the interplay of technology and technique in both classical and popular repertoire. His book, Music at Hand: Instruments, Bodies, and Cognition, asks how instruments affect music’s sounding organization and players’ experience. De Souza often collaborates across disciplines, and he is an Associate Member at the Brain and Mind Institute.
At Western, De Souza teaches a range of undergraduate theory courses. Recent graduate courses have explored the history of music theory and science, phenomenological aspects of music analysis, and music theory pedagogy. From 2017–2019, he served as the director for Music, Cognition, and the Brain, an initiative at Western that brings together faculty members and graduate students from music theory and music education, cognitive neuroscience, audiology, and related fields.
Research interests:
- music and grounded cognition
- musical instruments
- performance analysis
- transformational theory
- musical multimedia, including film and musical theatre
- phenomenology of music
- “Fretboard Transformations.” Journal of Music Theory 62 (2018): 1-39.
- Music at Hand: Instruments, Bodies, and Cognition. Oxford Studies in Music Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
- “‘All Sights Were Perceived as Sounds’: Pat Metheny and the Instrumental Image.” In Watching Jazz: Encounters with Jazz Performance on Screen, edited by Björn Heile, Peter Elsdon, and Jenny Doctor, 147–68. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
- “Voice and Instrument at the Origins of Music.” Current Musicology 97 (2014): 21–36.
