Daniel K . S . Walden
My scholarship focuses on the global history of music theory, particularly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I am interested in how musical thought shapes (and is shaped by) the politics of colonialism and resistance, as well as the role that media play in our evolving understanding of musical structures. In pursuing these interests, I draw regularly on my experiences as a pianist and harpsichordist, guided by the conviction that theoretical inquiry is deepened by connection with practical experience.
I am currently writing my first book, A New World of Sound: Just Intonation and The Making of Modern Music Theory, which traces the emergence of just-intonation theories and practices from a global network of scholars, musicians, and instrument builders spanning Japan, India, Germany, Sierra Leone, and Mexico. I examine my experiences restoring, recreating and performing on historical just-intonation keyboards, and analyze how these instruments altered how musical nature and the politics of nationhood and identity were understood. Extracts of this work can be found in History of Humanities and a forthcoming article for the Journal of the American Musicological Society. I am also developing a second book project that examines the political ramifications behind two turning points in the nineteenth-century history of music theory: the introduction of probabilistic statistics and the development of the epistemological strategy that upheld musical parameters as separate and discrete. I will show how these developments drew on colonial logic and paved the way for the analytics of Big Tech corporations like Spotify, focused on harnessing massive reservoirs of musical data towards the generation of capital. My first forays into this topic appear in the Oxford Handbook of Timbre and Key Terms in Music Theory for Anti-Racist Scholars (forthcoming).
At the same time, I am working on several interrelated research projects. With Jonathan Service, I am completing a volume with translations of the German- and Japanese-language scholarship of the Meiji-era theorist Tanaka Shōhei, whose ideas also feature extensively in my book. With Nina Sun Eidsheim, J. Martin Daughtry, and Dylan Robinson, I am also assembling an edited volume (currently) titled Name/Understand/Play: Metaphors in Music and Sound, which will combine essays, creative writing, and graphic scores that explore the social, cultural, and political ramifications of metaphors about music. I have additionally obtained grants from the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust for my initiative New Instruments For Theory [NIFTY], focused on developing a suite of digital and DIY instruments for new directions in music-theoretical research and pedagogy. The first NIFTY instrument, a reconstruction of Tanaka’s just-intonation “enharmonium” that I designed in collaboration with instrument builder Georg Vogel, was completed in July 2023.
As a performer, I specialize in both contemporary music and historical repertoire on period instruments. I received early career support from the Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellowship for the Performing and Visual Arts for my projects aimed at exploring historical and contemporary microtonal repertories. My first album, Dual Synthesis for harpsichord and electronics, was described as “one of the most outstanding recordings of new music in this century” (New York Classical Review) and profiled by the New York Times as one of "Five Harpsichord Works You Need to Know." You can learn more about my recordings and performances on my personal website at www.danielwaldenpiano.com.
Prior to arriving in Yale, I was an Assistant Professor in Music Analysis at Durham University in the UK, and a Junior Research Fellow in Music at The Queen’s College (Oxford). I obtained my PhD in Music Theory from Harvard University as a Presidential Scholar, an MPhil in Music Studies from University of Cambridge (King’s College) as a Gates Scholar, and a BMus and B.A. in Piano Performance and Classics at Oberlin College and Conservatory.
I am currently writing my first book, A New World of Sound: Just Intonation and The Making of Modern Music Theory, which traces the emergence of just-intonation theories and practices from a global network of scholars, musicians, and instrument builders spanning Japan, India, Germany, Sierra Leone, and Mexico. I examine my experiences restoring, recreating and performing on historical just-intonation keyboards, and analyze how these instruments altered how musical nature and the politics of nationhood and identity were understood. Extracts of this work can be found in History of Humanities and a forthcoming article for the Journal of the American Musicological Society. I am also developing a second book project that examines the political ramifications behind two turning points in the nineteenth-century history of music theory: the introduction of probabilistic statistics and the development of the epistemological strategy that upheld musical parameters as separate and discrete. I will show how these developments drew on colonial logic and paved the way for the analytics of Big Tech corporations like Spotify, focused on harnessing massive reservoirs of musical data towards the generation of capital. My first forays into this topic appear in the Oxford Handbook of Timbre and Key Terms in Music Theory for Anti-Racist Scholars (forthcoming).
At the same time, I am working on several interrelated research projects. With Jonathan Service, I am completing a volume with translations of the German- and Japanese-language scholarship of the Meiji-era theorist Tanaka Shōhei, whose ideas also feature extensively in my book. With Nina Sun Eidsheim, J. Martin Daughtry, and Dylan Robinson, I am also assembling an edited volume (currently) titled Name/Understand/Play: Metaphors in Music and Sound, which will combine essays, creative writing, and graphic scores that explore the social, cultural, and political ramifications of metaphors about music. I have additionally obtained grants from the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust for my initiative New Instruments For Theory [NIFTY], focused on developing a suite of digital and DIY instruments for new directions in music-theoretical research and pedagogy. The first NIFTY instrument, a reconstruction of Tanaka’s just-intonation “enharmonium” that I designed in collaboration with instrument builder Georg Vogel, was completed in July 2023.
As a performer, I specialize in both contemporary music and historical repertoire on period instruments. I received early career support from the Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellowship for the Performing and Visual Arts for my projects aimed at exploring historical and contemporary microtonal repertories. My first album, Dual Synthesis for harpsichord and electronics, was described as “one of the most outstanding recordings of new music in this century” (New York Classical Review) and profiled by the New York Times as one of "Five Harpsichord Works You Need to Know." You can learn more about my recordings and performances on my personal website at www.danielwaldenpiano.com.
Prior to arriving in Yale, I was an Assistant Professor in Music Analysis at Durham University in the UK, and a Junior Research Fellow in Music at The Queen’s College (Oxford). I obtained my PhD in Music Theory from Harvard University as a Presidential Scholar, an MPhil in Music Studies from University of Cambridge (King’s College) as a Gates Scholar, and a BMus and B.A. in Piano Performance and Classics at Oberlin College and Conservatory.
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Journal Articles by Daniel K . S . Walden
Full version available at UC Press: https://online.ucpress.edu/jams/issue/77/2
NB: Translated by Farshad Moshfeghi for Iran's Music Report Magazine (2012)
Book Chapters by Daniel K . S . Walden
Reviews by Daniel K . S . Walden
Dissertation by Daniel K . S . Walden
In four chapters, I examine three branches of just-intonation discourse and evaluate their connections to the political relations between indigenous—settler populations (Native American communities/United States), colonizer—colonized groups (England/India), and nation-states pursuing diplomatic relations (Germany/Japan). Drawing on the methods of Science, Technology, and Society Studies (STS), I lay out how the epistemological frameworks of scholarship within these contexts drew upon statistical techniques, myths of cultural origins, and theories of nature that were integral to the formation of nineteenth-century nation-states and imperial regimes. I argue that the construction of just-intonation keyboards with as many as fifty-three tones per octave played a particularly important role within this context, as tools for scientific investigation as well as for normalizing and standardizing national musical practices. I then build on the insights of transnational historiography and post-colonial theory in examining the subaltern response to these approaches, identifying two destabilizing strategies: the provincialization of “Western” musical discourse, and the defamiliarization of “Western music.” I conclude with reflections on my own experiences playing just-intonation instruments, suggesting how the global history of theory might incorporate insights from music cognition, critical organology, and performance studies so as to expand its purview from the history of ideas.
Editor by Daniel K . S . Walden
NAMING, UNDERSTANDING, AND PLAYING WITH METAPHORS IN MUSIC
A Virtual Symposium April 29-30, 2022
UCLA PEER Lab
Durham University Music Department
The symposium was organized and the document was edited by Nina Eidsheim and Daniel Walden.
Full version available at UC Press: https://online.ucpress.edu/jams/issue/77/2
NB: Translated by Farshad Moshfeghi for Iran's Music Report Magazine (2012)
In four chapters, I examine three branches of just-intonation discourse and evaluate their connections to the political relations between indigenous—settler populations (Native American communities/United States), colonizer—colonized groups (England/India), and nation-states pursuing diplomatic relations (Germany/Japan). Drawing on the methods of Science, Technology, and Society Studies (STS), I lay out how the epistemological frameworks of scholarship within these contexts drew upon statistical techniques, myths of cultural origins, and theories of nature that were integral to the formation of nineteenth-century nation-states and imperial regimes. I argue that the construction of just-intonation keyboards with as many as fifty-three tones per octave played a particularly important role within this context, as tools for scientific investigation as well as for normalizing and standardizing national musical practices. I then build on the insights of transnational historiography and post-colonial theory in examining the subaltern response to these approaches, identifying two destabilizing strategies: the provincialization of “Western” musical discourse, and the defamiliarization of “Western music.” I conclude with reflections on my own experiences playing just-intonation instruments, suggesting how the global history of theory might incorporate insights from music cognition, critical organology, and performance studies so as to expand its purview from the history of ideas.
NAMING, UNDERSTANDING, AND PLAYING WITH METAPHORS IN MUSIC
A Virtual Symposium April 29-30, 2022
UCLA PEER Lab
Durham University Music Department
The symposium was organized and the document was edited by Nina Eidsheim and Daniel Walden.