Rather than gravitating toward the more popular grunge in my post-thrash-metal-youth, I turned to punk rock. A friend handed me two well-used tapes: Frankenchrist by the Dead Kennedys and Operation Ivy’s Energy. The former didn’t do much for me, but that Op Ivy tape changed my world. Not only did I discover the ska-punk energy that still provides me listening joy decades later, but also it started me on a path of ska discovery. With its simple saxophone riff, “Bad Town” opened a whole new world of sound possibilities to me. As I discovered more and more ska bands, it was the sound of the horn sections, tight snare drums, and crisp guitars that led me deeper down the checkerboard rabbit hole. I started promoting local shows so I could see the bands I wanted. I published a zine, I was interviewing bands and reviewing records, and I started two ska bands—one three-piece playing ska-punk, the other was an eight-piece playing third-wave trad ska.

That saxophone from “Bad Town,” and others like it from bands such as the Scofflaws and the Skatalites, led me to pick up the instrument. Playing it led me to taking it apart putting it back together again. And if you can take apart a saxophone, you can take apart a violin; so, I started learning the mechanisms that make the sounds I love so much. After spending some years in violin restoration and making apprenticeships, bow-making school (violins, not archery), and working in violin shops, I found myself doing a master’s degree in the history of musical instruments and working at the National Music Museum. Along the way I had studied music composition and film production.

When I returned to school for my PhD, I knew I had to write about instruments and timbre, the aspects of music that spirited me away from what was popular and brought me through a subcultural odyssey of musical discovery. It was my love of the expanded timbral palette that brought me from punk to ska to orchestral music. Since then, I’ve explored timbre in some of the most complex and mind-bending music, focusing on Klangfarbenmelodie in the atonal music of Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern. With this intellectual base, I turned my attention back to popular music, not only ska, but also how timbre functions (especially to communicate narrative and meaning) in all types of popular music.

At MIM, I am thrilled to combine my zeal for timbre with my long-standing, intense passion for musical instruments.