Zachary Zinser

Visiting Assistant Professor

Music theory

Zachary Zinser earned his PhD from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music with his dissertation “Sound, Syntax, and Space in Studio-Produced Popular Music” in 2020. His work explores how sound quality features inform the perception and cognition of virtual performance spaces and how these aspects of experience interact with more traditional analytical methodologies and modes of representation. His research also considers the role of technologies in the production, dissemination, and consumption of popular music as mediated experiences.

Zachary has presented his research at multiple conferences, including the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, the Annual Meeting of the Society for Music Theory and Music Theory Midwest. He has lectured on music theory, aural skills, popular music and music appreciation at The Ohio State University, Indiana University, Ball State University, and Butler University. Recently, he authored the chapter, “Expanding the Scope of Analysis in the Popular Music Classroom,” in the Routledge collection Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Classroom.