SMT-V: The Society for Music Theory Videocast Journal
SMT-V is the open-access, peer-reviewed video journal of the Society for Music Theory. Founded in 2014, SMT-V publishes video essays that showcase research in music theory in a dynamic, audiovisual format, presented so as to have the potential to engage both specialists within the field as well as interested viewers outside the music theory community. The journal features a supportive and collaborative production process, and publishes several videos each year. Read more about SMT-V here.
Latest Issue: 11.5 (September 2025)
Between Art and Science: Amy Beach’s Hermit Thrush Pieces and Early-Twentieth-Century Birdsong Transcription
William O’Hara (Gettysburg College)
Throughout her long career, American composer Amy Beach (1867–1944) engaged with birdsong in numerous ways. This video examines her use of transcribed birdcalls in the piano piece “Hermit Thrush at Eve” (1922). These transcriptions arose at a time when ornithologists were exploring the merits of traditional notation versus numerous graphical systems, leading to debates which not only anticipated the rise of graphic notation in the twentieth century, but contested the very nature of birdsong by means of its connection (or lack thereof) to human musical constructs like harmony and tonality. By analyzing the piece in the context of early-twentieth-century naturalism, I argue that Beach’s “Hermit Thrush at Eve” constitutes a compelling speculative exploration of how avian music intersects with human, and shows how artistic and scientific inquiry can inform one another.
Keywords: Amy Beach, birdsong, ecomusicology, piano music, twentieth-century music, transcription, harmony