theoryofpaul.net | homepage of paul miller

Paul Miller is a music theorist, pedagogue and performer. Before joining the musicianship department of the Mary Pappert School of Music at Duquesne University in 2015, he served as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University and on the faculties of the University of Colorado in Boulder and Temple University.

Paul has presented research at numerous national and regional conferences, and his work has been published in Perspectives of New Music, the American Music Research Center Journal, Twentieth-Century Music, Music and Letters and Opera Quarterly. Further work has appeared in Early Music and the MLA Association’s Notes. An expert on the remarkable music of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Paul studied with the composer for six summers and premiered his solo viola work "In Freundschaft" in Europe and the United States. Paul's research has centered on the use of physical space in musical compositions, the connection between biosignals and electronic music, and the viola d'amore as a historical and contemporary instrument.

As a performer, Paul's debut solo album with Chatham Baroque will be released on the Centaur label in September 2023. Paul has appeared at the Metropolitian Museum of Art in New York City, the Library of Congress, the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., the Darmstadt International Festival for New Music, the Bethlehem Bach Festival, the Hawai`i Performing Arts Festival and with ensembles such as El Mundo and Tempesta di Mare. He has collaborated in chamber music concerts with Richard Savino and Jory Vinikour, both Grammy® award nominees. During his tenure as a fellow at Cornell, Paul led the Baroque Orchestra there and studied with Neal Zaslaw, Christopher Hogwood and Malcolm Bilson. He now collaborates regularly with Pittsburgh's Chatham Baroque ensemble. Paul also performs on a five-string electric violin built by the firm Zeta.

Since 2020, Paul has worked extensively in the Max/MSP environment. The fruits of his labors include an interspecies interactive multimedia eco-sound installation, a library of music pedagogy patches, and several other projects supporting colleagues in the physics and biomedical engineering departments.

As a pedagogue with over 20 years of classroom experience, Paul enjoys teaching everything from fundamental skills such as solfege, voice-leading, counterpoint and harmony to more advanced topics such as chromaticism, classical form and post-tonal theory. Paul's newest courses incorporate algorithmic composition, analysis and construction of electronic instruments using microcontrollers that interface with the Max/MSP environment.

His students hold full-time and tenured positions at James Madison University, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the San Francisco Conservatory and other top-tier institutions throughout the country. He holds a Ph.D. from the Eastman School of Music and a Master's in viola performance (Eastman). Paul's undergraduate studies were at Vassar College, New England Conservatory and Harvard University.

Most recent CV -- paul-miller-cv-2023.pdf

Sample Syllabi -- Musicianship 2, Spring 2019 || Musicianship 1, Fall 2019 || 18th Century Counterpoint

Past Programs from The Duke's Music, Duquesne's Early Music Ensemble -- updated April 2023

Bach Suites Project -- website || blurb

Plant Music Project -- webpage

Metanoic Echos -- An interspecies, interactive multimedia eco-installation

Semita -- A free library of interactive Max/MSP patches for music theory

On Bandcamp

J. S. Bach: The Six Suites for Electric Violin Solo (BWV 1007 -- 1012) Volume 1: Suites 1 -- 3

Volume 2: Suites 4 -- 6

Electric Ensembles: Music of J. S. Bach, Corrette and Telemann(possibly Wilhelm Friedrich)

Niku Niwa -- by Devon Tipp/Paul Miller

Joseph Haydn: String Quartet op. 33/2, "The Joke"

Other Recordings

Viola d'amore
J. S. Bach -- Sarabande from the second suite for unaccompanied violoncello, BWV 1008
J. S. Bach -- Gigue from the second suite for unaccompanied violoncello, BWV 1008

With the Bethlehem Bach Festival
J. S. Bach -- Betrachte from the John Passion
J. S. Bach -- Erwäge from the John Passion

With Thomas Georgi
Huberty -- Duo for two violas d'amore

Baroque violin
I play both parts on the following recordings. I performed and produced these files.
Recorded everything at Annabel Taylor Chapel on the lovely Cornell University Campus when I was a postdoc there.
Leclair -- Duo for two violins in E Major, op. 12 -- 1st movement
Leclair -- Duo for two violins in E Major, op. 12 -- 2nd movement
Leclair -- Duo for two violins in E Major, op. 12 -- 3rd movement
Leclair -- Duo for two violins in E Major, op. 12 -- 4th movement

Electric violin
Using a Zeta 5-string electric violin and various effects on a Roland GR-55 synthesizer.
Jean-Luc Ponty -- Pizzy Cat

Video

I invite you to visit my YouTube Channel for my curated videos.

Marini: Sonata con due corde
with Justin Wallace and Patricia Halversion
Duquesne University
30 September 2017

Synthesizer Etudes and Experiments

A brief take on the famous Krell Patch. More on what this is here.
A short and witty modern interpretation of the Viennese classical idea of alla zoppa, using Intellijel's Scales module.
An ambient listening station in the lobby on audition day!
- A brief video illustrating the setup in the music school's atrium.
- A much longer sound file of the patch evolving by itself for a half hour.
A very early experiment entitled arpeggiating echos.
A late-night improvisation called nothings.
In which it takes a little time to get going, but starts cooking aroudn 3:00 through: pentatonic ripples.
An unsuccessful plea to our administration to fund our rack: Help us fill this space!
A response to the epidemic of mass shootings in August 2019: untitled requiem.