Julian (“Jay”) Hook is associate professor of music in music theory at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he has taught since 2003. His research involves transformational theory and other mathematical approaches to the study of musical structure.
Hook’s recently published book, Exploring Musical Spaces, is one of the most comprehensive studies of mathematical music theory ever written.
His article “Uniform Triadic Transformations” won the Society for Music Theory’s Emerging Scholar Award in 2005. He has presented papers at conferences of the Society for Music Theory, the American Mathematical Society, the Society for Mathematics and Computation in Music, and other organizations.
Hook served for six years as reviews editor of the Journal of Mathematics and Music, for two years as president of Music Theory Midwest, and for three years on the executive board of the Society for Music Theory. In 2010–11, he was the recipient of a sabbatical fellowship from the American Philosophical Society.
Hook holds advanced degrees in mathematics, architecture, and piano performance as well as music theory. As a graduate student at the Jacobs School of Music, he won a piano concerto competition and received an award for outstanding teaching.
He has taught mathematics at Florida International University and music theory at Penn State University. He also worked for several years as an architect and structural engineer in Chicago and performed chamber music on several occasions with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Selected Publications
“Uniform Triadic Transformations.” Journal of Music Theory 46 (2002), 57–126.
“David Lewin and the Complexity of the Beautiful.” Intégral 21 (2007), 155–190.
“Signature Transformations.” In Music Theory and Mathematics: Chords, Collections, and Transformations, ed. Jack Douthett, Martha M. Hyde, and Charles J. Smith (University of Rochester Press, 2008), 137–160.
“Uniform Triadic Transformations and the Twelve-Tone Music of Webern” (with Jack Douthett). Perspectives of New Music 46/1 (2008), 91–151.
“How to Perform Impossible Rhythms.” Music Theory Online 17/4 (2011).
“Spelled Heptachords.” In Mathematics and Computation in Music, Proceedings of the Third International Conference of the Society for Mathematics and Computation in Music (Springer, 2011), 84–97.
“Contemporary Methods in Mathematical Music Theory: A Comparative Case Study.” Journal of Mathematics and Music 7/2 (2013), 89–102.
“Teaching Mathematical Techniques in Music Theory.” In The Norton Guide to Teaching Music Theory, ed. Rachel Lumsden and Jeffrey Swinkin, (W. W. Norton, 2018), 88–104.
“Generic Sequences and the Generic Tonnetz.” Journal of Music Theory 64 (2020), 63–103.
Exploring Musical Spaces: A Synthesis of Mathematical Approaches, Oxford University Press, 2023.
