17cÍøÒ³°æ

Areas of Research or Creative Practice: Computational musicology, music cognition and psychology, popular music performance and research

Biography

Nat Condit-Schultz is a musician, composer, and scientist, specializing in the statistical modeling of musical structure. Working at the 17cÍøÒ³°æ, Nat conducts research and advises students in the Computational and Cognitive Musicology Lab, serves as the Director of the Graduate Program for the 17cÍøÒ³°æ, directs the rock and pop bands, and teaches courses in research methodology, music psychology, and music production.

Nat completed his doctorate under renowned music scientist David Huron; Nat's research interests include rhythm and tonality in popular music, the perceptual and structural roles of language and lyrics in music, and the music theory of hip-hop. Nat has presented at numerous national and international conferences, both in the humanities (Society of Music Theory) and the sciences (Society for Music Perception and Cognition, International Conference on Music Information Retrieval).

Nat is a performer and composer, specializing in electric and classical guitar: as a composer, he specializes in imitative counterpoint and complex rhythmic/metric ideas like polyrhythm, "tempo spirals," and Indonesian irama, realized through classical guitar, rock instrumentation, and Indonesian Gamelan.

Statement of Teaching Interest

I am passionate about teaching scientific approaches to music research, including the use of computational tools and human-subject behavioral research. My classes never just teach existing knowledge, but delve into how we do research to critically evaluate existing knowledge and create new knowledge. I also enjoy teaching about hip hop, popular music more generally, tonality and tuning systems, music psychology, and the history of popular music technology.

Statement of Research Interest

I am a musician, composer, and scientist, specializing in the statistical modeling of musical structure. 
I have presented at numerous national and international conferences, both in the humanities (Society of Music Theory) and the sciences (Society for Music Perception and Cognition, International Conference on Music Information Retrieval). I completed my doctorate in music theory at Ohio State University, where I studied music psychology, computational musicology, and scientific methodology with David Huron. My doctoral thesis involved the creation, curation, and analysis of a corpus of popular rap transcriptions: the Musical Corpus of Flow. My continued work on hip hop data is currently being funded though a collaboration with the Dolby research group. I have have also been awarded both Level II (2021) and Level III (2025) Digital Humanities Advancement Grants by the NEH, supporting the development of my humdrumR project: a software toolkit for the computational analysis of musical data.