Humanities and Arts
Vincent "V.J." Manzo
- Assistant Professor, Humanities & Arts
- Affiliated with:
My passion for teaching stems from my own love of learning. Being an effective teacher, I have learned, is more than just showing students the tools of the trade, but explaining concepts and, hopefully, imparting a love of the pursuit of knowledge. Project-oriented instruction, like we have at WPI, provides a mechanism for making classroom instruction practical; the nature of these projects being, in many ways, student-directed also makes their efforts relevant to their growing interests. My interests as a composer and technologist have grown through the years for many reasons. Among the most important, I was fortunate to have had excellent teachers model what it means to excel in research and professional activity. I hope to model the same to my students at WPI.
Research Interests
- Algorithmic and traditional composition
- Interactive music system programming
- Music theory
- Music cognition and education
- Guitar performance
Education
- BA, Kean University, 2005
- MM, New York University, 2007
- PhD, Temple University, 2012
Featured Publications
- Max/MSP/Jitter for Music (book) published by Oxford University Press (2011)
- Effects of Polyphonic Interactive Music Systems on Determining Harmonic Functions (paper) Temple University (2012)
- Multimedia-Based Visual Programming Promoting Core Competencies in IT Education (paper) Assoc. Computing Machinery (2011)
- Confounding Pitch Height in Studies of Tonal Hierarchy (paper) Temple University (2008)
- Implementing Modality in Algorithmic Composition (paper) New York University (2007)
Professional Highlights
- NAMM research grant recipient in interactive music system development & education (2010 – present)
- Who’s Who Award recipient (2005, 2010, 2012)
- Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) grant recipient (2011)
- College Music Society (CMS) / Assoc. Technology in Music Instruction (ATMI) Conference Presentation Award (2009)
