Lawrence Zbikowski’s principal research interests involve applying recent work in cognitive science (especially that done by cognitive linguists and cognitive psychologists) to various problems confronted by music scholars, with a particular focus on music theory and analysis. His new book, Foundations of Musical Grammar (Oxford University Press, 2017), builds on research on fundamental aspects of human communication to explore the basis for the construction of meaningful musical utterances. Recent seminars have focused on meter and rhythm, theories of embodiment and their relationship to musical knowledge, the application of recent work on affect to music, and the way ideas about agency are manifested in musical practice.
He also teaches analysis courses that deal with a range of music, which lately have focused on music of the 18th and 19th centuries.