Different activities evoke certain senses more strongly than others. Cooking is most associated with taste, or perhaps smell. Bird-watching is most associated with sight. And music is most associated with sound . . . or is it? Though our ears are certainly engaged when listening to, and playing, music, there’s another sense that is often just as engaged: touch. This sense, as it applies to music, is the topic of Michael Weinstein-Reiman‘s (open-topic Resident Fellow, 2025–2026) book project, The Art of Touch: Musical Learning, Keyboards, and the Modern Self.
The Art of Touch offers an expansive view of the musical concept of touch from the Baroque period up until the early twentieth century. Guided by the question of how literal and metaphorical depictions of touch overlap, Michael’s work brings into focus the ways in which touch has shaped musical pedagogy and modernity, and reveals the fascinating way in which Enlightenment and Romantic intellectuals appealed to the keyboard as a metaphor to theorize modern subjectivity—often in spite of limited musical experience.
While Michael’s research is largely situated in the history of music theory—especially music theory’s role in the history of ideas—it tends to intersect with topics in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European philosophy, music pedagogy, literature, gender and sexuality studies, and disability studies. In fact, it was Michael’s distinctive ability to creatively weave together these topics that, in part, earned him his fellowship this year. Juggling various vocabularies, methodologies, and debates from different disciplines can be a real challenge. But Michael has learned how to manage it all. The key, he explains, is to accept the somewhat obvious, but easy to resist, truth that you can’t know everything about every topic. “I think owning that ignorance is key to maintaining curiosity, which is essential for any scholarship,” Michael said. “Many researchers feel compelled to learn everything about their topic before they feel ready enough to share their ideas. But if we can dispel the notion that anyone is ever ‘ready’—that expertise doesn’t evolve in dialogue with other people and their ideas—then it’s quite freeing to explore and ask questions.”
Michael is incredibly accomplished, both as a researcher and teacher, for a scholar at his stage. But the road to academia was not always easy or expected. In spite of having started playing the piano at age 6, Michael refused to major in music as an undergraduate . . . until he did! Even then, he had little sense of how to map his knack for music theory onto something employable. He ended up doing just fine—an internship at New York City’s PBS affiliate network to work on a documentary about Broadway musicals turned into a full-time job. Though Michael ended up leaving television and media, he reflects fondly on this time in his life: “It turned out to be an amazing, life-altering experience. It involved so many of my favorite things: music, research, crafting stories.”
Then the 2008–09 financial crisis hit. And as young people often do during a period of economic uncertainty, Michael began to seriously consider the idea of graduate school. Of course, the recession was not the only motivating factor. Michael has always been driven to academia largely because of a passion for teaching and a great respect for his teachers. “Many academics would say that they were inspired to become professors because of their own teachers, and I always idolized mine. I was also totally enamored with beautiful scholarly writing,” he explained. It was during his time as a graduate student at the University of Oregon, where he earned an M.A in Music Theory, that he really got to hone his teaching skills. “I couldn’t get enough of the teaching,” Michael recalled. “I loved introducing students to new music and new ideas, clarifying concepts, and troubleshooting confusion.”
Michael’s love for teaching continues to this day. In fact, teaching is often a source of comfort and confidence for him. “There have been days when I’ve doubted my abilities as a scholar and researcher, but I rarely feel dour about working with students,” he noted. That being said, Michael maintains a realistic attitude about the impact of his teaching. “I understand that not every student will love music theory and fewer will make it their vocation,” he said. “But, if I can be a source of stability and support for just one person—or, even better, if I can get that person to think differently, or inspire them to do something they might not have done otherwise—then I think I’ve done an okay job!” Humble as he is, Michael deserves to be proud of the effort he brings to the classroom. After all, most professors will not sing for their students—or scarier still, coax a group of undergrads to sing together—at 9 am. Michael, however, is willing to do what it takes to make course material stick. As he tells us, “singing as a group helps students get ‘inside’ the music theory: it really makes abstract concepts like harmony come to life.”
Though he remains focused on his first book, Michael already has a second book in the pipeline. Currently titled Encounters with the Piano: Instrumental Music and Empire-Building in French Indochina, this book departs from his first book’s Eurocentric focus to examine how the material of music education, namely pianos, circulated the globe. The project will investigate questions like the following: What role did musical instruments and their performers play in the circulation of ideas about how we learn? And how did they also prop up spurious notions about European artistic superiority and, more complicatedly, “modernity”? Exciting though this project is, hopeful readers will have to be patient. The book will likely involve a substantive archival component, a visit to archives in Vietnam, and collaborations with native speakers, so Michael is bracing himself for the long haul.
Though only a one-semester fellow, Michael has made his mark on the IRH. His positive attitude, delightful sense of humor, and friendly demeanor have made him a wonderful colleague for this year’s cohort.