Background

PhD, Northwestern University

Coordinator, first-year theory and aural skills curriculum. A Charles Deering McCormick University Distinguished Lecturer, Dr. Piagentini’s interests integrate pedagogy with an emphasis on technology.  Beginning in 2000, funding from the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence, the Undergraduate Research Grants Committee, and the Alumni Foundation has paved the way to providing an extension of the classroom in the form of online, interactive skill building practice and assessment tools to supplement the undergraduate core curriculum. Piagentini participated in the Educational Technology Teaching Fellows Program at Northwestern, working alongside NUIT to develop online video and peer assessment activities within the Canvas course management system.  

Publications include a contributed chapter on Aural Skills assessment in the Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy (2020). Piagentini is also co-author of Fundamentals of Music: Rudiments, Musicianship and Composition, 7th edition (2018). The 6th edition (2012) of this textbook was coupled with a customizable online assessment tool, Exposition Music. The development of Exposition was based on five years of research in music theory placement exams and provided a pedagogically sound environment for student testing in music. 

Piagentini served as an AP Higher Ed Visiting Faculty Fellow (2020) for the College Board AP Music Theory exam, observing the cycle of AP Exam development over the course of an academic year. She has given workshops and papers at national and regional conferences, including the Society for Music Theory, Pedagogy in Practice (Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy), Association for Technology in Music Instruction (ATMI), Technological Directions in Music Learning, Indiana University at IUPUI Music Technology Conference, and the College Music Society (CMS).

Selected Works/Publications

Piagentini, S. (2020). Adapting the Aural Skills Curriculum: A Move Away From “The” Right Answer, in VanHandel, L. (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Music Theory Pedagogy, 450-458.

Henry, Earl, Jennifer Snodgrass and Susan Piagentini. Fundamentals of Music: Rudiments, Musicianship, and Composition. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2018.

Henry, Earl, Jennifer Snodgrass and Susan Piagentini. Fundamentals of Music: Rudiments, Musicianship, and Composition. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2012.