Dr. Philip Tacka

Philip Tacka received his doctorate from The Catholic University of America and completed postdoctoral work at the Franz Liszt Academy, Budapest/Zoltan Kodály Pedagogical Institute in Hungary. He is a Professor of Music at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. His research interests center on the all aspects of music education though he has a particular emphasis on music perception and cognition. He has served on editorial boards and is currently a grant evaluator on the American Fellowship Panel for the American Association of University Women. Prior to his current position, he taught music in the Department of Art, Music & Theatre at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. and worked with the Georgetown University Medical School's Institute for Cognitive and Computational Science in the neuropsychology of music perception. He regularly presents papers and workshops both nationally and internationally on aspects of music education, music perception and cognition, and Kodály studies and has lectured in Italy, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Estonia, the Netherlands, and England.

Dr. Tacka writes in collaboration with Dr. Houlahan. Their collaboration has yielded numerous books, chapters in books, and articles. Their most recent publications include the "Zoltán Kodály" entry in Oxford Bibliographies Online (2012) and the chapter "From Sound to Symbol: A New Pitch for Developing Aural Awareness" in Sound Musicianship: Understanding the Crafts of Music published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2013). Books and articles include, Kodály in the Kindergarten Classroom: Developing the Creative Brain in the 21st Century (2014), Kodály Today: A Cognitive Approach to Music Education and From Sound to Symbol: Fundamentals of Music (2011) all published by Oxford University Press. Additional publications include Sound Thinking: Music for Sight- Singing and Ear Training (Volumes I & II), and Sound Thinking: Developing Musical Literacy (Volumes I & II both published by Boosey & Hawkes). Zoltan Kodály: A Guide to Research (Garland Publishing Inc., London, New York) is their comprehensive reference work. Articles appear in the Kodály Envoy, The Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy, The International Journal of Musicology, The Indiana Theory Review, and the International Kodály Society Bulletin. Dr. Tacka and Dr. Houlahan are authors of the Kodály article, bibliography and catalogue of compositions in Millennium Edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians.