Hi, I’m Jeffrey.

I have a degree in Music Theory and Composition. I’ve spent years composing musicals, music directing performers, playing piano, and teaching music theory.

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And I think we make music theory way more complicated for performers than it needs to be.

That’s why I created MTforMT.

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You do not need to become a music theorist to be a great performer. You do not need to analyze Bach chorales, write counterpoint, or understand every chord on the page.

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But knowing how to count an unfamiliar rhythm, find your entrance, recognize an interval, follow a key change, understand your vocal line, or know what your music director is asking for? That stuff is incredibly useful, and that’s the theory I want to teach you.
 

I actually studied this.

I graduated magna cum laude from Hofstra University with a Bachelor of Science in Music Theory and Composition, where I also received the Peggy Deutsch Endowed Memorial Scholarship for Music Composition.

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I genuinely love music theory. I love harmony, form, counterpoint, and figuring out why music works the way it does.

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But MTforMT is not a condensed college theory course. It is built around one question:

What does a musical theatre performer actually need to know?

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I use this stuff all the time.

I’m a musical theatre composer, music director, pianist, and teacher working in New York City.

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As a music director, I’ve worked on collegiate and high school productions, musical revues, concerts, and professional New York performances, including music directing at 54 Below.

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As a composer, my work has been presented at venues including 54 Below, The Green Room 42, The Triad Theater, The Midtown International Theatre Festival, The Slipper Room, Don't Tell Mama, and The Red Pavilion.

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My musical The Parts I Keep Inside, for which I am composer, concept creator, and producer, was named a Semifinalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s 2026 National Music Theater Conference and a Finalist for Michigan State University’s 2026 New Musical Laboratory.

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In 2025, the show also received an AEA 29-hour industry reading in New York with a company of Broadway and professional theatre artists.

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So when I talk about why a composer might write something a certain way, I’m not speaking theoretically - I write the music, too.

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I also know where performers get stuck.

Being a composer teaches me how music is built while being a music director teaches me what performers actually need in the room.

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I know what it’s like to have limited rehearsal time and a lot of music to teach. I know the shorthand music directors use. I know which concepts come up constantly and which parts of traditional music theory almost never matter to the performer standing around the piano learning a number.​

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You may learn almost entirely by ear. You may be able to sing something back perfectly but freeze when you see it written on the page. You may know exactly what something should sound like without knowing the terminology for it, but that does not mean you are bad at music.

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MTforMT is about connecting the musicianship you already have to what’s written on the page.

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I’m not trying to turn you into a music theorist.

You do not need my degree. You do not need to become a composer. You do not need to analyze every chord you sing. And you definitely do not need to start doing Schenkerian analysis for fun (though I am certainly guilty of this!).

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I want you to learn enough theory that music stops feeling like a code somebody else has to decipher for you.

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When…

• a music director says, “Take it from the pickup into 32.”

• an accompanist asks what key your cut is in.

• your harmony changes.

• you have to hold your part against something completely different happening underneath you.

• you’re handed new music and there’s no track to learn from.

 

I want you to have tools. That’s the whole point!

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Why MTforMT?

I know music theory and I know musical theatre and I’ve spent enough time teaching, composing, and music directing to know that performers often get taught one without being shown how it connects to the other.

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That’s the gap I built MTforMT to fill.

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You already know how powerful it feels when you really know your music - my job is to help you understand it, too!

 

Stop guessing. Start understanding.