Bob Duke earned three degrees from FSU, a Bachelor of Music Education Degree in 1976, a Master of Music Degree in Percussion Performance in 1977, and a PhD Degree in Music Education in 1983. Bob was the drum major of the Marching Chiefs from 1974-1976, and during his tenure at FSU he played in nearly every instrumental ensemble in the School. He was named Bandsman of the Year in 1976. While a doctoral student, he began and conducted the Tuesday Evening Campus Band, and he and classmate Don MacLaurin founded and directed Kammermusik, the School of Music’s first ongoing wind chamber music ensemble. From 1983-1985, he filled in for Professors Carl Bjerregaard and Bentley Shellahamer during their respective sabbatical leaves, serving as director of the wind chamber music program and conductor of the Chamber Winds, and as Coordinator of Student Teaching. Between the completion of his master’s degree and the beginning of his doctoral studies at FSU, Bob taught band and orchestra in the Dekalb County Schools in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1999, the FSU School of Music awarded him the Ella Scoble Opperman Faculty Citation for Distinguished Achievement and Leadership in Music Teaching and Research.
Bob is now the Marlene and Morton Meyerson Centennial Professor and Head of Music and Human Learning, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, Elizabeth Shatto Massey Distinguished Fellow in Teacher Education, and Director of the Center for Music Learning at The University of Texas at Austin, where he has taught for 25 years. The most recent recipient of MENC’s prestigious Senior Researcher Award, Bob has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Research in Music Education, the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Psychomusicology, and other publications, and he has directed national research efforts under the sponsorship of such organizations as the National Piano Foundation and the International Suzuki Institute. His research on human learning and behavior spans multiple disciplines, including motor skill learning, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. He is the founder of the National Forum on Research in Motor Learning and Music, and his most recent work explores procedural memory consolidation and the cognitive processes engaged during musical improvisation. A former studio musician and public school music teacher, he has worked closely with children at-risk, both in the public schools and through the juvenile court system. Bob lectures frequently on the fundamental principles of human learning and behavior change, presenting workshops and teaching demonstrations throughout North America. He is the author of Scribe 4 behavior analysis software, and his most recent books areIntelligent Music Teaching: Essays on the Core Principles of Effective Instruction and The Habits of Musicianship: A Radical Approach to Beginning Band, which he co-authored with fellow FSU alumnus Jim Byo of Louisiana State University. The Habits of Musicianship, released in the spring of 2007, is distributed online cost-free through the Center for Music Learning.