Changing Content in Flagship Music Theory Journals, 1979-2014
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Abstract
Since the founding of the Society for Music Theory in 1977, the Anglophone music theory discipline has extensively diversified, now encompassing manifold subfields. A pertinent question arises: how does the music theory discipline balance this diversity with a sense of unity and cohesiveness? An investigation into journal articles—one of the main ways music theory presents itself to the world—can serve as a useful entry point for this question. We develop and analyze a corpus of article abstracts published between 1979 and 2014 from four general-scope flagship periodicals: Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum, Music Analysis, and Music Theory Online.
For each of 1063 abstracts analyzed, theoretical topics and repertoire (including composer) are tabulated. Observations are organized according to which topics and repertoires are addressed most frequently, as well as whether correlations between leading topics and repertoires might exist. Extending beyond our initial question regarding diversity and cohesiveness, the corpus data is then used to assess how music theory research relates to trends in concert programming, as well as the repertoire used in textbooks designed for undergraduate theory curricula. Based on the data generated in this study, we find that a balance of diversity and cohesiveness appears to exist in the form of a broad range of research topics engaging with a comparatively small canon of music by only a few composers. This relationship is, however, paradoxical; the small canon belies the diversity of repertoire that currently permeates the discipline.
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