Notes from the Editor
While entering 1,200 or more citations of music theory periodical literature into the Music Theory Index and categorizing them according to subject, composer, and composition, I observed some things. First, the same composers kept appearing: Schoenberg, Webern, Beethoven, Stravinsky and J.S. Bach, to name the top five. The major composers who were featured in only one or two articles include Shostakovich, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Handel, Tchaikovsky, and Bruckner. Other beloved composers did not appear at all, such as Elgar, Holst, Ravel, Mendelssohn, and Dvorak. Why a new theory journal? Let’s have a look at a broader range of good music. Why does Dvorak’s music continue to occupy a major place in the American concert hall? Is there something in it that appeals to performers? Audiences? Programmers?
Second, I observed in my cataloguing that Schenkerian analysis is alive and well, with 87 articles concerning his theories. A few other contemporary topics like this pervade the existing literature such as atonality, with 122 articles, set theory, with 56 articles, and dodecaphony with 37 articles. Other musical practices in the twentieth century beg for treatment. Consider Holst’s Planets or other “consonant atonality,” for example. Why a new theory journal? There are many topics not being treated elsewhere; maybe we can expand the scope of published theory.
Third, many graduate students and new professors need to publish for their professional growth. There may be some very enlightening and provocative ideas that did not make the final cut with the major journals. It can be discouraging to send your hard work to the major journals only to have it end up in the rejection pile. Why a new theory journal? The Electronic Journal of Music Theory and Analysis, being an online journal, has no limit to the number of articles it can publish. There are no costs involving printing, paper, or mail. Therefore, the only limit to the number of articles it can publish is the time required to edit each article. If we do not review your paper this month, there is always next month. New professors and graduate students with good work have an excellent opportunity to publish here. The Electronic Journal is refereed, and while we will not publish poor research or writing, we encourage nonconventional approaches to theory that make good sense and other ideas that may not be considered elsewhere.
Fourth, the print journals are limited to static presentation of materials. With the 21st century technologies on the Internet, the Electronic Journal has the capability to present dynamic materials in its articles. This capability includes musical examples in sound; links to the entire web, should the author wish to send the readers somewhere; animation and video; multidirectional articles, where the readers choose which direction to go next; or anything else the writer can conceive to express the ideas contained in the research. Why a new theory journal? Let’s make the most of the new technology in presenting our research to the musical community.
Finally, it is more difficult for the print journals to feature ongoing letters to the editor or other reader response mechanisms, except in the case where an “expert” writes an article in response to another article. The Electronic Journal encourages expert responses as well, but we take the reader response mechanism much further. The Music Theory Forum is a major part of the conception regarding the Electronic Journal. Here, readers may instantly respond to the articles, or they may take some time to write a researched response later. However readers wish to respond, they may post their response in the Forum and watch to see how others respond as well. This way, not only are the articles reviewed by the editorial board, they may be reviewed by the readership as well and a dialogue can be created. Just one of the strengths of this is in the ability of the dialogue to foster new ideas and share the successes and failures of new ideas. Why a new theory journal? Let’s enable all of the talented, brilliant, and otherwise capable theorists to enter the conversation in a more easily accessible medium.
If you are interested in publishing your work in the Electronic Journal of Music Theory and Analysis, click on the link below for more information.