Music Journals: Recommended

One of the premier journals in the field, the Journal of the American Musicological Society (JAMS) publishes scholarship from all fields of musical inquiry: from historical musicology, critical theory, music analysis, iconography and organology, to performance practice, aesthetics and hermeneutics, ethnomusicology, gender and sexuality, popular music and cultural studies.

The widely-respected Journal of Musicology enters its third decade as one of few comprehensive peer-reviewed journals in the discipline, offering articles in every period, field and methodology of musicological scholarship. Its contributors range from senior scholars to new voices in the field. Its reach is international, with recent articles by authors from North America, Europe and Australia, and circulation to individuals and libraries throughout the world. The Journal publishes essential reading on long-standing problems and issues in musicology, on new ideas and approaches, and on directions in the field itself.

The Journal of the Royal Musical Association was established in 1986 (replacing the Association's Proceedings) and is now one of the major international refereed journals in its field. Its editorial policy is to publish outstanding articles in fields ranging from historical and critical musicology to theory and analysis, ethnomusicology, and popular music studies.

Music & Letters is a leading international journal of musical scholarship, publishing articles on topics ranging from antiquity to the present day and embracing musics from classical, popular, and world traditions. Since its foundation in the 1920s, Music & Letters has especially encouraged fruitful dialogue between musicology and other disciplines. It is renowned for its long and lively reviews sections, the most comprehensive and thought-provoking in any musicological journal.

The Musical Quarterly, founded in 1915 by Oscar Sonneck, has long been cited as the premier scholarly musical journal in the United States. Over the years it has published the writings of many important composers and musicologists, including Aaron Copland, Arnold Schoenberg, Marc Blitzstein, Henry Cowell, and Camille Saint-Saens. The journal focuses on the merging areas in scholarship where much of the challenging new work in the study of music is being produced.

The Journal of Music Theory is the oldest music-theory journal now published in the United States. It fosters conceptual and technical innovations in abstract, systematic musical thought and cultivates the historical study of musical concepts and compositional techniques. The journal publishes research with important and broad applications in the analysis of music and the history of music theory as well as theoretical or metatheoretical work that engages and stimulates ongoing discourse in the field. While remaining true to its original formalist outlook, the journal also addresses the influences of philosophy, mathematics, computer science, cognitive sciences, and anthropology on music theory.

Music Theory Spectrum is the official print journal of the Society for Music Theory and includes feature articles and book reviews on all topics that intersect with music theory and analysis, such as aesthetics, the history of theory, linear analysis, atonal theory, transformational networks, and narratology. Periodic special issues encourage contributors to delve deeply into one area of musical study.

Perspectives of New Music is directed to a readership consisting of composers, performers, scholars, and all others interested in any kind of contemporary music. Published material includes theoretical research, analyses, technical reports, position papers by composers, sociological and philosophical articles, interviews, reviews, and, for special purposes, short musical scores or other creative productions.

Now in its 25th year, American Music publishes articles on American composers, performers, publishers, institutions, events, and the music industry, as well as book and recording reviews, bibliographies, and discographies. Article topics have included the lyricism of Charles Ives, Henry Cowell's "sliding tones," Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti, Henry Brant's "Spatial Music," the reception and transformation of pop icons such as Presley and Sinatra, and the history and analysis of blues, jazz, folk music, and mixed and emerging musical styles.

Begun in 1980, BMRJ is published twice yearly and includes articles about the philosophy, aesthetics, history, and criticism of black music.

The Cambridge Opera Journal has been the preeminent forum for scholarship on opera in all its manifestations. The Journal publishes essays not only on all aspects of the European operatic tradition, but also on American opera and musical theatre, on non-Western music theatres, on contemporary opera production, and on the theory and historiography of opera. Carefully researched and often illustrated with music examples and pictures, articles adopt a wide spectrum of critical approaches. As well as major articles, each issue includes reviews of recent important publications in the field.

Early Music is a stimulating and richly illustrated journal, and is unrivalled in its field. Founded in 1973, it remains the journal for anyone interested in early music and how it is being interpreted today. Contributions from scholars and performers on international standing explore every aspect of earlier musical repertoires, present vital new evidence for our understanding of the music of the past, and tackle controversial issues of performance practice.

Ethnomusicology, is a refereed journal published three times each year by the University of Illinois Press. It features scholarly articles representing theoretical perspectives and research in ethnomusicology and related fields from an international perspective, as well as book, record, and film reviews. In addition, a current bibliography, discography, and film/videography is published on this website in conjunction with each journal issue.

Chart the ongoing scholarly discussion and study of musical phenomena with Music Perception. Publishing original empirical and theoretical papers, methodological articles and critical reviews from renowned scientists and musicians, Music Perception is a repository of insightful research. In a range of disciplines from Psychology, Psychophysics, Linguistics, Neurology, Neurophysiology, Artificial intelligence, Computer technology, Physical and architectural acoustics, and Music theory.

19th-Century Music covers all aspects of Western art music between the mid-eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries and includes considerations of composers and compositions, styles, performance, historical watersheds, cultural formations, critical methods, musical institutions, and ideas.

Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture is a scholarly publication. Representing a wide range of disciplines and approaches, the referred journal seeks to further the understanding of the relationship among gender, music and culture, with special attention given to the concerns of women.