Music Theory

Boots Riley's keynote reminded 500 attendees that music cannot escape politics. This special issue captures that momentum, challenging conventional academic formats with interviews and ethnographies on heavy metal's white identity, Dunedin cover songs, Pacific hip hop branding, Jersey's national anthem dispute, and the carnivalesque inversion found in punkumentaries and glam rock. Riley warns that viral videos of police brutality remain meaningless without a movement to change systemic condition

Active music-making offers powerful benefits for older adults, from building social bonds and aiding depression recovery to fostering personal growth and emotional stability. With life expectancy rising, research shows that singing, songwriting, and instrumental ensembles enhance quality of life across the Third and Fourth Ages. This guide presents key studies and the Music for Life Research Project, revealing how musical participation empowers seniors and deepens well-being.

Which music actually makes you happier and calmer? Research shows preferred pieces — from Barber's Adagio to pop-rock — trigger the brain's reward system just like delicious food. Dr. Miranda Yeoh, who holds a Master's in Music Education and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, explains why neurotic listeners avoid arousing genres, how classical music at the right tempo activates both brain hemispheres, and how post-operative patients need less morphine after hearing relaxing pieces. Start choosin

Beneath the Baroque opera houses, eighteenth-century Rome’s basilicas treasured a different kind of masterpiece. Luca Della Libera’s edition opens the archive of Santa Maria Maggiore to reveal sacred masses by Alessandro Scarlatti and Francesco Gasparini—rich with pastoral drones, concertato virtuosity, and contrasting visions of polychoral style that bridge Venetian tradition and Corellian modernity. Discover the music history forgot.

A theremin played without touch, a solo composition inspired by Pierre Henry called Intimate Acquaintance, and the modified Jaycar SC theremin kit combine with fresh perspectives on improvised music. Dive into ecologic freedom, four models of instantaneous composition, and the controlled conduction systems of Butch Morris to understand how performance, perception, and nature merge in electroacoustic practice.

Mexico's journey into electroacoustic music charts a fascinating path apart from Latin America's earlier adopters. In the 1960s, pioneer Carlos Jiménez Mabarak composed the first Mexican electronic work, while inventor Raúl Pavón built the Omnifón ─ Latin America's first synthesizer ─ on Mexican soil. A formally minded overview traces the 1970 opening of the National Conservatory's Electronic Music Lab, the decades of institutional neglect that followed, the generational shift toward collaborati

Ytasha Womack's "Afrofuturism" is the first book-length survey of a movement blending science fiction, fantasy, and black identity. The review highlights its accessible interviews with artists and scholars, its rich coverage of music (Sun Ra to Janelle Monáe), and its exploration of cyclical temporality. But it also raises critical questions: does Womack's techno-optimism overlook darker Afrofuturist traditions? How does the tension between representing and deconstructing blackness play out? Thi

Seventeen-ninety-eight: two elephants from Ceylon listen to revolutionary songs in a Parisian concert, react amorously to "Ça ira", and become star evidence in musicological writing for over twenty years. A decade earlier, Vaucanson’s fake defecating duck bedazzles academies and quickly stands in for Mozart touring the Continent as a performing machine. This article traces how musicologists turned such quirky objects and anecdotes—instead of scores or aesthetic judgments—into their primary evide

Music has always been more than art—it is a universal force for connection, education, and societal healing. From Aristotle's emotional classifications of modes to Beethoven's revolutionary Ninth Symphony, this article traces how music unites people across culture, time, and difference. Whether as a tool for intercultural integration in the classroom or a medium for political freedom in Romantic Europe, music's power to convey shared humanity is unmatched. Dive into the history of music as a soc

For decades, analysts have traced Carter’s use of three essential “core harmonies,” but his late music reveals much more beneath the surface. John D. Jenkins proposes a “derived core” category—a class of harmonies formed when pairs of core all-interval tetrachords or all-trichord hexachords combine. By tracing these derived sonorities through works like Epigrams, the Oboe Quartet, and the Concertino for Bass Clarinet, this article unveils a hidden layer of harmonic consistency that ties together