Music Theory

In an era when Rihanna had sold over 230 million albums and topped global charts, a major American newspaper dismissed her as 'a star of fashion, social media and tabloids who sometimes, y'know, makes music or whatever.' This stunning example of gender bias is not an isolated incident. A rigorous content analysis of 936 articles from eight leading US music publications finds that coverage of women musicians was significantly more likely to discuss looks and relationships rather than artistry. Th

What do Uyghur muqam masterpieces, a Mongolian pop star on the state's payroll, and ethnomusicologist Huib Schippers' three-decade sitar journey have in common? They each challenge how we tell stories about artists stuck between tradition and modernity, authenticity and change. From folk epics retold across Central Asia to the 'Twelve Continuum Transmission Framework' reshaping world music education, this article tackles musician biographies, power, and politics in Chinese music—then turns to Sc

Searching for clarity behind consumer decisions in the digital music market? This study refines the theory of reasoned action to capture what pushes shoppers to purchase songs online, revealing that product variety is the strongest motivator—yet trialability barely registers. Dive into the interplay of convenience, perceived risk, price, and entertainment factors that collectively shape attitudes and actual purchase behavior in the evolving e-commerce landscape for music.

For over twenty-five years, the MayDay Group has argued that music education’s deepest problem is not funding or public support, but a growing gap between what schools teach and how people actually make music. When classical music’s elite heritage meets neoliberal schooling, the result is institutional rigidity that stifles change. Is there room for hope? This article explores classical bias, university conservatism, association self-preservation, and the role of critical theory in building a mu

What does it mean to be "authentic" in popular music? Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor's provocative book, Faking It, argues that the romantic pursuit of authenticity—rooted in suffering, roughness, and outsider status—often does more to limit creativity than nurture it. From the prison overalls forced on Leadbelly to the manufactured grief surrounding Kurt Cobain's myth, this review dissects how the quest for realness has become a marketing weapon that oversimplifies genres like blues, world music,

What if music education aimed not for order and achievement but for deliberate disruption? Drawing on surrealist ideals of automatism and iconoclasm, this article reimagines schooling as a space of "petit falsifications"—discrepant events that interrupt predictable sequences. From the democratic experiment of Summerhill to the tension between ostinato and variant in jazz improvisation, it argues that true learning emerges when curriculum becomes a laboratory for hypothesis-testing, not an assemb

From street-corner mambos to nightclub pop, bands hammering out rock while directors demanded silence — how did Federico Fellini weave popular music into the very fabric of his most famous films? Fueled by dizzy edits, diegetic trickery, and precious help from Pasolini and Rota, Fellini turned "lowbrow" sounds into narrative engines. We follow the through-lines from the prostitute dancing wrong at the party to pop blaring at an archaeological ruin. It was never just background noise.

Songs by Rick Ross, Robin Thicke, and Justin Bieber have all been branded "rapey" by feminist critics and activists. But is the term — and the campaign to call out such music — helping or harming the very goals it claims to serve? In this article, we examine associate professor Ummni Khan's research on how the "rapey" designation emerges from rape-culture discourse, what gets overlooked when critics rarely check the lyrics in full, and how the label’s lopsided application to Black male performer

For decades, discussions of South Asian cinema music fixated on film songs, their lyrics and playback stars. But a deeper sonic world — background scores, instrumental interludes, orchestrations—carries the emotional charge of narrative cinema. Tracing the sonic footprint of Bombay films from colonial AIR policies and Goan jazz musicians to cassette-era mashups and digital sound design, this article reveals how composers from Naushad Ali to A.R. Rahman crafted an unparalleled auditory ecology th

During the political thaw of the 1960s, a new journalistic voice began tracking music’s role in Czech cinema's renaissance. Hudební rozhledy brought systematic criticism from voices like Milan Kuna and Jiří Pilka, offering everything from mini-reviews of Zdeněk Liška scores to extended essays on film dramaturgy and competition coverage. Discover how its coverage captured — and sometimes missed — the decade’s most vibrant currents, including the Czech New Wave filmmakers Miloš Forman and Věra Chy