STEAM Factory member, Anna Gawboy (School of Music, The Ohio State University) is one of the primary collaborators on an exciting innovation for publishing musical research. SMT-V: the Videocast Journal of the Society for Music Theory is the first peer-reviewed academic music journal published solely in video format. It joins a small number of scientific and medical journals at the vanguard of academic video publication.

SMT-V was initiated by Poundie Burstein, president of the Society for Music Theory. In 2013, he asked Anna and another collaborator, Bryn Hughes, to help him develop the new journal. Anna and Bryn now serve as associate editors, while a third collaborator, Scott Murphy, serves as editor.

Anna views video publication as ideal for topics which require the integration of sound and visuals for clear and engaging presentation.  “Video allows us to combine music, videoed performance, musical scores, commentary, graphics, and animation. I hope that SMT-V will facilitate further exploration of subareas within music theory that have never been well-suited to textual explanation, such as analysis of musical multimedia and analysis of performance.”

The first issue (link provided below) has already reached over 1000 people on six continents in its first month in existence.  This number is only expected to grow, since the content is open access. “Open-access publication allows researchers from around the world to find information in a timely manner, which is essential for the growth and development of the field,” Anna added.

SMT-V: https://societymusictheory.org/smt-v.

For those who are interested in learning more about this project, please contact Anna Gawboy at gawboy.2@osu.edu.