Society for Music Analysis

{{Short description|UK academic society}}

{{Multiple issues|

{{Primary sources|date=January 2024}}

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The Society for Music Analysis is an academic society, founded in 1992 by Jonathan Dunsby, specializing in music theory and analysis. It is based in England and, although it does not produce it, is closely associated with the academic journal Music Analysis.{{cite journal |url=http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1468-2249 |title=Music Analysis|journal=Music Analysis |publisher=Wiley Online Library |accessdate=2024-01-11|doi=10.1111/(ISSN)1468-2249 |url-access=subscription }}{{cite book |title=Reconceiving Structure in Contemporary Music|last=Lochhead|first=Judy |publisher=Routledge |year=2016|isbn=9781138824331|page=38}}

which published its first issue in 1982.

The official website describes the SMA thus:

"The Society for Music Analysis (SMA) is a UK-based international organisation dedicated to music theory and analysis. We are affiliated with the journal Music Analysis and support and organise a regular programme of events, including the annual Theory and Analysis Graduate Students (TAGS) Conference, the Music Analysis Summer School (a residential course taught by international experts), and other Music Analysis Conferences (‘MACs’) and symposia. We are members of the European Theory & Analysis of Music (EuroT&AM) Network."{{cite web |url=https://www.sma.ac.uk|title=Society for Music Analysis}}

The formation and subsequent activities of the SMA gained sufficient attention so as to have been reported on in scholarly journals in mainland Europe{{cite journal|last=Kelly|first=Barbara L.|author2=Rebecca Thumpston|title=Maintaining the Entente Cordiale. Musicological Collaboration between the United Kingdom and France|journal=Revue de Musicologie|volume=103|issue=2|date=2017|pages=615–640}} as well as America.{{cite journal|last=Browne|first=Richmond|title=Report: The 1993 Southampton University Music Analysis Conference and the New Society of Music Analysis|journal=Journal of Music Theory|volume=38|issue=2|date=1994|pages=}}{{cite journal|last=Browne|first=Richmond|title=Report: The 1994 Lancaster University Music Analysis Conference|journal=Journal of Music Theory|volume=39|issue=2|date=1995|pages=385–395}} More regularly, numerous scholarly published articles refer to having initially being presented at SMA conferences or having published preliminary results in the SMA newsletter.{{cite journal|last=Spitzer|first=Michael|title=Guest Editorial: The Emotion Issue|journal=Music Analysis|volume=29|issue=1/3|date=2010|pages=1–7|doi=10.1111/j.1468-2249.2011.00319.x}}{{cite journal|last=Franseen|first=Kristin M.|title=Queering Musical Biography in the Writings of Edward Prime-Stevenson and Rosa Newmarch|journal=19th-Century Music|volume=44|issue=2|date=2020|pages=100–118|doi=10.1525/ncm.2020.44.2.100}}{{cite journal|last=Lilja|first=Esa|title=Conference report|journal=Popular Music|volume=33|issue=2|date=May 2014|pages=337–339|doi=10.1017/S0261143014000014 |s2cid=162490994 }}{{cite journal|last=Howe|first=Blake|title=The Allure of Dissolution: Bodies, Forces, and Cyclicity in Schubert's Final Mayrhofer Settings|journal=Journal of the American Musicological Society|volume=62|issue=2|date=Summer 2009|pages=271–322|doi=10.1525/jams.2009.62.2.271 }}{{cite journal |last=Rushton |first=Julian |title=Scylla and Charybdis. Julian Rushton Takes a Look at the Pleasures and Perils of Postgraduate Musical Study |journal=The Musical Times |volume=135 |issue=1813 |date=March 1994 |pages=179–180|doi=10.2307/1002924 |jstor=1002924 }} Academic organizations in both Europe and America routinely include SMA in their listings.{{cite web|title=German Society for Music Theory|url=https://www.gmth.de/lectures/joint_panel_2023.aspx}}{{cite web|title=Dutch Society for Music Theory|url=https://www.dfsmt.net/other-societies.html

}}{{cite web|title=European Network|url=https://sdmt.rs/engleski/

}} Besides its own annual conference, the SMA also holds study days{{cite journal |last=Rushton |first=Julian |title=Scylla and Charybdis. Julian Rushton Takes a Look at the Pleasures and Perils of Postgraduate Musical Study |journal=The Musical Times |volume=135 |issue=1813 |date=March 1994 |pages=179–180|doi=10.2307/1002924 |jstor=1002924 }} and sponsors numerous other scholarly events {{cite web|title=Cambridge University|date=27 February 2008 |url=https://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/23146/}} as well as commissioning scholarly investigative projects.{{cite news|title=Have Your Say: Letters to the Editor|first=Hilary|last= McQueen|date=2021-07-01|journal=Music Teacher|access-date=2023-10-18|url=https://www.musicteachermagazine.co.uk/opinion/article/have-your-say-letters-to-the-editor-july-2021}} Additionally, the SMA issues various awards, such as the Pascall Medal, the Adele Katz Early Career Research Award, and so forth.

The mission of the SMA can be seen as fostering communication with respect to ongoing engagement with canonic repertoires as well as critical discourse surrounding and infusing this engagement.{{cite journal|last=Whittall|first=Arnold|title=Being Courteous: The View from the Old Country|journal=Music Theory Spectrum|volume=33|issue=2|date=2011|pages=222–225|doi=10.1525/mts.2011.33.2.222 }}{{cite journal|last=Dunsby|first=Jonathan|title=Acts of Recall|journal=The Musical Times|volume=138|issue=1847|date=1997|pages=12–17|doi=10.2307/1003412 |jstor=1003412 }}

This has included sometimes tendentious debates waged, for instance at the 2014 SMA/EuroMAC conference in Leuven.{{cite book|last=Taruskin|first=Richard|title=Unanalyzable, Is It?|chapter=Cursed Questions: On Music and Its Social Practices|publisher=University of California Press|date=2020|edition=1|page=260}} More recently, for instance in its OxMAC conference in 2023, the SMA has focused on issues of musical literacy.{{cite journal|last1=Donn|first1=Rebekah|last2=Elphick|first2=Daniel|title=Review of music literacy strand of the Oxford Music Analysis Conference (July 2023), Society for Music Analysis|journal=Musical Education Research|volume=26|issue=1|date=2024|pages=82–87|doi=10.1080/14613808.2024.2309206 |doi-access=free}}. The current president of SMA is Christopher Tarrant, who is Senior Lecturer in Music Analysis at Newcastle University.