Open Access Musicology (OAM)

We publish peer-reviewed, scholarly essays primarily intended to serve students and teachers of music history, ethno/musicology, and music studies.

The constantly evolving collection ensures that recent research and scholarship inspires classroom practice, provides diverse and methodologically transparent models for student research, and introduces different modes of inquiry to inspire classroom discussion and varied assignments.

Addressing a range of histories, methods, voices, and sounds, OAM embraces changes and tensions in the field to help students understand music scholarship as the product of critical inquiry.

Featured Essays

Essays
Gurminder Kaur Bhogal
Racialized Ornament in the Exotic Musical Imagination: Reflections on Framing and Decoloniality
Gurminder Kaur Bhogal
Gurminder Kaur Bhogal
Daniel Barolsky
Wagner on Conducting: The Aesthetics of Anti-Semitism in Performance
Daniel Barolsky
Daniel Barolsky
Megan Kaes Long
Sixteenth-Century Polyphony and the Modal Paradigm
Megan Kaes Long
Megan Kaes Long
Rebecca Cypess
Musical Salons of the Enlightenment: Platforms for Women’s Musical Agency
Rebecca Cypess
Rebecca Cypess
S. Andrew Granade
Cracking the Code: What Notation Can Tell Us About Our Musical Values
S. Andrew Granade
S. Andrew Granade
Jennifer Fraser and Gabriela Linares
Reimagining the Representation of Ethnographic Knowledge: The Philosophy and Methodology of a Digital Humanities Project
Jennifer Fraser and Gabriela Linares
Jennifer Fraser and Gabriela Linares
Eduardo Herrera
Latin America and the Decolonization of Classical Music
Eduardo Herrera
Eduardo Herrera
Nathan C. Bakkum
Listening to Music History
Nathan C. Bakkum
Nathan C. Bakkum
Julia Chybowski
Jenny Lind and the Making of Mainstream American Popular Music
Julia Chybowski
Julia Chybowski
Dan Blim
MacDowell’s Vanishing Indians
Dan Blim
Dan Blim
Rebecca Cypess
Instrumental Music in Early Seventeenth-Century Italy: Instruments as Vehicles of Discovery
Rebecca Cypess
Rebecca Cypess
Sarah Williams
An Intermedia Approach to Seventeenth-Century English Popular Song Culture
Sarah Williams
Sarah Williams
Samuel Dorf
Ancient Mesopotamian Music, the Politics of Reconstruction, and Extreme Early Music
Samuel Dorf
Samuel Dorf

OAM is:

  • Free and media-rich, published digitally by Lever Press on the University of Michigan’s open-access Fulcrum platform

  • Student-centered, with each essay reviewed by students as well as scholars for originality, accessibility, and methodological transparency

  • Designed for use at a range of institutions (liberal arts, research, conservatory, comprehensive school), as reflected by the make-up of our editorial and advisory boards

  • Co-edited by Daniel Barolsky and Trudi Wright. Learn more about who we are using the button below.

“Open Access Musicology might be the most compelling and significant pedagogical undertaking in the field today. The essays are brilliantly authored and edited for undergraduate readers, and they will continue to occupy increasing space in my syllabi.”

— Esther Morgan-Ellis, University of North Georgia

“Featuring first-person reflections by researchers and engaging guidance through complex topics, Open Access Musicology does a beautiful job of inviting readers into humanistic thinking about music.”

— Danielle Fosler-Lussier, Ohio State University

“This volume is replete with accessible and informative essays on music history that will enhance any course and expand on subjects traditionally taught in music history.”

— Reba Wissner, Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University