| Welcome to the Society
for Music Analysis website! The SMA is Britain’s leading
organization dedicated to the theory and practice
of musical analysis. Our members include a wide cross-section
of the musical population, among them professional
performers, musicologists, students and teachers.
One of our most important contributions to British
musical life is the regular programme
of events
that we sponsor. Each year we hold Autumn
and Spring Study Days at different universities and
on diverse topics such as music programme notes, late
Schumann, analysis and teaching, and analysing popular
music; we also have an annual TAGS Day for Theory
and Analysis Graduate Students as well as academic
staff and others; and we organize ‘MAC’s (Music Analysis
Conferences) on a regular basis, the next one being
at Cardiff University
in September 2008
. The SMA also promotes joint
conferences and themed events in conjunction with
other organisations; for example, we are sponsoring
sessions within the Rethinking Tonality Conference
at King’s College, London in March 2008. The SMA publishes
a semi-annual Newsletter and
sends regular mailings to members to keep them informed
of events and developments, and we offer members free
registration and refreshments at the SMA Study Days.
One of the most attractive benefits for many members
is the very generous discount available on subscription
rates for the journal Music Analysis, which costs
only £15 more for UK and European members over
and above the usual SMA subscription rate. We are
pleased to offer students especially favourable membership
rates.
All of these are fringe benefits in one sense, however, as the Society’s primary purpose is to promote music analysis within this country and abroad, and our members gain enormously from the development of contacts within the analytical community and from exposure to the latest thinking in the discipline from all corners of the globe. To this end we are developing an online discussion forum through which members may engage with current music analysis issues, possibly instigated from our own conferences. We have played a very active part in all of the European Music Analysis Conferences, and we are always seeking to enhance our relations with such overseas bodies as the Society for Music Theory, in whose newsletters we regularly advertise. Intellectual debate within the SMA is always at the highest level, as indeed it is in the journal Music Analysis, with which we have an extremely close link.
All of this lends the SMA vibrancy and appeal, and you will soon find this out by joining us if you are not already a member. In any case, I hope to be able to welcome you to the next SMA event.
Michael Spitzer
President, Society for Music Analysis
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