Founded by David Kraehenbuehl at Yale University in 1957, the Journal of Music Theory is the oldest music-theory journal published in the United States and has been a cornerstone in music theory’s emergence as a research field in North America since the 1960s. The journal is edited by a consortium of music-theory faculty at Yale, where it is housed in the Department of Music.

The Journal of Music Theory fosters conceptual and technical innovations in abstract, systematic musical thought and cultivates the historical study of musical concepts and compositional techniques. The journal publishes research with important and broad applications in the analysis of music and the history of music theory as well as theoretical or metatheoretical work that engages and stimulates ongoing discourse in the field. While remaining true to its original structuralist outlook, the journal also addresses the influences of philosophy, mathematics, computer science, cognitive sciences, and anthropology on music theory.