Journal rankings · indicator year 2021
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2021
Music journal rankings 2021
32 ranked journals · Subfield in Arts and Humanities
Music has 32 ranked journals in 2021. The median journal has an OJR of 0.57, below the world average of 1.00, down 0.05 on 2020; Q1 starts at OJR 2.75. The top three are Action Criticism and Theory for Music Education, Music Education Research, and Research Studies in Music Education.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2021. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Arts and Humanities (13)
32 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2020. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2018–2020 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2012 to 2021. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Action Criticism and Theory for Music EducationOAMayDay Group · United States | 5.27Q1 | 1.77 0.89 up from 2020 | 50 | 100% | — | ||
2Music Education ResearchTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 4.74Q1 | 3.36 1.81 up from 2020 | 114 | 30% | — | ||
3Research Studies in Music EducationSAGE Publishing · Australia | 4.25Q1 | 3.52 2.00 up from 2020 | 85 | 30% | $3,650 | ||
4Journal of Research in Music EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 3.66Q1 | 3.79 2.16 up from 2020 | 103 | 18% | $3,650 | ||
5Philosophy of Music Education ReviewIndiana University Press · United States | 3.43Q1 | 2.61 2.16 up from 2020 | 48 | 0% | — | ||
6Update Applications of Research in Music EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 3.13Q1 | 1.56 0.62 up from 2020 | 68 | 3% | $3,400 | ||
7Journal of Music Teacher EducationSAGE Publishing · United States | 2.95Q1 | 1.71 0.84 up from 2020 | 63 | 13% | $3,400 | ||
8International Journal of Music EducationSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 2.75Q1 | 2.99 1.93 up from 2020 | 117 | 29% | $3,650 | ||
9Arts Education Policy ReviewTaylor & Francis · United States | 2.51Q2 | 1.64 0.26 up from 2020 | 72 | 19% | — | ||
10British Journal of Music EducationCambridge University Press · United Kingdom | 2.01Q2 | 1.29 0.48 up from 2020 | 71 | 72% | $3,550 | ||
11International Journal of Community MusicIntellect · United Kingdom | 1.63Q2 | 2.00 1.40 up from 2020 | 65 | 10% | — | ||
12Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music EducationUniversity of Illinois Press · United States | 1.49Q2 | 0.91 0.39 up from 2020 | 61 | 4% | — | ||
13Music Theory OnlineOASociety for Music Theory · United States | 0.99Q2 | 1.36 0.69 up from 2020 | 130 | 100% | — | ||
14Journal of Popular Music EducationIntellect · United Kingdom | 0.88Q2 | 0.74 0.31 up from 2020 | 81 | 7% | — | ||
15Metal Music StudiesIntellect · United Kingdom | 0.66Q2 | 0.57 0.01 up from 2020 | 104 | 25% | — | ||
16Journal of Music Technology and EducationIntellect · United Kingdom | 0.63Q2 | 1.07 0.07 up from 2020 | 48 | 31% | — | ||
17Voice and Speech ReviewTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.50Q3 | 0.65 0.07 down from 2020 | 92 | 16% | — | ||
18Interactions Studies in Communication & CultureIntellect · United Kingdom | 0.43Q3 | 0.51 0.07 up from 2020 | 71 | 10% | — | ||
19International Journal of Music in Early ChildhoodIntellect · United Kingdom | 0.41Q3 | 0.51 0.19 down from 2020 | 39 | 0% | — | ||
20Journal of World Popular MusicEquinox Publishing · United Kingdom | 0.37Q3 | 0.21 0.09 down from 2020 | 58 | 31% | — | ||
21Journal of Music TheoryDuke University · United States | 0.36Q3 | 0.45 0.22 up from 2020 | 51 | 13% | — | ||
22Music Reference Services QuarterlyTaylor & Francis · United States | 0.35Q3 | 0.24 0.02 up from 2020 | 63 | 0% | — | ||
23Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice StudiesIntellect · United Kingdom | 0.35Q3 | 0.39 0.32 down from 2020 | 56 | 17% | — | ||
24Empirical Musicology ReviewOAThe Ohio State University Libraries · United States | 0.34Q3 | 0.90 0.07 up from 2020 | 53 | 100% | — | ||
25The American Journal of SemioticsPhilosophy Documentation Center · United States | 0.33Q4 | 0.45 0.30 up from 2020 | 53 | 0% | — | ||
26Música HodieOAUniversidade Federal de Goiás · Brazil | 0.29Q4 | 0.39 0.16 up from 2020 | 75 | 100% | — | ||
27Yearbook for Traditional MusicCambridge University Press · United States | 0.21Q4 | 0.22no change | 86 | 7% | $3,450 | ||
28DancecultOAGriffith University · United States | 0.20Q4 | 0.24 0.15 up from 2020 | 50 | 100% | — | ||
29Journal of Mathematics and MusicTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.19Q4 | 0.66 0.12 down from 2020 | 55 | 44% | — | ||
| 0.17Q4 | 0.20 0.01 down from 2020 | 37 | 100% | — | |||
31Perspectives of New MusicPerspectives of New Music · United States | 0.07Q4 | 0.13 0.13 up from 2020 | 157 | 0% | — | ||
32Fontes artis musicaeUnited States | 0.05Q4 | 0.02 0.01 down from 2020 | 128 | 0% | — |
Subfields of Arts and Humanities, with Music highlighted.
- Language and Linguistics154
- Philosophy94
- Archeology69
- Literature and Literary Theory64
- Music32
- History and Philosophy of Science27
- Visual Arts and Performing Arts24
- Conservation23
- Museology23
- History7
- Classics1
- General Arts and Humanities0
- Religious studies0
Journals
Citations made in 2021. Corpus-wide, 87.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
4 additional Music journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2018–2020, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2021. Publication window: 2018–2020. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 32
- Window papers (baseline)
- 15,953 +1.7% from indicator year 2018
- Median OJR
- 0.566 -0.3% from indicator year 2018
- Rising journals (2025)
- 0
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2018–2020 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 13 | 16 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 20 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 24 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 26 | 28 | 29 | 31 | 32 | 32 | 33 | 33 | 31 | 30 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 7,340 | 7,326 | 7,718 | 8,146 | 8,679 | 9,444 | 10,192 | 11,159 | 11,836 | 12,676 | 13,359 | 13,894 | 14,271 | 14,485 | 14,784 | 15,473 | 16,142 | 16,181 | 15,694 | 15,440 | 15,548 | 15,953 | 16,505 | 17,745 | 18,170 | 18,914 | |
| Median OJR | 0.616 | 0.27 | 0.73 | 0.44 | 0.58 | 0.573 | 0.3494 | 0.39 | 0.3493 | 0.50 | 0.5614 | 0.76 | 0.60 | 0.68 | 0.624 | 0.65 | 0.70 | 0.54 | 0.568 | 0.626 | 0.61 | 0.566 | 0.49 | 0.5609 | 0.42 | 0.629 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.