Editorial

Welcome to the latest volume of Discourses in Music. With a steadily increasing readership and a growing number of intelligent, thoughtful contributors offering material, working on this journal has become a real joy. As guest editor, I can say that I had the unmitigated privilege of reading many insightful and well-written articles as we put the Fall edition together: I am looking forward to the "discourses" that they will no doubt spawn as they hit the ground running in cyberspace.

In this volume, James McGowan offers a new look at jazz and the problem of style via socio-linguistic theory; Sandy Thorburn, whose editor's chair I am temporarily warming, shows how the publicity machine surrounding Venetian opera simultaneously contributed to the rise of commercial opera while instigating its reduction to formulae; Benita Wolters' column Insights and Outlooks describes the value of adopting a less adversarial model for scholarly criticism; Dana Astmann and Meg Walker contribute two detailed book reviews on very diverse topics, Jewish music and musical semiotics respectively; and David Pruett delivers a well-considered response to Jamie Younkin's article on chant from the Spring edition of Discourses.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind our readers that contributions to Discourses in Music are always welcome, from both students and faculty across the globe and across all disciplines. Our goal here is to constantly improve and expand discussion about music, and to that end, a multiplicity of perspectives and insights is essential. Please contact the editors of Discourses in Music (editor@library.music.utoronto.ca/discourses-in-music/index.html)if you would like to offer us an article for consideration, if you would like to respond to something you have read on the website, or if you would like to contribute a book review.

It has been my pleasure serving as guest editor for this, the Fall 2002 edition of Discourses in Music. I look forward to watching this journal grow and to many more years of exciting and relevant "discourses." On behalf of the editorial staff of the journal, I wish you good reading!

-Alex Carpenter, Guest Editor