Featured

Stained glass window featuring a man in historical attire with a white wig and red coat.
Doing Bach Badly
When our amateur choir sings Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion, the music’s power overwhelms our mistakes.
Maureen Swinger
Community Snapshot
Double exposure of a woman with blonde hair singing and a wooden fence with pine trees in the background.
Dolly Parton Is Magnificent
The beloved Tennessee singer-songwriter gets the joke. Do the rest of us?
Mary Townsend
Essay
Black frame glasses showing focused view of text with blurred background text outside lenses.
Reading the Comments
Fans of 1980s post-punk and new wave find community and catharsis online.
Phil Christman
Essay
A person in red crosses a street at a crosswalk casting a tall shadow on the pavement.
The Strange Love of a Strange God
When my father got cancer, we prayed desperately. No answer came. Or did it?
Esther Maria Magnis
Personal History
Women in choir robes clapping and singing in a church setting.
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Black spirituals aren’t just for Black churches. They should be sung by everyone.
Stephen Michael Newby
Viewpoint
Brightly colored folk art of a red bird with a green head surrounded by flowers and leaves on a textured background.
In the Aztec Flower Paradise
For the ancient Nahua poets, the way to the holy runs through beauty.
Joseph Julián González
Monique González
Essay

Insights

Vibrant impressionist painting of trees with bright orange leaves and green grass under a blue sky.
In Search of Eternity
Why learn to play music if we’re all going to die?
Eugene Vodolazkin
Fiction
Medieval illustration of angels and a rabbit playing musical instruments with birds flying above.
The Fiery Spirit of Song
What could be better than music to encourage the sad, humble the conceited, and mollify the hate-filled?
Hildegard of Bingen
Martin Luther
Eberhard Arnold
Inklings
Medieval illustration of angels and a rabbit playing musical instruments and a bird flying above.
The Harmony of the World
Since everything natural is compatible with nature, music too is in accord with our human nature.
Gregory of Nyssa
Augustine of Hippo
Inklings
Man playing violin in an empty classroom with desks and large windows behind him.
Violas in Sing Sing
It’s never too late to learn an instrument.
Nathan Schram
The Doers
Close-up of elderly hands playing worn black and white piano keys.
Music, Memory, and Alzheimer’s
What can music do for people who suffer from dementia?
The Doers
Group of people sitting around a fire pit at night, holding papers and chanting or singing outdoors.
Hosting a Hootenanny
The darkness at the edge of a campfire provides a safety zone for even the most self-conscious singer.
Esther Keiderling
The Doers
Baby in red shirt touching a man's face while a woman smiles in the background.
How to Lullaby
Long before your baby is born, you can start singing lullabies.
Norann Voll
The Doers
Children sitting on floor learning to play acoustic guitars in a classroom.
How to Make Music Accessible
We must build a culture of music-making that welcomes everyone, whether neurodivergent or not.
The Doers
A group of children singing together while holding sheet music indoors.
How to Raise Musical Children
John Feierabend is reviving the insights of the revered music educator Zoltán Kodály for a new generation.
The Doers
Stained glass image of a crowned king playing a harp, seated on a throne with blue background.
Chanting Psalms in the Dark
In the midst of the Covid pandemic, I became blind. That’s when I discovered the power of chant.
Brittany Petruzzi
The Doers

Web Exclusives

Book titled AmericanaLand by John Milward with a guitar illustration, beside a musician playing guitar.
Adventures in Americanaland
A new book tells the story of a contested genre in which the secular and sacred mingle.
Peter Blair
Two figures, one holding a lyre, walking through a wooded area with cloaked figures in the background.
Music and Morals
The sheer vitality of music spells danger. Or so it often seems.
Dhananjay Jagannathan
Crowd with raised hands enjoying a live band performing with colorful stage lights.
The Death and Life of Christian Hardcore
The Christian underground came undone as it rocketed to relevance.
Joseph M. Keegin
Black and white collage of musicians playing guitar, drums, and accordion.
Vallenato Comes Home
Refugees from Venezuela are bringing a Colombian music style back to its birthplace.
Half of a man’s face with brown skin partly colored and partly sketched in black pencil on white background.
Does Political Music Change Anything?
Socially oriented music isn’t propaganda. It can still transform us.
Daniel Walden

Arts & Letters

Book cover of Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer by Kate Clifford Larson with her black and white portrait.
Editors’ Picks: Walk with Me
A review of Kate Clifford Larson’s Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer
Vivian Gibson
Editors’ Pick
Book cover titled 'Shake-Shæte & Other Plays' by Rowan Williams with foreword by Jay Parini.
Editors’ Picks: Shakeshafte
A review of Rowan Williams’s Shakeshafte: And Other Plays
Madoc Cairns
Editors’ Pick
Book cover for The Least of Us by Sam Quinones with street scene and torn paper text.
Editors’ Picks: The Least of Us
A review Sam Quinones’s The Least of Us: of True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth
Joseph M. Keegin
Editors’ Pick
Abstract painting with dark blues, purples, and a bright red-orange spot near the top center.
Poem: “Sunrise and Swag”
The river sings a duet with the mist / as gulls gavotte around the overflow / and peck at City scum…
Jacqueline Saphra
Poetry
Abstract depiction of railway tracks with overhead wires fading into a hazy background of blues, reds, and browns.
Poem: “Poland, 1985”
The tracks of history are not as deeply buried as Poland’s landscape would have you believe.
Jacqueline Saphra
Poetry
Portrait of a face made from torn and layered pieces of printed paper collage.
Mercedes Sosa
The singer who gave voice to her people’s struggle outlived several tyrants.
Susannah Black Roberts
Forerunner