A few weeks ago my latest article came out in Music Theory Online. Going from conference talk to published, media-filled article has been a three-year, 20,000 word labor of love (editorial comment from late in the process: “Umm, so MTO has a word limit but apparently we just…missed that?”) that brings together a lot of my thinking on YouTube as a musical platform. It was a hard article to write, as I often felt like I was building a bridge for myself even as I was walking over it. I found in the revision process, though, that the more I addressed YouTube on its own terms, and the less I ‘apologized’ for the subject matter by trying to relate it to existing theories or downplay the fact that this is about a dynamic, sometimes rough, and still-developing new medium, the better the paper worked. I’ve certainly grown as a scholar in putting this together, and I’m excited to see how this project informs my other work on recomposition in music theory, and finding which aspect of music in social media grabs my attention next…