SMT-V: The Society for Music Theory Videocast Journal
SMT-V is the open-access, peer-reviewed video journal of the Society for Music Theory. Founded in 2014, SMT-V publishes video essays that showcase research in music theory in a dynamic, audiovisual format, presented so as to have the potential to engage both specialists within the field as well as interested viewers outside the music theory community. The journal features a supportive and collaborative production process, and publishes several videos each year. Read more about SMT-V here.
Latest Issue: 12.5 (September 2026)
“Tori Amos’s Stretched Compound Grooves”
Scott Hanenberg (Wilfrid Laurier University)
Tori Amos has her own way of manipulating musical time. In this video essay, I show how Amos often stretches the meter of her songs by strategically adding subdivisions. My focus is on grooves that I hear in 6/8 time (compound grooves), with stretched measures of 7/8, 8/8, or further expansions. The demanding metric coordination in Amos’s stretched grooves is surprising in the radio-friendly genres that she is known for—one way among many that Amos plays with the line between pop and progressive.
Keywords: Tori Amos, groove, compound meter, irregular meter, popular music