It is published by the University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Council for Research in Music Education.

The journal was established in 1963 by Charles Leonhard and Richard J. Colwell at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign as Council of Research in Music Education and obtained its current name in the following year.

[1] The initial volume was published as part of "plans for an organization to encourage research in music education [which had] been in process for more than a year."

Notable contributors include Harry Broudy, Elliot W. Eisner, David J. Elliott, Howard Gardner, Edwin E. Gordon, Janet Mills, and Bennett Reimer.

[4] The journal sponsors the Outstanding Dissertation Award in Music Education (ODA).