If you’d like to see my original prompt on this discussion click here:

https://cb-blog-116.opened.ca/2020/11/03/blog-prompt-8/

The grey text is what I wrote up originally. Most of the ideas in that paragraph I still believe in, but I decided to look more into Philip Ewell’s discussion on confronting the white racial frame in music theory, and try to make my own opinion. In my search, I found 6 blog posts Ewell put together taking about these 6 topic discussions that came from his work. These topics in order include;

  1. The Myth of Race and Gender Neutrality in Music Theory
  2. Race, Gender, and Their Intersection in Music Theory
  3. Music Theory’s Quantitative and Qualitative Whiteness
  4. Beethoven Was an Above Average Composer—Let’s Leave It at That
  5. New Music Theory
  6. Music Theory’s Future

Though It didn’t read all these posts because just the first ones an essay by itself, I read the introduction ideas and summary of each topic to get a basic understanding. What I noticed in the first topic, is how Philip realized he was sought out negatively in his line of work as an ascending music professor for not being white, and how he used the term “white rage” to portray why he was gratuitously disliked by some co-workers. It was only triggered by his advancement as a person of colour (POC), and this drew him to the idea of achieving a more equitable anti-racist, anti-sexist, style of musical teaching.  

He talks about the required languages in American music theory: Ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and German being the only theoretical works worth studying, and coincidentally, these are all predominantly white languages. Even though there is slight dispensation on these rules, making it possibly to study Russian,  Spanish, and maybe non-European tongue, the five original languages still reign supreme due to the deeply embedded existing structures. His solution, either make any language acceptable with exception to one of the five originals, or to dismantle foreign language requirement in general, this anti-racist discrimination acts to cancel out the racist policy in place.

He also talks about maleness and sexism in PhD programs and seminars, and how “Seminars featuring 100% white-male music theorists create hostile environments for POC and non-males and, especially, non-males of colo[u]r”.  This can evidently harm the minorities psychological health, being intimidated and outcast by the overruling majority. Whether its a POC or a non male student in this class, they both have to adhere to the white-male frame that surrounds music and either push through it, or fall to the pressure of the passive aggressive hierarchy. It’s such a deep topic to get into, digging out how white women are able to be more successful at making a career for themselves to due having one “correct” <–( barf) thing going on, their skin colour, but in some places still not getting the same respect as a man would. A short term solution for Ewell would to make these PhD programs flexible, theory being optional since so many already come in knowing what they need. But what about undergrad and masters degrees?? He wants the solution to be as easy as dismantling whiteness and maleness, but that doesn’t seem super easy to tackle. 

This discussion is getting super big and I’m not even a quarter of the way through his material. Also, don’t forget the world is going through a massive race moment in 2020, and this massive blog i’m talking about is just one mans opinion on how he is going to dismantle racism and sexism and other issues in MUSIC. Yeah music is kinda big and done globally, but there is so many other places racism and sexism is seen.

I think its wonderful, but also saddening to realize this video and Philips blogs is the first I’ve really seen people talk about the racist teachings of music theory, that this discussion came to my ears through a very “out of the box”<– (good thing) history class,  in 2020! I don’t know if its cause we’re Canadian or what it is, because I am thought to believe I wasn’t raised with racist ideals, so I would notice racism if it came across to me in situations, but it slips under my nose all the time. I never thought it existed in music theory, I never thought it existed in the community I live in, I realize its so foreign to me because no one talks about it. So i’m glad to be able to look into this situation further, especially for my class since it’s part of the problem we’re discussing.