The focus on common practice music in theory pedagogy implies that upper-class European-descended musical tastes are a fundamental truth rather than a set of arbitrary and contingent preferences, and that white cultural dominance is normative.
The music academy’s near-exclusive focus on Western classical tradition places it strikingly at odds with the broader culture. We need to ask what might be the ideological motivation for perpetuating the divide. Music theory isn’t just a neutral description of an objective set of rules; it’s a vehicle for encoding cultural hegemony and symbolic violence.
Common-practice theory as taught at most universities is based on Schenkerian analysis. Heinrich Schenker had a specific ideological goal: to demonstrate the superiority of German culture to all other European cultures, the superiority of European culture to American culture, and the superiority of Western culture generally to Asian and African cultures. He dismissed the idea of looking to “musically inferior” races and nations for alternative ideas or systems, because there are no systems to be found among them. While he admitted to finding charm in Arabic, Japanese and Turkish music, he compared it to the charm of a young child’s babbling.
Your music theory textbook might not mention any of this, but Schenker considered his musical and political ideas to be inseparable, and we should probably take him at his word. Music educators don’t believe themselves to be espousing white supremacist hegemony (we hope), but you can advance an ideological agenda without intending to, or even being aware of doing so.
well this doesnt change or add to musical theory call it whatever most musicians dont use it
Luke Cook
You know it. Keeps the nig-nogs to their hippity hop, rock n' roll, and jazz because they can't read
Jace Parker
yawn
Cameron Diaz
lol fuck off faggot
Jonathan Murphy
you forgot the period, coward
Eli Martin
If all the highest marks of civilization and the human experience are related to "white supremacy", why is white supremacy a bad thing?
Connor Sanchez
If that's the case then all culture is inherently hegemonic and to talk shit on your own is suicidal.
Luke Myers
lol seriously though the guy I copied this pasta from is Jewish
he talks about whitey oppressing minorities through music theory and at the end of his pretentious rant he links to his own darkie-friendly version of theory that's behind a paywall, literally jewing poor ghetto negroes
>The focus on common practice music in theory pedagogy implies that upper-class European-descended musical tastes are a fundamental truth rather than a set of arbitrary and contingent preferences, and that white cultural dominance is normative. No it doesn't
>The music academy’s near-exclusive focus on Western classical tradition places it strikingly at odds with the broader culture. Depends which academy or institution you go to. If you study in china or the Pacific you will see a lot of Asian and pacific instruments and concepts in the syllabus. I studied music in NZ and we were taught how to play and read Koto music, as well as Gamelan music. Our university had an entire classroom full of Kotos, and a complete Gamelan set, authentically made in Indonesia, enough for about 20 people to play at once.
>Common-practice theory as taught at most universities is based on Schenkerian analysis Schenkerian analysis is just one tool used, its not the be-all end-all musical analysis tool used by all universities/colleges. It doesn't matter what the ideologies of the person that made the system were, if you think it matters, you're looking too far into it.
>Schenker considered his musical and political ideas to be inseparable Thankfully he was completely wrong - music can always be separated from political ideas - especially at the level of Schenkerian analysis where all extraneous things like lyrics and passing notes are removed to show the bare harmonic basics of a piece. Without lyrics, music struggles to be political at all. You can reference specific marches or pieces to attempt being political, but if the listener doesn't know the specific piece being referenced, they will just hear the music, and not the political connotations.
If you want to talk about music theory, you're in the right place. If you want to talk about white supremacy and Sup Forums - tier shit, you want Sup Forums
Christopher Richardson
Stop being racist. OP is right. Eurocentric music education is a key transmission vector for white supremacy and we need to fight. I have nothing against European classical music as music. But it's time to stop teaching it as if it's in any way superior to or more fundamental than any other musical tradition. Otherwise we're giving intellectual and cultural validation to those assholes with the swastika flags. Schenkerian analysis is white supremacist. Schenker created it for that specific purpose. And while the academy might not be actively promoting Schenker's white supremacist agenda, they aren't exactly resisting it either. The classical training I've had has always made me feel vaguely uncomfortable with its superiority complex. I think that also explains declining enrollment in music class - kids smell toxic whiteness. I certainly did. I didn't find out Schenker's racial views until I researched them for myself. I never heard about them in a music class. Even at NYU. You can't graduate from NYU without a lot of archaic tonal theory, whereas you can be perfectly ignorant of e.g. the blues. Pretty fucking sickening
David Morales
Jew?
Isaiah Young
Irrelevant. Address the point.
Kevin Reed
>blatant racebaiting to make something seem like a problem >buy my good/service, that'll make things right! 200% Jewish
Ian Scott
>tfw western music is intrinsically alt-right
Austin Rogers
Shit this is written by the same guy >Ethan Hein h3h3?
Austin Rodriguez
this jew also said "Hip-hop consistently shows the most musical creativity of any popular genre and is also usually more interesting than most “art” music."
Ian Gonzalez
Unless you regard propaganda and advertisements as art, which they are, and vice versa.
Oliver Robinson
sound like a basic Sup Forums or r/music pleb
Grayson Myers
A thought experiment: consider the very real hardships faced by our hypothetical ugly, fat, bald white man. Now ask, would this person’s situation be made harder or easier if we transformed him into an ugly, fat, bald white woman? Or an ugly, fat, bald black man? Or an ugly, fat, bald black woman? White male privilege doesn’t mean that everything is easy, and nor does it mean that whiteness or maleness are the only forms of privilege. It just means that, everything else being equal, there are fewer social obstacles facing white people, men, and in particular, white men.
Jose Reyes
>Depends which academy or institution you go to. If you study in china or the Pacific you will see a lot of Asian and pacific instruments and concepts in the syllabus. >I studied music in NZ and we were taught how to play and read Koto music, as well as Gamelan music. Our university had an entire classroom full of Kotos, and a complete Gamelan set, authentically made in Indonesia, enough for about 20 people to play at once. This is not the same as systematic, academic European art music. We have mandatory folk music modules here in Europe too.
Caleb James
"beta" men definitely face more social obstacles than women
Jace Watson
Despite this being a confirmed troll, I'd actually love to see a music theory of hiphop or groove music. Treading new territory in armchair thinking always gets my brain hard.
Ethan White
You can easily explain hip hop with western music theory, but it is perhaps far more easier to describe using the concepts and language of sonology rather than tonal concepts.
Logan Gonzalez
I mean the creation new concepts involving drums, rhythms, and timbre. Different types of rhythms could be said to go with different timbres or evoke certain emotions. Something like that.
Matthew Ross
>Different types of rhythms could be said to go with different timbres or evoke certain emotions. That is, excuse my terminology *retarded*.
Oliver Thompson
that's another reason why I fux with debussy
Joseph Morales
Christ this guy is literally a Sup Forums meme personified
His twitter timeline is just him retweeting jewish people and everything they say is about 'white supremacy' or about giving transition hormones to little kids or whatever the fuck
Gabriel Carter
You're a faggot
Hudson Wright
>muh white people :(((( every time this happens I turn more racist
Ryan Cook
I like the toad picture you posted, I'll agree with you.
Grayson Anderson
Well, yeah. If it's something from before 1999, there's a pretty high chance it won't conforme to our moral standards of today.
Brayden Jenkins
Debussy was a white supremacist though
Caleb Martinez
Fuck off back to tumblr you cuck
Jason Parker
nice trips
Aiden Young
This is somewhat true, if stated unfairly for the sake of getting responses. But a lot of music academia did try to enforce a single mindset that could easily be tied to a sense of white or straight superiority; stuff like claiming Syncopation had a negative effect on the mind or hiding evidence of a composer's homosexuality. However, this actually is a lot more back and forth than most like to put it. For instance, America's music was designed to be definitively un-European in an attempt to define itself. This lead American composers to look to things like African rhythmic structures and Irish Folk when forming the foundation of American music styles.
Ethan Sullivan
Thanks for actually arguing against the OP instead of just shitposting like all these Sup Forumstards.
Joseph Edwards
>Jazz >Not using advanced music theory Shiggy diggy
Dylan Morales
sweet dubs, bruh :^)
Xavier Lewis
>The focus on common practice music in theory pedagogy Wesern "music theory" is the Western Art Music tradition as much as the music is. I don't see the problem with Western Art Music schools focusing on Western Art Music and I suspect the only problem you see with it is that you hate white people.
If you want to learn about pop music there are plenty of schools now that will allow you to focus on that in one way or another. If you want to learn Indian Classical Music, go to India. What is the problem even supposed to be here?
Lucas Hughes
this is the thinking which has left art devoid of any sincerity or effort toward the creation focusing on the interpretation to make up for their lack of talent, you suck
Ayden Lewis
>This is not the same as systematic, academic European art music Western people study western music. What's the big deal? Westerners can't deal with scales that have more than 12 notes anyway, so they just stick with the simple stuff they know and understand.
Luis Sanders
Want to talk about "simple"? No culture that uses more than 12 tones even has the concept of modulation or equal temperament.
Jayden Cooper
There is literally nothing wrong with racism.
Thomas Howard
good, white supremacy should spread in western countries
