Decolonising Music Theory
Throughout my own music education, one system, one set of rules has been taught as the default framework to understand music: ‘the harmonic style of 18th Century European Musicians’. This is perhaps a more realistic way of understanding the term ‘music theory’, to musician Adam Neely.
In the seven most used theory textbooks in the US in 2021, just 49/2930 musical examples were written by non-whites. In the UK in secondary school, we study so called ‘world music’, such as Indonesian Gamelan and West African drumming, but it is relegated to ethnomusicology, is othered, its complexities are reduced and is never granted the same intellectual weight as western harmony. It begs the question, why are these rich, diverse traditions which have evolved over centuries positioned as secondary to European canon, as opposed to being seen as equally valid ways of understanding music? It turns out the answer is heavily institutionalised, and its history is deeply tied to race.
These questions first came into mainstream prominence following the publication of Professor Phil Ewell’s article entitled Music Theory’s White Racial Frame (2021), which opens with the bold statement, ‘Music Theory is white’. Ewell remarks that 84% of the membership of the Society of Music theory, 90% of its employees and 94% of its professors are white. Ewell goes on to explain what the white racial frame is in this context. That is, the belief that the music and music theories of white persons (specifically of German-speaking 18th/19th Century whites) is the best framework for music theory, and the belief that it is inappropriate to tie music theory to race in any way. In the US context, Ewell highlights Heinrich Schenker, a name so pervasive in music theory (almost all music schools in the US study Schenkerian analysis) and a man who talked of “inferior races”, the “animal” Japanese, “Slavic-Half Breeds” and with inequality of races, came inequality of tones/pitch classes. He disparaged the music of blacks the most, calling black spiritual music a “dishonest appropriation of European Music”.
The article sparked outrage, and played into the culture war narrative, with FOX news commenting, the article screamed of ‘cancel culture run amok’. The Journal of Schenkerian Studies published a 90 page response, often dismissive, condescending, and even at some points containing responses that were 'anonymous', one even accused Ewell of anti-semitism. It was argued Schenker’s comments had no relation to his theoretical output, but Schenker himself argued that the superiority of white people, and their superior ‘music theory’ was intrinsically interconnected.
Such legitimised understandings of music have consequences for musical worlds. As Iranian composer Farya Faraji posits, the western understanding of ‘Arabic’ music, especially in the context of Hollywood is an Orientalist one. Almost all Hollywood films set in the middle east, utilise an instrument, “the duduk”. This deeply expressive double-reed woodwind instrument is everywhere in Hollywood, to invoke a middle eastern, even Moroccan “vibe”, but it is an instrument specific to the Armenian highlands, 6000 km away from Morocco. Some even use Indian tablas and dhols (drums) with an Orientalist orchestration of the ‘other’. As Faraji suggests, it is like an English person trying to speak Persian and utilising Hindi, Urdu, and Armenian words all together. It simply doesn't make sense. Middle Eastern music is founded on its complex and varied modes (over 70), with expression, ornamentations and microtones being prevalent. All of this is lost in Hollywood representation. Regarding scale, composers instead focus just on one, the double harmonic major (or its Phrygian mode) to a fetishised degree. One aspect of this is the fact that our digital tools i.e. DAWS such as Ableton, drum machines and synths are fundamentally grounded in the same western lens. That is, the equal division of time, and pitch, where microtonality and micro-tunings are lost. Musician and Researcher, Kayam Allami created two browser-based tools of ‘meaningful design’ (software sensitive to cultures), leimma and apotome (accessible on isartum.net) which allows anyone to play with microtonal systems in a generative environment. A frustration in a lack of expression were finally realised by Allami, which otherwise would have to be found through complex hacks and workarounds.
In 2021, the Royal Academy of Music ‘reassessed’ their collections to remove artefacts which were tied to colonial histories, such as pianos made from colonial ivory, and portraits of Handel, who had ties to the slave trade. It is great that the academy is re-examining the past, but their inability to update their current curriculum speaks volumes. Rough parallels can be made between world systems, and can be easy for us to understand with some thought. Indian teachers of Raga often use Western concepts to better contextualise their teachings such as using scales to better understand thaats. So why can’t we do the same in the West? What if our music theory textbooks used such concepts as Thaats or Maquamat to conceptualise our western theory, to provide a holistic and well-rounded music education? Our current system of teaching of such cultures as ‘other’ mystifies them and reduces centuries of complexity. If music is a universal language of humanity as many claim, the foundations should be treated as such. Equally and all-encompassing of the diversity of human experience. It is not to introduce completely novel systems retrospectively, but to introduce systems alongside one another, in equality. It’s possible, and I believe, the way forward for music education.
