#112

I’m up for that. We could go back to another interesting paper linked above:

Ethan analyzes blues from the common practice harmonic perspective. But I like to analyze blues from the perspective of Indian classical music. I think of blues as the North American raga. Elements of a raga include:

  1. a pitch collection (scale)
  2. characteristic melodic motifs for navigating the pitch collection
  3. characteristic intonations for certain notes in the pitch collection
  4. characteristic lyrical motifs
  5. characteristic rhythms
  6. the general feeling or mood that the raga gives

The list doesn’t include harmony because ICM doesn’t use harmony. But we could add harmony to the list for the blues raga.

Indian musicians think of a raga as almost a living entity that emerges when you perform the raga. Something like the genie that manifests out of Alladdin’s lamp when you do the trick just right. For the blues, performing any two characteristic elements from that list the right way is sufficient to bring out the blues genie. You don’t need all of them.

Sometimes even one element is enough. For example, the theme song for The Sopranos begins with “Woke up this morning…”. That’s all it takes to raise expectations that the blues raga is about to emerge.

Harmony is the least important element of the blues raga, and only enters the picture decades after the blues is already a living raga. The first people to harmonize the 12-bar blues were urban professional musicians in the late teens/early 1920s. They were competent in multiple styles of music, and many were college educated.

They would have been competent in the vernacular harmony of ragtime, and the more sophisticated ones also would have known Debussy, Ravel, Bartok, etc. In other words, they already had models for modal and non-functional harmony, and models for harmonizing folk music. They used this raw material to build a blues vernacular harmony.

So here I think I disagree with Ethan than blues harmony is something new or inherently organic to the blues. It was borrowed from other pre-existing music and adapted. I also disagree that “blues tonality” or the blues scale is the primary factor that makes music a blues. I think any of the blues raga elements, rendered with sufficient conviction and blues authenticity, can bring the blues genie out of the bottle.

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#113

My assertions about the early legal bases for slavery in Maryland are the common interpretation among historians of the period. It’s not even controversial. The fact that someone may have reiterated this take on a far-right web page to score an unrelated point doesn’t change that, and I object to being smeared by association (not by you; by the poster above). Anyone who wants cites to the standard sources please feel free to DM me. Let’s stick to music here.

#114

cool, i’ll politely bow out then :pray: feel free to stick-to/proceed-from your word here:

#116

I’d love some references about the non-universality of maths! I’m involved with a project about Ancient Greek mathematics and it’s super difficult to think about maths outside of the contemporary frame…

#117

The Carl Schachter paper you linked to includes a remarkable quote. He describes Schenker’s belief that in a society, there is a

hierarchical distinction between average people and the gifted elite (and, especially in Germany, the geniuses) that more or less mirrors the distinction between the German people and the rest of humanity… Schenker believed that an aristocracy of some sort—at least in cultural matters if not also in political structure—would promote the selection and support of gifted individuals among whom the rare genius might emerge. That he was altogether wrong in this last view, I’m not prepared to say (p. 8).

That sums up my hostility toward the Schenkerian mindset in a nutshell.

It’s hard to separate America’s racial and class issues. Still, I do believe there’s something uniquely harmful to the racial politics of music education that have downstream effects beyond the academy. Musicians judge themselves against the standards set by cultural authorities, rightly or wrongly. I know many excellent rap, dance and pop artists who say they “aren’t real musicians” because they don’t have classical training. I have friends who talk about “quitting music” and then, in the next breath, tell me about the joyful amateur music they make at home or in their community.

Conversely, people far removed from the music academy use its cultural prestige to support political arguments. Donald Trump literally said “We write symphonies” in Warsaw as proof of the innate superiority of Western civilization. (Who is the “we” in that sentence?)

When you teach kids to see white culture as more intrinsically valid, you also teach them to see black people as less than fully human. Those kids grow up to be prosecutors who indict black defendants and drop charges against white ones, or doctors who dismiss black patients’ claims of being in pain, or cops who shoot unarmed black suspects, or hiring managers who pass over black candidates for jobs, or real estate agents who don’t show houses to black families in certain neighborhoods.

Overt, KKK-style racism is socially unacceptable, yet institutional racism persists. The only good explanation for this is unconscious and systemic bias. Cultural authorities have the power to inculcate that bias, which also gives them a responsibility to actively fight it.

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#118

You know, this makes me think of the times I’ve seen the phrase “classically trained” in non-classical musicians’ bios. I’ve often wondered what that is supposed to mean. In the absence of a performance degree on a classical instrument, I assume it means at some point in their life they had lessons (and that they can also read classical notation?).

But it’s curious to me that it’s supposed to be noteworthy in the description of a non-classical musician. What is that supposed to convey - I presume special skills, training, or knowledge…?

(Apologies in advance to anyone who has that phrase in their bio!)

As someone who teaches music theory (to high schoolers, not college), I have A LOT of thoughts that I’ll try to type up…when I’m done with the day’s work of teaching music theory :slight_smile:

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#119

It’s a big logical leap from seeing classical music as the standard for musicianship, and seeing black people as less than human. Is there no space for being a classical music snob and also being anti-racist? What utility is there in indicting people who teach classical theory as supporting white supremacy? It inflames emotions and solves nothing at all.

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#120

You’re arguing against a straw man here. The point is that there are deep but often unconscious biases. Neely isn’t making the argument that classical musicians see black people as less than human. Like you, I would have a problem with his argument if that were his point! But it is not.

Indeed, structural white supremacy only requires those in power to do nothing to change existing power structures. This is more subtle - and insidious - than explicitly considering black people as less than human. A system that sees classical music as the standard for musicianship implicitly supports structural racism and white supremacy: if that is the standard, then the music that comes out of POC traditions is inherently less than that standard and hence inferior.

Again, I believe you are arguing against a straw man. Nobody is saying that we need to indict those who teach classical theory. Neely goes out of his way to point out the utility of classical theory! That theory absolutely should continue to be taught. The point, rather, is that classical theory should not be considered the paramount theory, and that we should consider other traditions and theories as equally valid. This was @zebra’s point:

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#121

Yes I think we’re still walking @ElectricaNada through the video in the OP that they haven’t watched, and who as a result is centering the whole discussion around themselves.

Yes that is awful, and betrays such a small idea of what music can be.

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#122

I read “classically trained” as a not-very-subtle euphemism for “real musician.” And hey, classical musicians deserve to have a bit of an attitude! That music is hard, and they have to put in an incredible lot of hours. But I also sometimes sense resentment there, like, “I spent all that time in the practice room, and I’m not being properly rewarded for it because people seem to prefer other kinds of music.”

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#123

In the context of the United States, “highbrow” (classical, European) has historically coded as white, and “lowbrow” (beat-driven, vernacular) has historically coded as black. The terms highbrow and lowbrow are racist terms themselves, referring to the supposedly larger prefrontal lobes of white people compared to the low, sloping foreheads of the “lesser” races. I have a dissertation folder full of quotes from classical musicologists making racist statements if you want them.

It is certainly possible to be an anti-racist classical music lover. Philip Ewell is an anti-racist classical cellist who has spent years teaching Schenkerian analysis! But the idea that classical music is the standard for musicianship is a historically white supremacist one in the US. Ewell is full of suggestions for doing better: for example, by discussing European “art” music as one legitimate tradition among many, and by describing Beethoven as a good composer rather than a sublime and universal genius.

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#124

i never thought comprehensively about it, and although i’m inclined to agree with you, when i’ve seen it, i always thought “classical training” was also an admission to the fact that the person might be less-versed in any newer forms of ‘improvised’ music, since, although so many western-classical composers were amazing at improvising, studying their music doesn’t necessarily lend itself to understanding how to improvise right away. not to be misunderstood: classical training can enhance improvisation, but a person must make a conscious choice to take that theoretical training in that direction.

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#125

The main thing that’s present in jazz harmony that wasn’t prefigured in European classical tradition is the blues. You could concisely define jazz theory as a reconciliation between late Romantic/early modern classical and the blues (along with later additions of concepts from Hindustani classical tradition and elsewhere.)

Also, the 1970s were a long time ago in American cultural history. Jazz has been an “art” music for many many decades.

As to the argument that Ewell neglects class, it’s true that he doesn’t stress it very hard. But if asked, he would certainly not deny its importance. As a critical race theorist, Ewell thinks intersectionally. Racial and class oppression are mutually reinforcing. The US has such an enormous racial wealth gap that it’s reasonable to assume racial oppression to have a substantial class basis as well.

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#127

In a society riven by race and class division, it’s a trivial task to identify inequalities. For example, we could apply Ewell’s argument to statistics. We could observe that Francis Galton was a eugenicist, and that most stats textbooks are written by white people and don’t address non-European ways of counting. But what does this accomplish?

In most of these cases, a deeper dive reveals that race is epiphenomenal to class. Think about who benefits when we all fixate on racial inequalities while ignoring class inequalities.

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#128

I am not sure what position you are arguing against, but the points you’re making aren’t salient to the issues raised in Neely’s video, nor are they salient to the wider discussion of how to create a more diverse music theory. If you are claiming that racial issues in statistics are not significant and thus we should not focus on racial issues in music theory (?), then… uh, I don’t know how to respond to that. In general the arguments you’re making (“well if you are upset about inequality in THIS area, what about this completely different area?” and “stop talking about race, you are fixated on race”) are textbook right-wing talking points and I don’t want to go down that path. Thus, it is best for me to disengage from this conversation instead of responding further.

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#129

It really is strange that you keep talking about straw men… Neely addresses the relationship between race and class in the video.

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#130

The way Classical music is positioned/upheld is racist, and I think everyone in this thread is speaking to this in depth already.

Another interesting avenue of discussion could be how musical terms/ideas --> turn into metaphors for understanding abstract ideas or processes.

One example is “harmony” (Obvs it’s a musical term, but “social harmony” also means something…and people build bridges between the two ideas. Everything/everyone in their place (fire alarms should go off at this idea), everything working as it should, in a pleasant way, la la la) Another one is the composer/performer hierarchy/relationship that builds the metaphor for an industrial work environment.

In classical music there is usually a composer, that delivers his fully-formed ideas into the hands of the musicians that are expected to play it as faithfully as possible. Maybe with a little 'tude, but not too much!

If a person has never experienced a wonderful aesthetic moment from an improvised set, for example, they wouldn’t think it could be achieved that way. They’d attribute all great works to a single mind and people as mechanisms to carry out that “vision”. It’s easy to see how this could bleed into their other beliefs, like how a work place should be organized. I think these metaphors are why people have such a crazy amount of adulation for Elon Musk.

So while sounds in of themselves aren’t encoded with ideologies like little Easter eggs, humans attribute meaning to things…including sounds. Within classical music exist the ideas of: development, progress, even scarcity (the idea of virtuosity…invented to sell tickets at a higher price.)

And I think it’s these metaphors that help us navigate ideas and experiences in the world, especially if they are new (you have to draw on some context to figure out what’s going on) or if there’s some risk involved.

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#131

I didn’t finish the video; he lost me pretty early on. I’m responding to Ewell.

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#132

You just did go down that path. Don’t smear me with that. The arguments I’ve been raising in this thread come straight from Adolf Reed, Barbara Fields, Toure Reed, Cornel West, etc.: Racial identity politics is a dead end. The ruling elite in North America have been using race to divide us for three centuries. Ewell seems oblivious that the issue even exists.

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#133

Yes agreed. It’s interesting seeing these concepts travel into computer music sometimes. In some places you get “laptop orchestras”, complete with a conductor, and people working on their laptops to realise a composer’s vision as accurately as possible. Is this the avant garde?

I love Ursula Franklin’s “real world of technology” on this. In her terms the orchestra is a prescriptive technology, of control and compliance. That doesn’t mean that the instrumentalists aren’t enjoying themselves, and making some great music together… Watching someone crafting something from scratch is a different thing, though.

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