Music Theory and White Supremacy [video] | Hacker News Reader

Music Theory and White Supremacy [video]

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4 pointskbob7 comments

I have a music theory book from India that has English translations after every paragraph. It never once says "Indian Music Theory" even though so much of it doesn't connect well with "Western Music Theory." It just says "Music Theory." I suspect the same is true for Chinese, Japanese, etc. since their music theory would also be different than for the West. It just seems unlikely that any culture will refer to it as "something other than Western music theory," and will just call it "music theory" with an apparent audience in mind.

One thing I thought was interesting is that the book states unequivocally that classical guitars are not appropriate instruments for "professional music," and are even inferior because they are "out of tune" all the time and cannot be played in any particular key. Is this Indian Supremacy at work? It could come across that way, but really they are speaking to a specific group of musicians that simply aren't playing Western music.

Whenever the book refers to guitar in a positive way, it is always the steel string slide guitar played on the lap, since they are capable of hitting the "right" notes and accommodating the "correct" techniques.

When did focusing on one's own culture become "white supremacy"? How often is this standard, this demand for cosmopolitanism, applied to other cultures?

The comments are - surprisingly - on topic and cogent!

They suggest that you and I need to watch the video, where your question will be answered.

It appears to boil down to how "music theory" is described, vs. what it actually does.

One comment: "As an outsider to music theory, this is kinda mind blowing. I assumed that music theory was like linguistics but for music. A field of study that attempts to explain the structure of all types of music from around the world. Now music theory seems to be more like teaching Spanish and then saying you know everything about all the languages."

That is, what's called "music theory" should be called something like "Western Classical Music theory" (as one commentor says it done in South Africa).

Another writes: "As I commented on that 12tone video, this really reminds me of freshman seminar discussions of the literary canon, and efforts in the 60s-80s to open it up. It would seem that music in the academy is going through a lot of the uphevals that other humanities disciplines went through in the last century. "

> That is, what's called "music theory" should be called something like "Western Classical Music theory" (as one commentor says it done in South Africa).

In Italy, Italian restaurants are just called "restaurants".

So Music Theory doesn't differ much from how History or Geography or Literature are taught all over the world. I agree that when speaking to a global audience, some clarification would be nice, but that's a very low bar to call it "white supremacist".

The comparison with literary canon is apt. The one I was exposed to in school was composed in great part of works that are completely unknown to English-speaking audiences. Yet we didn't feel the need to call ourselves supremacist for focusing our studies on our own culture.

I don't understand why you write that it "doesn't differ much from how History or Geography or Literature are taught all over the world"

The history courses I took in school in the US weren't called "history", except maybe in elementary school. In high school I took "World History" (8th grade), "American History" (11th), and "European History" (12th).

In elementary school geography I remember doing reports on Iceland and Ecuador. My college geography course also wasn't limited to geography, though it focused more concepts like Chisholm's hinterland theory and orographic rainfall. I also remember learning about using mapping of extant fruit trees on one of the Caribbean islands to infer the locations of vanished homesteads.

I didn't take a literature course. My high school English course readings included Zora Neale Hurston and Chinua Achebe, which was part of the then-trend of moving away from a dead white male western european focus.

So if "Music Theory" has that name, but excludes music theory for other musical traditions, then it seems unlike the three fields you listed, based on my own experience.

Amusingly, https://www.italiarail.com/food/italian-restaurant-names-ita... says that "A “restaurant” in Italy is more upscale and pricier than a trattoria or pizzeria, with a menu that often isn’t limited to typical Italian food."

Your US experience differs from my non-US one, at least regarding how courses are named. Even when they focused on, or dealt exclusively with, our corner of the world, they were called just "History" or "Geography".

Though I didn't mean to imply the rest of the world wasn't covered in them, but it was covered in far less detail. As ksaj noted, in other countries, Music Theory also has a local focus. The only difference is those countries don't feel a need to represent the whole world, or guilt when they don't.

And trattoria just means something like "small restaurant", so it would again need an "Italian" prefix to distinguish it from other kinds. But since it's in Italy, and with an Italian name, they don't feel the need to do that. And while restaurants (often) aren't limited to typical Italian food, their menus would often earn them the label of "Italian restaurant" outside of Italy.

Sure, but you wrote "all over the world".

What culture do you come from? I have a hard time thinking that past primary school a history course is simply called "History".

Are you actually responding to the video? If so, could you explain what points you are responding to?

Or are you responding to my half-baked interpretations of YouTube comments? Because if so, it seems like a waste of your time and mine.

FWIW, "white guilt" seems more often used to silence white support of non-whites than be an accurate description.

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