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As I’ve gotten farther from school, I’ve realized a lot of music theory curricula have a primary function of enforcing assimilation as a prerequisite to success. Today's thing w/ JSS has had me thinking a lot about Music Theory's role in my own musical journey. (STORY TIME) https://twitter.com/kira_thurman/status/1287354686077575168
My conservatory class was admitted on performance audition. No music theory test up front. Yet, the first week of school we took a theory placement test. Those who didn’t pass had to take up to 6 extra credits—over $5,000 in fees—that couldn’t be counted against scholarship.
This test basically amounted to a kind of tax: gatekeeping to keep away people who don’t prioritize learning the same aspects of music as the academy. The test wasn't about “music”: it was about a handful of specific theories on Classical Form, roman numeral analysis, etc.
Such tests are not about music’s architecture; they’re about Sonata Form. They’re not about harmony; they’re about how to correctly assign a system of roman numerals ill-equipped to analyze anything that isn't from 1750-1840 in western Europe.
Those are good things to know. But they shouldn’t be part of a closed loop that is hostile to any challenge about its own superiority. Mozart and Hayden are great! The problem is to anoint them *at the exclusion of anything else*. https://twitter.com/piesaac/status/1287485921231663105?s=20
This is not sour grapes, by the way: I passed that placement test. I was welcomed in institutions that worked like this from an early age and thus cocooned in learning these skills. I could harmonize bach chorales in my sleep.
In undergrad, I nearly passed the placement test with flying colors—except for cantus firmus harmonization. i.e. the way we think folks in Western Europe layered multiple voices in monastic traditions about a thousand years ago. I was shut out of any other classes for a year.
No composition, jazz, analysis, electronic music, etc for 1 year out of 4. All to take ~3 weeks on cantus firmus in Sept. I pleaded with the professor. No dice. And I took the wrong lesson: If I can’t pursue any of the classes I want, cantus firmus must be *essential* to Music.
Such a narrow and strict practice is pretty obviously not in students’ interest, but I don’t think it’s an accident that such strict rules are common in music theory departments across the country. e.g. Eastman’s theory dept had an absurdly draconian attendance policy.
So I drank the kool aid. At 19, I woulda told you that harmonizing bach chorales is a prerequisite for being good at Music. Music theory egged on my conformity on this point. I didn’t, by the by, really know who Stevie Wonder or John Coltrane were. A year into a degree in Music.
There is no reason it needs to be this way. The econ department doesn’t turn away students who can’t use an abacus. Engineering doesn’t insist you skip electrical engineering until you can solve a rubik’s cube. They know it would impoverish their field.
The skills needed to work in the arts in 2020 are vast. In my career, I’ve held professional orchestra jobs, written commissions for major ensembles, and raised millions of dollars for arts and arts education. These roles have involved more skills than I can name.
You know what they haven’t involved? Lengthy classroom debates about how to spell cadential 6/4. Reproducing ii-V-I on a piano in any key in less than 3 seconds. Harmonizing chorales in the style of Bach. Schenkerian Analysis.
The trick? If you’re in a fancy youth orchestra or go to a private school with AP Music Theory, you learn about Sonata form when you’re 14. No $5,000 remedial classes for you. No repeating sophomore year harmony 201. It’s an extraordinarily expedient gatekeeping.
Add on top of this that music theory has kept a stranglehold on a virtually all white / male curriculum. Any challenge to that notion is rejected as challenging the quality of the curriculum itself—an admission by theorists it's inconceivable that women/poc produce quality work.
So it’s little surprise those who hold the reins of power write things like rt'd below. They control music’s talent pipeline—choking it off at any point with arbitrary assessments often unrelated to a student’s musical goals. And they're biased as hell. https://twitter.com/pmgentry/status/1287208962220265472?s=20
At best, MT helps us understand our craft. I know many brilliant theorists who have helped me understand music more fully & vividly. Many are fighting for a more inclusive academy. Many I was proud to have many as professors. But we gotta talk about MT's hidden curriculum.
And @philewell's plenary from 2019 is absolutely remarkable at this. It challenges these norms in an exceptional way. Where I have anecdotes, he has robust data and scholarship. It is music theory at its very best. Go read it, will you? …https://musictheoryswhiteracialframe.wordpress.com/
