On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone

By Philip Ewell,

Book cover of On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone

Book description

Since its inception in the mid-twentieth century, American music theory has been framed and taught almost exclusively by white men. As a result, whiteness and maleness are woven into the fabric of the field, and BIPOC music theorists face enormous hurdles due to their racial identities. In On Music Theory,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The disciplines of musical scholarship (music theory, music history, and music education) are rooted in ideas and value-sets that were determined in the 18th-early 20th centuries by individuals who were profoundly racist and classist.

As a result, today’s musicians learn how to think about music in ways that are deeply at odds with modern understandings of who musicians are, who listeners are, and how music communicates. Ewell dismantles these ideological barriers to understanding and points the way to new systems of understanding music – and each other – that will make tomorrow’s musical world better, richer, more inclusive, and a…

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