Academics proposed changing the way music notation is taught because it is a “colonialist representational system”, with professors seeking to focus less on white European heritage and culture, according to documents seen by The Telegraph.
The woke educators went on to claim that musical notation itself is a “colonialist representational system” that has “complicity to white supremacy”. The claim is similar to leftist pronouncements in America that mathematics is inherently racist.
The Oxford academics went on to pronounce that teaching the piano or conducting orchestras could cause “students of colour great distress” as the skills involved are closely tied to “white European music”.
Professors at the university said that the classical music which is taught at Oxford, which includes Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert, among others, is too focused on “white European music from the slave period”.
However: “The Associated Press has confirmed with representatives at the university that the music program is not considering” removal of music notation from the curriculum.
For now.
Beam me up Scotty.
We gotta get out of this place.
Sounds like some people don’t want to be in the music program but in the complaining program.
One could argue that music notation which uses Italian in all non symbolic (written) description such as tempo and dynamics is a form of proof of white supremacy as it has been employed everywhere in the civilized world and adopted almost everywhere else. It was never a part of original Eastern, African and Indigenous “music”. It is employed in all diatonic instrumentation. I would like to see the so-called music prof attempt any orchestration without it. He’s proof that the march through the institutions is complete as it seems that no discipline has been spared the nihilism of the Cultural Marxism and identity politics.
Like many kids, I learned to play piano, but, after getting into some classical music, gave it up for guitar in my hippie days. I allowed my understanding of music notation to die out. I did have an ability to play acoustic guitar, but without reading sheet music one is limited to know music “from the head”.
In the last 15 years, I started a project to write Christian hymns for the guitar, following the late John Fahey (he wrote a number of good pieces). But to write many more pieces, one has to know sheet music. I did develop my own personal notation to do this, to play at services, but without relearning standard sheet notation, one cannot share the writing with other guitarists or to have it published.
So the “Western” music notation does that. It allows the composer to learn and master many pieces, and it allows music to be shared with others. This is the stark anti-intellectualism at Oxford. The woke crowd does that at universities.
So … the “scholars” at Oxford have never seen the film The Red Violin? They’ve never seen the utter insanity and destruction caused by Mao’s cultural revolution that HATED all things “Western”?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTxBodxAYAk
So the Oxford FOOLS want to repeat the WORST, most DEADLY mistakes of the past? What passes for “top” scholarship today has become a farce. A very dangerous farce. These people need to be put back in their places before they’re giving us the proletarian salute
They should just read some history, i wonder how they think it ends when the marxist’s take political power? Commissar checks list…music professor, nope can’t use em, to weak to do proper labour, Bang!
Ha! “Read” History. As if. Even the “top” scholars of today … real “top” … people … learn their “History” from Hollywood. Oliver Stone has “educated” them about historical “truth”. So it is films like this The Red Violin which must be used to educate. Can you even IMAGINE the TRUTH of this Mao Cultural Unit Rally ever being taught in ANY of our Universities today? Never. It would be more likely that Google censors the film clip.
They should be thrown out of helicopters over the ocean.
The clip is as close to life as you can get in the coming totalitarianism.
I know that for a fact, for 22 years I lived in society like that.
Walked away some 53 years ago, never in the darkest possible dreams thought that this will happen to the free world.
The North America is in a death spiral, it can be stopped though it will require blood.
The mass media cartel in Canada is full time socialist totalitarian mode.
The daily dose of Wuhan virus statistics makes one sick to the stomach. This is what they called in communist terminology power of repetition, eventually the critical mass of people become zombie like and will accept everything they are told without question.
The rest will oppose, though there is nowhere to go, the media cartel will not publish the truth, they and politicians are mutual admiration society. Those like Trump, what ever you think of him, must be destroyed, if you have noticed that, they are working on it as you read this.
Now they got the pharma and the medical establishment fully in on the scams.
Well, what else is there?
Just change the title – Bachelor of Music in Western Music. The rest can do whatever the hell they want. Bachelor of Music in Hollow Log Drumming? All the more power to you.
Bachelor of Whirled Music, whatever that is.
You’re welcome to try Chinese music sheet. First, you actually needs to learn Chinese.
I’m seeing a pattern here. Anything about western culture that makes other cultures look like backward schmucks is racist and must be banned.
Bingo!
“Professors at the university said that the classical music … is too focused on “white European music from the slave period”.”
Professions such as professorships are also from “the slave period”. And from such white schools as Oxford yet! So why won’t they quit?
But, but, but … hubba, hubba, hubba … RACIST!!!!!
So why won’t they quit?
And give up their seats at the golden tenure hog trough? Are you kidding?
Since slavery still exists in parts of the world, we are still in the ‘Slave Period.’
Because everyone know blacks are too stupid to understand music and mathematics.
On the other hand after you’ve listened to indian(native) music and rapping maybe they are correct.
Or when you encourage the FREEDOM to blend cultural music heritages … you get: Ragtime, Hard-bop Jazz, Blues, Rock&Roll, Gospel, R&B, and yes … even RAP (some of which can be quite poetic … alright, a tiny amount).
One would expect an Oxford student to already understand this
Re: “The Oxford academics went on to pronounce that teaching the piano or conducting orchestras could cause “students of colour great distress” as the skills involved are closely tied to “white European music”.
I believe it’s called the racism of low expectations. From what I’ve seen and read, Chinese students don’t seem to be greatly distressed by learning to read such music. For anyone interested, CBC Radio (yes, that CBC) broadcast in 2009 a very interesting series titled 20 Pieces of Music That Changed the World by Robert Harris. Episode 13 examined Gregorian chant and its influence on all modern European classical music. It’s well worth listening to as are the remaining 19 segments. I’ve linked to the series below. Western sheet music ties directly to this early form of music.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/20-pieces-of-music-that-changed-the-world-robert-harris-1.2992788
I think learning the piano causes ALL students great stress. As a juvenile, I learnt the trumpet; that caused my parents a great stress.
As a 10yo … I learned the clarinet … which caused the neighborhood cats great distress
Many years ago when visiting my mother in suburban Montreal, I went for a walk which took me under the CPR and CN rail tracks in a nice pedestrian underpass. There I encountered a gentleman who was practicing his bagpipes as this was the only place he couldn’t disturb his neighbours (the rail commuters be damned).
Yup. That western music sure causes distress to people of colour. Just ask Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman, and Marian Anderson.
Not to forget Wynton Marsalis in 1984.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Award_for_Best_Instrumental_Soloist(s)_Performance_(with_orchestra)
Tell that to a professional musician who has to play specific pieces in a studio, or orchestra, or has to learn and memorize a piece for live performances.
Time to update it to something that is more logical.
Such as? You’re free with the suggestions, but miserly with solutions.
BTW, is SW an alter ego for our resident dufus troll?
I think you may be right on the identity of the ignorant individual who hides behind the ambivalent moniker. Speaking of racism, during the big band and jazz era, half of the musicians were black and they all read and still read charts which are sheet music notation.
What do you expect. As simply almost everything was invented by white people, those things must be racist.
Vowels are racist because the Greeks (a suredly suntanned and dark-haired, but white, race) took Phoenician script which, like all semitic scripts, contain no vowel symbols. It was the Greeks who created the vowel.
I didn’t know Mozart owned a cotton plantation. I think this idiot should be demoted to junior high music teacher, deep in the hood of Detroit or Chicago. I fear that the madness is only just beginning.
I didn’t know Mozart owned a cotton plantation.
In one scene in Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte, Papageno says:
“Es gift doch schwarze Vögel in der Welt,
warum nicht auch schwarze Menschen.”
(There are black birds in the world, why not also black people.)
Most music teachers are musician wannabes who didn’t quite have what it takes to be a player.
I suggest they remove of the dollar sign or the pound sign from their paycheck, as the whole concept of money is racist.
And when they complain I want to see it in a language and an alphabet not invented by a racist white man.
You know, when Mao’s Red Guard sent intellectuals to spend the rest of their days toiling in the fields … I think he might have been onto something
Fact – Richard Wagner was Hitler’s favorite composer.
Fact – Wagner used sheet music.
Fact – Most of you know and enjoy Wagner’s the Ride of the Valkyries. (beginning of act 3 of Die Walküre). Here is a vid to remind you how much you liked the music when it showed up in Apocalypse Now. https://youtu.be/nZ_zNUmr8fM
Fact – You and Hitler like the same music, making sheet music, making all of us who enjoy any written music, as clearly being complicit in white supremacy.
Fact- If you’ve actually listened to the ENTIRE ring cycle…well damn.
To put things in proper context, in the opening of Act 3, die Walküre are gathering up the bodies of slain warriors.
And, yes, I have listened to the entire Der Ring Des Nibelungen…… several times.
By the way, in that clip from Apocalypse Now, watch for the future Gunny Hartman as a helicopter pilot.
You mentioned the magic flute above. It’s my favorite, Mozart always is, but lately I’ve been falling into Mr. Green’s operas. (That and just Pavorotti, saw a documentary and listen to his ‘best of’ when I’m driving).
It strikes me that there is little of artistically or architecturally extraordinary coming from this society. The effort is being spent on deconstruction and ‘decolonization’. That’s the problem with the new religions, pyramids must be built of skulls and careers. All sin and no redemption.
The next renaissance is going to be a thing to see, I’ll be long, long, gone but I’ll go out hoping.
The next Renaissance will be led by the Great Lord Himself.
Afraid so. We are hurtling faster and faster toward a REAL Apocalypse… now. And I’m no escatologist
“White Supremacy”
They spelled “Civilized Superiority” wrong.
+++
🙂
The program needs more flexibility. Why waste time and money distressing people for no reason? Those expecting an classical musical education should get it, and those demanding something less challenging can attend classes in whatever other crap makes them comfortable. I believe it involves creating “sick beatz”.
They can also get a minor in deejaying and wiring their car for bass.
Isn’t any “music program” that anybody “enrolls in” therefore from a colonialist representational system”?
“Nothing like a good book burnin!”
Liberals
Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert, among others, is too focused on “white European music from the slave period”.
Well then …. how about flogging the hollow log drumming by Oomba Bibi and his Baboon Blues Band with Rhino Horn … you know … from the slave period.
Where can I get my music degree? I can scream kiyiyiyi kiyiyiyi while beating a regular 180 beats a minute on a big drum. Do I get a D.Mus. for mastering 100% of Cree music?
They say the only hope for Classical music is in China where millions are learning the piano and other Western instruments. I’ve never thought drum beating circles to be worth the listen. Sorry Dick, I can’t dance to it.
Yes, and the Roman alphabet is quite clearly imperialist. Abolish that too while we’re at it.