>Did you watch it? He's not calling music theory itself white supremacist but the current culture that refers to it as "music theory" per se as in "the" music theory opposed to "a" music theory/theory of music
And he is still wrong. Every culture refers to its own music theory (or most any other kind of theory) as THE theory, not "A" theory. That's not because of supermacist tendencies, it's just familiarity and closeness.
It's usually not useful, nor are we get any special benefit from, to take into account 2000 other traditions (even our own past ones, or some niche traditions in our midst) when we talk of the kind of music we do 95% of the time.
It would be like saying "I am hungry - and this is my personal feeling", "This artist is fire - and I say this speaking on behalf of myself alone", "Macaroni and cheese is the best comfort food, for me that is".
A useless and tiresome clarification.
Even more so when everybody else (e.g. every other culture) doesn't reciprocate the same, and speaks of its own stuff as THE stuff.
So, yeah, this is just a fad, and a very US-centric 2010-20x0 at that. No Italian would give two fucks if they refer to regular western music theory as THE music theory.
I think it's pretty blind to teach people that "this is music" rather than "this is how we've done music here and other people over there do it differently." We live in a global civilization now and there's no reason not to reap the benefits or to be exclusionary. Ignoring Indian and Chinese theories today is just sticking your head in the sand and promoting some weird type of conservatism. It'd be like ignoring the non-Western parts of math just because. That's completely irrational.
> Even more so when everybody else (e.g. every other culture) doesn't reciprocate the same, and speaks of its own stuff as THE stuff.
I've never seen this to be true in Indian music discussion. They know Western music too. I can only assume the same is true in China being that America and Europe export so much.
>I think it's pretty blind to teach people that "this is music" rather than "this is how we've done music here and other people over there do it differently." We live in a global civilization now and there's no reason not to reap the benefits or to be exclusionary.
Maybe start american people actually listening to music outside of the US and UK? (And I'm not referring to latin americans listening to latin music).
They're some of the most chauvinistic peoples when it comes to consumption of music, movies, tv series, books, etc.
Then we can worry about some jazz player at Berklee or some high schooler at a school band learning western music theory as "this is music" vs learning about the gamelan or classical indian ragas...
>I've never seen this to be true in Indian music discussion. They know Western music too. I can only assume the same is true in China being that America and Europe export so much.
That's only because they have to play this too, as it has become popular in the 20th century.
Historically however there was no mention or need to mention western music theory though.
>Ignoring Indian and Chinese theories today is just sticking your head in the sand and promoting some weird type of conservatism.
Well, Indian and Chinese theories you're never gonna use in 99% of the music you play in the US, so you might as well ignore it.
The same way Indians are not taught Bluegrass and the Chinese don't study ragas.
Indians and Chinese in India and China do study western music theory, but that's because it has become a global francize and thus they need it (e.g. to play a pop gig). They don't do it in order to merely be inclusive.
I'd reverse the charge, that only westerners (at least some modern ones) think of themselves as some engligtened all-inclusive superset of humanity, that they feel like they should be studying western + Indian + Chinese + whatever music theory, and not just the theories they need as working musicians (plus a la cart study if someone is interested in particular ethnic styles).
Chinese musicians don't feel any great urge to study Indian classical music, and Indian musicians don't particularly care/call for studing Chinese music...
Worse, if western musicians are made to study Indian/Chinese music, and start producing works in said formats, the end result will be the watering down of said musical traditions.
There is Indian and Chinese music, because it's tied to those peoples' history, tradition, artistic development, sentiments, and so on.
Without that, it's just "ethnic fusion" BS - which we shouldn't be encouraging more of...
If a westerner wants to learn that music, they shall go to a special Indian/Chinese music school (preferably in the respective countries), study it with reverance, understand it, live like the peoples who made it do, and so on, until they can actually feel it. Not have someone teach it to them at Berklee and then start producing works based on them....
> Well, Indian and Chinese theories you're never gonna use in 99% of the music you play in the US, so you might as well ignore it.
You don't see how this comes across at least "racist-adjacent"? "Whatever, all that other stuff isn't relevant to what we do here in the US. It isn't worth learning."
That's obviously false. There's been a centuries long tradition of mixing of musical approaches to create great stuff. The most uniquely american musics (blues, jazz, hiphop) all have roots in western african music brought over via slavery. This isn't just "ethnic fusion" but truly deep exploration of the breadth of human music.
And he is still wrong. Every culture refers to its own music theory (or most any other kind of theory) as THE theory, not "A" theory. That's not because of supermacist tendencies, it's just familiarity and closeness.
It's usually not useful, nor are we get any special benefit from, to take into account 2000 other traditions (even our own past ones, or some niche traditions in our midst) when we talk of the kind of music we do 95% of the time.
It would be like saying "I am hungry - and this is my personal feeling", "This artist is fire - and I say this speaking on behalf of myself alone", "Macaroni and cheese is the best comfort food, for me that is".
A useless and tiresome clarification.
Even more so when everybody else (e.g. every other culture) doesn't reciprocate the same, and speaks of its own stuff as THE stuff.
So, yeah, this is just a fad, and a very US-centric 2010-20x0 at that. No Italian would give two fucks if they refer to regular western music theory as THE music theory.