Musical notation branded 'colonialist' by Oxford professor hoping to 'decolonise' the curriculum

Documents reveal that faculty member has proposed reforms to address 'white hegemony' in music courses

Musical notation has been branded "colonialist" by Oxford professor hoping to reform their courses to focus less on white European culture, The Telegraph can reveal.  
Musical notation has been branded "colonialist" by Oxford professor hoping to reform their courses to focus less on white European culture, The Telegraph can reveal.   Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty 

Musical notation has been branded "colonialist" by an Oxford professor hoping to reform their courses to focus less on white European culture, The Telegraph can reveal.

Academics are deconstructing the university's music offering after facing pressure to "decolonise" the curriculum following the Black Lives Matter protests.

The Telegraph has seen proposals for changes to undergraduate courses, which question the current curriculum's "complicity in white supremacy".

Professors said the classical repertoire taught at Oxford, which spans works by Mozart and Beethoven, focuses too much on "white European music from the slave period".

The documents reveal that a faculty member, who decide on courses that form the music degree, have proposed reforms to address this "white hegemony", including rethinking the study of musical notation because it is a "colonialist representational system".

Teaching notation which has not "shaken off its connection to its colonial past" would be a "slap in the face" for some students, documents state, and music-writing studies have been earmarked for rebranding to be more inclusive.

Academics have also proposed that musical skills such as learning to play the keyboard or conducting orchestras should no longer be compulsory because the repertoire "structurally centres white European music" which causes "students of colour great distress".

It is also noted that the "vast bulk of tutors for techniques are white men".

 Manuscript score for Missa in Tempore Belli (Mass in time of war), by Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). Budapest, Szechenyi Nemzeti Konyvtar
 Manuscript score for Missa in Tempore Belli (Mass in time of war), by Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). Budapest, Szechenyi Nemzeti Konyvtar Credit: DeAgostini/Getty Images

A faculty checklist devised to tick off student demands notes that hip hop and jazz are on the curriculum at Oxford, providing "non-Eurocentric" topics of study. But professors questioning whether the "structure of our curriculum supports white supremacy" have also highlighted the issue of an "almost all-white faculty" giving "privilege to white musics".

As a proposed change, “special topics” for students to choose from instead would be relabelled as “Introduction to Sociocultural and Historical Studies” to reflect the faculty’s new focus.

Options focussing on French composer Machaut and Schubert's last decade could be changed to focus on “African and African Diasporic Musics”, “Global Musics”, and “Popular Musics” under one proposal.

Another suggestion is that pop music will come into greater focus, allowing students to study mooted events in popular culture including “Dua Lipa’s Record Breaking Livestream” and “Artists Demanding Trump Stop Using Their Songs”.

Following a faculty "away day", staff state in documentation - seen by the Telegraph - that “arising from international Black Lives Matter demonstrations, the Faculty Board proposed making changes to enhance the diversity of the undergraduate curriculum”.

 

Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven (Bonn, 1770 - Vienna, 1827), German composer and pianist. 
Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven (Bonn, 1770 - Vienna, 1827), German composer and pianist.  Credit: DEA / A. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini via Getty

However, the documents reveal there was dissent from some faculty members, with one stating that colleagues focussed on music from before 1900 “are often implicitly accused of being concerned exclusively with music that is 'Western' and 'white'”.

There was also disconnect over the use of the term Western Art Music being used.  It is a modern term intended to be more inclusive than “classical” by recognising other culture’s classical traditions.

The development of Western classical music and its notation predate the establishment of the trade in African slaves, both having their roots in Medieval liturgical music like Greogorian chanting.

Major figures in the development of classical music including JS Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries.

A spokesperson for the University of Oxford said "For the past couple of years, the Faculty of Music has been planning some exciting new elements to our curriculum in consultation with our staff and students, which we will be pleased to publish in the summer once they have University approval. While retaining (and in no way diminishing) our traditional excellence in the critical analysis, history and performance of the broad range of western art music, we are exploring ways to enhance our students' opportunities to study a wider range of non-western and popular music from across the world than is currently on offer, as well as music composition, the psychology and sociology of music, music education, conducting, and much more. We look forward to sharing our curriculum in the coming months."

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