Over the summer, with the BLM protests raging, my fellow music educators were doing a lot of soul-searching about the more problematic items in the traditional repertoire. The conversation inevitably turned toward “The Star-Spangled Banner,” with some questions about its appropriateness as a national anthem. Francis Scott Key owned slaves, and the third verse of …
Tag Archives: politics
This Is America
If you’re the kind of person who reads my blog, then by now you’ve probably seen the video for Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.” If you haven’t seen it, watch now. Be warned that it’s upsetting. Donald Glover, a.k.a. Childish Gambino, is best known as a comedian, a writer, and an actor. He’s an intelligent …
Artistic citizenship in the age of Trump
Public-facing note taking for Philosophy of Music Education with David Elliott This week I’m reading about the social and ethical responsibilities of artists generally, and musicians and music educators in particular. That topic is especially relevant at the moment. Before we get to the moral philosophy aspect, let’s talk about this performance. Why is it so good? Movies …
Coping strategies
Some thoughts gathered from Twitter this morning: Inspired by Harry Belafonte, we’re reading this Langston Hughes poem in class right now. And listening to the Hamilton Mixtape. The mood in the Park Slope Food Coop this morning was like a New Orleans funeral–multiethnic people talking about genocide to a soundtrack of funky jazz.
Émile Durkheim – Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
Note-taking for Learning of Culture with Lisa Stulberg This week, we read another cornerstone of the sociology canon: Émile Durkheim on where religion comes from. The book is very much a product of its time, with continual and annoying references to “primitive” religions and peoples. No question that Durkheim’s methodology doesn’t pass contemporary muster. But his theoretical insights are …
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John Dewey on music education as experience
If I’m going to understand progressive philosophies of education, then I need to understand John Dewey. So here we go. Dewey is a progressive hero. He was a supporter of women’s suffrage, a founding member of the NAACP, and was ahead of his time on the importance of multiculturalism. Contrary to what I had always assumed, he did not invent the …
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Rockism
As a kid, I liked everything: rock, hip-hop, classical, jazz, pop, dance, country, whatever. In my teenage years, however, I succumbed to the pressures of a racist society and turned into a devout rockist. I dutifully renounced pop, disco, techno, even hip-hop, anything that was “inauthentic.” I swallowed the rockist dogma that grants legitimacy to …
Toward a better music curriculum
I love music grad school and am finding it extremely valuable, except for one part: the music theory requirement. In order to get my degree, I have to attain mastery of Western tonal harmony of the common practice era. I am not happy about it. This requirement requires a lot mastery of a lot of …
Graceland
I recently saw Under African Skies, the documentary about Paul Simon’s Graceland, and it was spellbinding. The music is so beautiful, the politics are so agonizing. I watched it with my mom and sister, which is appropriate since Graceland was in heavy rotation through my childhood. Mom isn’t a big pop scholar and knew next …
Sampling and semiotic democracy
Thomas Wuil Joo. A Contrarian View of Copyright: Hip-Hop, Sampling, and Semiotic Democracy. 44 CONN. L. REV. — (2012) As both a fan and a producer of sample-based music, I’m naturally sympathetic to Lawrence Lessig and the free-culture movement, a group of legal scholars advocating reforms to copyright law that would make it easier to …