When discussing how music and education intersects with race, gender and culture, I find that we are often pretty quick to apply reductionist labels to the idea or concept. For example, phrases I have come across too often include “That’s a boy’s song,” or “Choral Music is an inherently white art form,” or “sight reading is a European value in Music Education.”
If we label these things based on their past origins, are we sending unintentional signals to students about who is welcome NOW?
Now, it’s possible I spend too much time reading through comment threads in Facebook groups, but it raises the issue of the unintended consequences for students and educators when they see or hear such blatant essentialism, though often well intended. In the latest addition to my Choral Music: A Human Art Form thread, Theron Jenkins and I discuss this issue in hopes of bringing some alternative discourses to light for the purpose of making choral music more accessible and inviting to people from every background. After all, Choral Music does not inherently have a race, nor is group singing European. Music is INHERENTLY human. From all to all.
- Literacy has value that transcends culture, and does not replace culture
- Removing standards for honor choirs doesn’t help students
- A well rounded music education can’t achieve all things for all people. Teachers must pick and choose with finite resources.
- Representation matters!
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William Southerland says
This piece is dangerous and reinforces the need for better understandings of race and culture within the choral conducting profession.
No music can be “raceless.” Music is a cultural practice. Culture intersects with race, and therefore music becomes inherently racialized. There is no way to separate these intersections.
Group singing always reflects the culture of the people musicking — making it, writing it, performing it, etc. “Choral music” as performed in the United States is derived directly from Western European musicking practices. “Literacy” as described in this podcast means Western European notation literacy. Both of these traditions developed in societies which intentionally marginalized and excluded people of color from positions of power.
If choral music was inherently “raceless,” then singers would be comfortable singing any literature in any context. But they aren’t. We know this because of the continuing disparities in enrollment in both K-12 and university settings. Most choral music spaces don’t reflect the racial diversity of American society.
I’m very glad that many choral conductors, choral programs, and chorus organizations are making explicit efforts to highlight the contributions and talents of people of color through repertoire selection, leadership decisions, and performance practices.
But let’s not gaslight people into thinking the problem isn’t there. That will just make the problem worse. “Color blindness” is racism. There’s no other word for it.
Chris Munce says
Mr. Sutherland,
Thanks for the feedback. We see this differently. I wonder if you listened to the episode? To your points. You seem to be using race and culture as proxy for each other. I wouldn’t. We do however agree on your second to last point. I am also glad that choirs are making explicit attempts to diversify programs, representation etc. But it is my personal view that race essentialism is racism. “Color blindness” can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. We did not use that term or advocate for anything like that in this episode. Calling the piece “dangerous” is hyperbole.
William Southerland says
Thanks for the reply, Chris. I didn’t suggest race and culture were proxies for each other. I said specifically that race and culture intersected. I really try to choose my words carefully. So, let me explain a bit more about how that intersection invalidates the possibility of “raceless-ness.”
Every cultural practice in the post-colonial world, but ESPECIALLY in the United States, is racially inflected because we live in a racist society. As a professor at an HBCU, I see this in the writing of my students every day. Every semester, I have numerous students who argue that rap and hip/hop are Black music forms which they enjoy, whereas pop and country are “white” and therefore uninteresting.
Is this argument essentialist? Yes. Is essentialism ever “correct?” No. Descriptions of populations, whether groups of people or music genres, can never predict the characteristics of an individual. Rap music isn’t any more “Black” than any other form of music, and there are plenty of white musicians making and performing rap music.
But recognizing genre theory as inadequate that doesn’t change the way the world around us works actually works today.
I appreciate what the podcast is trying to do. The goal here is to reinforce the idea that people of all backgrounds are welcome in choral music spaces, that choral musicians themselves are diverse and represent a wide range of backgrounds. But that ignores the fact that the vast majority of composers, conductors, professors, and music teachers are white, and recent research suggests that children recognize choral music classes as culturally and racially inflected as early as fifth grade.
[Pineda, H. E. (2017). Influence of gender, choral membership, and ethnicity on students’ attitudes toward singing and choral participation in the urban, upper-elementary school chorus Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston University.]
As long as the people making choral music identify as having a race, then the cultural production of those people will be racially-inflected. People in a racist society interact with cultural production in racialized ways. This isn’t essentialism, it’s the reality of inherent bias. A fish in the ocean can’t avoid the water. A person in a racist society is affected *at all times* by the influences of race.
The only way to combat racism is to explicitly acknowledge and call out the way in which race in a racist society affects everyone every day in everything that they do. Choral musicians included.
I’d recommend for further reading the fantastic essay by Lorin Kajikawa about the omnipresence of white supremacy in school so music, it touches on several of these ideas WAY better than I can discuss them.
[Kajikawa, L. (2019). The Possessive Investment in Classical Music: Confronting Legacies of White Supremacy in U.S. Schools and Departments of Music. In K. W. Crenshaw, L. C. Harries, D. M. HoSang, & G. Lipsitz (Eds.), Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness Across the Disciplines. University of California Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uncg/detail.action?docID=5609526%5D
Chris Munce says
Great thoughts. Thanks. I will take a look. My recommended reading would be Racecraft by Barbara and Carol Fields. This essay is a good place to start. https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/essays/fieldsideolandrace.html The book is a lot, and was written much later in their careers.