JASON HUXTABLE
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Jason Huxtable is a percussionist and educator based in Birmingham, UK. His performing career spans leading festivals across Pop/Rock (Glastonbury), Jazz (Cheltenham Jazz) and Classical (BBC Proms) genres. He has appeared as soloist with leading orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
As an educator he has taught students of all ages and stages including delivery of masterclasses and presentations at over sixty universities across four continents. He is currently Senior Lecturer of Popular Music Performance at Leeds Arts University and is visiting tutor of drums/percussion at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, University of Leeds and University of Oxford. Jason is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and honorary member of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (HonRBC) for success in the music industry since graduation. |
Privileged Language/Privileged Space:
‘Music Theory’ as Racist Code in Higher Education Entry Requirements
‘Music Theory’ as Racist Code in Higher Education Entry Requirements
Is Music Theory Racist? As contemporary debates rage around the epistemic and cultural powers associated with the analytical tools of the European ‘tradition’, how has Music Theory been deployed as an exclusive and excluding measure of musical aptitude within the context of Higher Education entry requirements? To what extent are Higher Education institutions racially discriminatory through insistence on this narrow epistemological tool? Within this provocation I will suggest that the prevalence of requirements for formal Music Theory apptitude represent powerful linguistic apparatus for proliferating privileged, elitist, White spaces.
Music Theory is a language, one only attainable by those who have access to specific forms of cultural capital. Entry requirements associated with Music Theory are thus instrumental in filtering entry to benefit the most ‘literate’; those that speak only the ‘right’ language. I aim to identify the mechanism of exclusivity implied by these entry requirements. Drawing upon Tagg’s (2012) model of ‘Musical communication in a socio-economic framework’ I argue that Music Theory requirements result in severe marginalisation of aspirant young musicians who inevitably must experience the ‘codal incompetence’ of existing outside this linguistic sanctum; a linguistic barrier to access.
Through this linguistic socio-economic investigation, and in consideration of the intersectionality between race and capital, Music Theory can be viewed as racist language, deployed by institutions to re-create the status-quo of White dominance veiled by the ‘objective’ cloak of neoliberal meritocracy. As correspondences between the ‘quality’ of institutions and relative demands for capital-dependent modes of language become clear, Music Theory and its ‘speakers’, are increasingly bestowed epistemic ascension, fixing hierarchies in favour of this elitist code of knowing.
This necessarily provokes action and reflection. Within the session’s discussion I hope to explore the following questions with MDG members? What ethical responsibility do anti-racist educators within a Higher Education context have in challenging the status quo within their own institutions and how can a broader, more inclusive and equitable measure of musical aptitude and potential be promoted? What are the barriers music educators face in promoting alternative entry requirements and what steps have colloquium participants taken to modify learning cultures which may validate, and be validated by, excluding epistemology?
Music Theory is a language, one only attainable by those who have access to specific forms of cultural capital. Entry requirements associated with Music Theory are thus instrumental in filtering entry to benefit the most ‘literate’; those that speak only the ‘right’ language. I aim to identify the mechanism of exclusivity implied by these entry requirements. Drawing upon Tagg’s (2012) model of ‘Musical communication in a socio-economic framework’ I argue that Music Theory requirements result in severe marginalisation of aspirant young musicians who inevitably must experience the ‘codal incompetence’ of existing outside this linguistic sanctum; a linguistic barrier to access.
Through this linguistic socio-economic investigation, and in consideration of the intersectionality between race and capital, Music Theory can be viewed as racist language, deployed by institutions to re-create the status-quo of White dominance veiled by the ‘objective’ cloak of neoliberal meritocracy. As correspondences between the ‘quality’ of institutions and relative demands for capital-dependent modes of language become clear, Music Theory and its ‘speakers’, are increasingly bestowed epistemic ascension, fixing hierarchies in favour of this elitist code of knowing.
This necessarily provokes action and reflection. Within the session’s discussion I hope to explore the following questions with MDG members? What ethical responsibility do anti-racist educators within a Higher Education context have in challenging the status quo within their own institutions and how can a broader, more inclusive and equitable measure of musical aptitude and potential be promoted? What are the barriers music educators face in promoting alternative entry requirements and what steps have colloquium participants taken to modify learning cultures which may validate, and be validated by, excluding epistemology?
