There are many changes that must be made to music education for advancement to happen within both future musicians and music academia. One of the main things that must happen is acknowledging and dismantling the racist framework that music theory is based off of. An example of this is that it should be taught that Heinrich Schenker was a literal nazi. This note alone brings up the discussion of how much music is left out of or is ignored from the canon due to theorists racism and antisemitism. The repercussions of someone’s hatred is still greatly effecting the education of students today, and this needs to be changed. There is so much history and culture that should be integrated into a university music education. As Adam Neely mentions in his video, there is music theory in both European and Indian classical music that is incredibly similar, however the terminology for one would not work for the other. This is incredibly interesting and it should defiantly be discussed in the future. What different cultures consider to be music should also be added to the curriculum. As was also mentioned in Neely’s video, dance is one of the primary factors in classical African music, and some European classical music would not be considered music by those standards. What would be considered good, classical music in different cultures should be a topic that is discussed in the future of music education. As a singer who tends to focus on musical theatre, there is a lot of emphasis put on white men throughout that. There is elitism in the musical theatre industry, with such a focus on what a select view consider “high art”, that benefits those who are already privileged. In the future of music education, there need to be changes made to grow from and acknowledge the racist foundations it was built on, as well as challenge elitism in the field.
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