“When you learn Music Theory you realize two things, all pop songs sound the same, and the foundation of our musical knowledge is built on centuries old xenophobia and racism.” Those were the first words spoken in my high school music theory class. 

When our class was asked to name classical composers our list consisted of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, and a few others. Our teacher immediately pointed out that not only were all of these composers European, but they are specifically German men. If I asked you to think of any other classical composers could you? 

If you can not, I do not blame you, we were only taught about these composers. But obviously, they were not the only composers at that point in history, so why are we only taught about them?

The root cause of this problem is named Heinrich Schenker, an Austrian music theorist. Schenker has arguably had the biggest impact on American music theory and has dictated how we analyze classical music. In our high school music theory classes, we learn how to break down music to its fundamental roots using Schenker’s theory. But Schenker studied only twelve white male composers, ten being German, a Pole, and an Italian. So the problem boils down to the fact that musicians are only being taught how to analyze music using Schenker’s lens which leads to the exclusion of any classical musician that is not one of the great twelve.

Most educated musicians would agree that I have studied the same music theory as a child in 1923 would have. So if we know the root problem why are we not doing anything to fix it? 

To answer this question we should look to the case of Professor Jackson, a White musicologist at the University of North Texas. Jackson is devoted to teaching Schenker’s studies to his students. Jackson's reasoning for continuing the teachings of Schnecker is that he “was no privileged white man. Rather he was a Jew in prewar Germany, the definition of the persecuted other. The Nazis destroyed much of his work and his wife perished in a concentration camp.” Jackson's argument can be simplified to, because Schenker was a victim of racial discrimination it makes it acceptable to perpetuate his xenophobic and racist ideals. But the problem is that just because a person is a victim of discrimination does not provide them immunity to perpetuating discrimination themselves.

 No matter how you look at Schenker’s studies you can see the blatant xenophobic and racist tendencies that his work is built upon. So when you teach Schenker’s studies and label it as “Music Theory '' as if it is the only correct way to look at music you are perpetuating the same xenophobic and racist tendencies that Schenker did. 

The point of this essay is not to say that we should burn Schenker’s studies and treat them as hazardous nuclear waste. I think that Schenker created a very complex and intriguing way to look at classical European music and that we should study it to understand music from that time period. But I do think that we need to stop teaching Schenker’s studies as “Music Theory” because it is not, it is simply the harmonic study of 16th and 17th century European music. And when we do teach it, we need to preface that this is a concept almost synonymous with xenophobic and racist ideals. We also need to give the spotlight to other composers from that time such as Joseph Bologne, Florence Price, or Scott Joplin because their work is just as complex and magnificent as the European composers. There is so much music that is unexplored, and it is time to look into the past to create the music of the future