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It finally happened! Now it's the turn of classical music to be the new politically incorrect content! 😂

posted 3 years ago by kukuxu (5409)
53 replies | jump to latest

It's not only about movies. The University of Oxford considers that classical music is a symbol of white supremacy and it's taking away from music curriculums.

I guess they'll replace it with hip-hop.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9410665/University-Oxford-considers-scrapping-sheet-music-colonial.html

• Professors set to reform music courses to move away from the classic repertoire
• Staff argued curriculum focuses on 'white European music from slave period'
• It is thought that music writing will also be reformed to be more inclusive

Soon in your Beethoven CDs!! It's gonna be fun when tracks start with a warning about classical music toxicity and lack of inclusivity! 😂

[–] Stratego (29365) 3 years ago

Yes, because we all know Mozart was a plantation owner from Vienna with hundreds of African slaves...

[–] BullSchmidt (3189) 3 years ago

This one blows my mind:

It claimed that teaching musical notation had 'not shaken off its connection to its colonial past' and would be 'a slap in the face' to some students.

Teaching musical notation? I was a pretty good musician in my younger days. I haven't done much with it in a long time, and there's some things I've forgotten, but I've been racking my brain thinking of musical terms -- quarter note, half step, crescendo, sharp, fermata, tempo, et cetera. I can't think of anything that could be remotely construed as racist by any sane person. It makes as much sense as claiming that arithmetic symbols like + and = are somehow a part of "white supremacy."

Of course, some can find offense in anything. I remember a few years ago some public figure caught hell for using the word "niggardly," a word meaning ungenerous and whose etymology has nothing to do with race or skin color, merely because it sounds like the N-word.

[–] OratiaGlake (1234) 3 years ago

🤦🏼‍♀️

[–] AndyKing1967 (34430) 3 years ago

“It makes as much sense as claiming that arithmetic symbols like + and = are somehow a part of white supremacy."

Don’t give them any ideas 🤫

[–] TexasJack (12515) 3 years ago

The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so

https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf

[–] AndyKing1967 (34430) 3 years ago

Oh good grief.

[–] BullSchmidt (3189) 3 years ago

I'd believe anything from these clowns. Next we'll hear that punctuation is sexist because "period" is also a word for menstruation.

[–] brodee (467) 3 years ago

I have to say, it's pretty obvious what the complaint is... but the problem is that modern musical notation has its roots in white European culture. [sarcasm] It's similar to complaining about how all the famous people in history are white, George Washington should be rewritten as a black man and Ben Franklin should be Hispanic and we should teach our children this nonsense rather than the truth.[/sarcasm]

If the class was teaching obsolete japanese musical notation using western music I'd say there is a problem, they could teach obsolete african musical notation using african songs if they want, or obsolete mayan musical notation. The problem is White European Musical Notation won the battle of the best standard and so when teaching White European Musical Notation you have a bunch of White European songs to pull from.

[–] BullSchmidt (3189) 3 years ago

Yeah, it's obvious. Their real complaint is that anything that's white, European (or from a culture with European roots), and traditional is bad.

I remember from a music class, long ago, that there have been musical systems with other than the 12 half-step scale. I've long since forgotten the details, it was decades ago. With those systems a different method of notation is necessary. But as far as I know, performances and compositions with those systems is the rare exception today, even in countries with radically different cultures.

Furthermore, using a common notation system means a performer can play a composition by a musician even if they don't speak the same language. Even though Mozart almost certainly spoke no English, I and five other non-German speaking singers can perform "Leck mich im Arsch" -- and unless I tell them, they'll have no idea they're singing, "Lick me in the ass."[*] But we can still sing it, and the audience probably won't know either.

Claiming that a musical notation system should be altered or dumped because it's a product of white European culture is just stupid. I'll take those who make such claims seriously if and only if they stop using the English language; after all, it's a product of white European culture too.

[*] Yes, Mozart really wrote this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leck_mich_im_Arsch

https://dme.mozarteum.at/DME/nma/nma_cont.php?vsep=93&gen=edition&l=1&p1=11

[–] plusplus (467) 3 years ago

LOL, what we get to hear today (and what they teach) is a relatively recent standard - Set in 1939 - in London.
Beethoven composed with a¹ at around 455 Hz and they are talking about a notation based on 440 Hz.

[–] blue1981 (6618) 3 years ago

In other words some idiot at a University exposed themselves as a racist by attacking classical music simply because it was created by white men.

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

Figures, just as I am appreciating more and more the complexity and seriousness of classical music. I think this demonstrates yet another failure of capitalism. That is that the new music is not selling, and no one listens to it for more than a season - most of it is not worth listening to. So, they have to use the colleges and schools to give it a luster and patina the new music can't deserve on its own.

Roll over Beethoven!

[–] Stratego (29365) 3 years ago

Lol, you're so ridiculous!😂

[–] chilone (17329) 3 years ago

Well at least he (surprisingly) didn't agree with it.

[–] Stratego (29365) 3 years ago

True, that's new.

[–] BullSchmidt (3189) 3 years ago

Not all rock music is weak, and not all rock musicians are inept. Had Beethoven been born 175 years later he would have been smashing guitars right alongside Pete Townshend.

[–] AndyKing1967 (34430) 3 years ago

Or possibly doing keyboard duels with Rick Wakeman.

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

New Music != Rock Music

[–] brodee (467) 3 years ago

Not even the new music that calls itself Rock is actually Rock.

[–] BullSchmidt (3189) 3 years ago

Relative to Beethoven, The Who is new. But yeah, a lot of the recent stuff is just shit. I'm more into classic rock myself, but I've grown weary of a lot of that. I'm not talking about some songs like Jack and Diane, which I never liked -- a little ditty about two American kids I don't give a rat's ass about. I'm talking about the songs I used to like but I've now heard so many thousands of times I don't care to listen to them anymore. I used to be a big Who fan, and went to a couple of their concerts. But now, if I hear Won't Get Fooled Again on my car radio, I'm likely to do something I would have considered unthinkable in my younger years, flip the dial and hunt for Johnny Cash.

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

I was a Who fan, though mainly my favorite groups were Jethro Tull, The Guess Who.

The problem I see with all the music I grew up listening to was that the lyrics downgraded pretty much all of it. The reason classical music is classic is that it is not overloaded with a bunch of stupid lyrics that date it in time and space to make it non-universal. Classical music, most classical music is serious, real music, and without lyrics, it is pure mathematical and emotional sound patterns, and often if there are lyrics it is some kind of religious or spiritual level.

And it is not just the music, but the artists are so quick to sell themselves. All groups are commercial, selling T-shirts, mugs, all kinds of garbage ... and we the public fall for it.

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 3 years ago

Wanting to buy something I like = "falling for it"

Oh, Capitalism! You sneaky rascal!

[–] brux (14666) 3 years ago

So ... is Thus Spake Zarathustra by Richard Strauss classical music?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJK3eUP5Hvg

I've always liked this version.
What would Richard Strauss think of Eumir Deodato?

[–] sslssg (28623) 3 years ago

I don't understand how being more inclusive means that they stop teaching something that is the backbone of western music. I'm also all for the inclusion of learning all about all types of music from all over the world. In fact I would have loved that when I was doing my music major, but we all know the second they start teaching Asian, or African music theory that the school would end up being accused of cultural appropriation. You and I don't agree on much, but this is ridiculous.

[–] trevorh321 (5495) 3 years ago

China and Russia must be pinching themselves.

[–] Quasimodo (16388) 3 years ago

They're just sitting back with big bowls of rusks / spicy gluten and watching what's left of the "Free World" as it circles the drain.

[–] kukuxu (5409) 3 years ago

They're more scared that you think. If wokeness spreads, it can reach (and destroy) them too. Japanese social fabric was heavily hit by the feminist wave, and the country hasn't recovered yet.