5 ms·

Do you view anything hierarchical as racist via associated Whiteness? I'm confused how the origins were an "explicitly racist project". Was Schenker promoting a

Do you view anything hierarchical as racist via associated Whiteness? I'm confused how the origins were an "explicitly racist project". Was Schenker promoting a race that he didn't even belong to? Is it possible to think American culture is superior over other cultures, without thinking that white people are superior to black people?

BlueTemplar 5y ago
It's probably because German Nationalism (especially of that time) was "Ethnic" Nationalism ? Which I have gotten the impression has been distinctly racist even long before the Nazis ?
- zozbot234 5y ago
  It's not like the Germans had any monopoly on casual racism back then - consider the Dreyfus Affair, which occurred at the peak of La Belle Époque France. Of course Germany was where these attitudes had been festering for a long time due to a generally authoritarian social environment (which went hand-in-hand with opposition to bourgeois modernity), and where they were taken to extremes.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    My point was that it's probably not a coincidence that the worst abuses happen in countries that followed "Ethnic" Nationalism rather than Civic (aka Liberal) Nationalism.
giraffe_lady 5y ago
So first off I'm familiar with schenkerian analysis but I am not an expert on schenker the person, though I did at one point read some of his writings in translation to verify Ewell's claims. Nor am I trying to argue, right now, that his works are inherently racist. If you're looking for those things you should just read Ewell, who is a Schenker expert, and is making that argument. > Was Schenker promoting a race that he didn't even belong to? I think this is an error, trying to map our understanding of race onto the past like this. I don't know what race Schenker thought of himself as. He was Jewish, and he consistently asserted the natural superiority of german people and culture. That doesn't cleanly reconcile with any conception of race that I've come across, which indicates to me that those conceptions are not a useful lens here. My goal wasn't to start up the is-schenkerian-analysis-racist-or-not quagmire here. It was to point out that I believe the author of this essay has misunderstood or misrepresented a more nuanced conflict for their own purposes.
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  > I think this is an error, trying to map our understanding of race onto the past like this. Isn't that what Ewell is doing, by declaring that a 19th-century Jew born in modern-day Ukraine is actually a white German? And Ewell isn't a Schenker expert - he focuses on Russian and modern music. He does self describe as: "I am an activist for racial, gender, and social justice in the field of music theory." And he writes stuff like: > Beethoven occupies the place he does because he has been propped up by whiteness and maleness for two hundred years, and we have been told by whiteness and maleness that his greatness has nothing to do with whiteness and maleness, in race-neutral and gender-neutral fashion. Thus music theory’s white-male frame obfuscates race and gender, one of its main goals…. Has there ever been a worthy white/male composer, or have they all been problematic racists because of their demographic information? This guy is, basically, a clown. He, like many social-justice minded people, epitomizes Maslow's hammer. Writing in an academic style or in journals doesn't mean you have anything interesting to say. I did not agree with the author of the original article one bit, but I don't think they did any kind of disservice in their brief take on Ewell's paper(they even linked to it, which is at least a sign of good faith in my opinion).
zozbot234 5y ago
Schenkerian analysis is literally the idea of taking out all the "hierarchically inferior" black notes from a piece of music and showing only a handful of hierarchically dominant, big, important "white notes". Of course this basic idea has nothing to do with modern notions of race, but it turns out that the visual contrast of "colors" describes the idea quite precisely. So I'm quite OK with conceding that one point to Ewell. (It's worth noting the flip side of that argument, too - we literally have historical sources telling us "when you see a composition made of big, white notes, that will sound a lot better if the performer improvises on them melodically on the spot, keeping the overall meter of the white note" (Lorenzo Penna, Li primi albori musicali). And of course, on-the-spot improvisation has been mastered to an unprecedented degree in the modern day by the "black" tradition of Jazz!)

BlueTemplar 5y ago

It's probably because German Nationalism (especially of that time) was "Ethnic" Nationalism ? Which I have gotten the impression has been distinctly racist even long before the Nazis ?

zozbot234 5y ago
It's not like the Germans had any monopoly on casual racism back then - consider the Dreyfus Affair, which occurred at the peak of La Belle Époque France. Of course Germany was where these attitudes had been festering for a long time due to a generally authoritarian social environment (which went hand-in-hand with opposition to bourgeois modernity), and where they were taken to extremes.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  My point was that it's probably not a coincidence that the worst abuses happen in countries that followed "Ethnic" Nationalism rather than Civic (aka Liberal) Nationalism.

giraffe_lady 5y ago

So first off I'm familiar with schenkerian analysis but I am not an expert on schenker the person, though I did at one point read some of his writings in translation to verify Ewell's claims. Nor am I trying to argue, right now, that his works are inherently racist. If you're looking for those things you should just read Ewell, who is a Schenker expert, and is making that argument. > Was Schenker promoting a race that he didn't even belong to? I think this is an error, trying to map our understanding of race onto the past like this. I don't know what race Schenker thought of himself as. He was Jewish, and he consistently asserted the natural superiority of german people and culture. That doesn't cleanly reconcile with any conception of race that I've come across, which indicates to me that those conceptions are not a useful lens here. My goal wasn't to start up the is-schenkerian-analysis-racist-or-not quagmire here. It was to point out that I believe the author of this essay has misunderstood or misrepresented a more nuanced conflict for their own purposes.

oh_sigh 5y ago
> I think this is an error, trying to map our understanding of race onto the past like this. Isn't that what Ewell is doing, by declaring that a 19th-century Jew born in modern-day Ukraine is actually a white German? And Ewell isn't a Schenker expert - he focuses on Russian and modern music. He does self describe as: "I am an activist for racial, gender, and social justice in the field of music theory." And he writes stuff like: > Beethoven occupies the place he does because he has been propped up by whiteness and maleness for two hundred years, and we have been told by whiteness and maleness that his greatness has nothing to do with whiteness and maleness, in race-neutral and gender-neutral fashion. Thus music theory’s white-male frame obfuscates race and gender, one of its main goals…. Has there ever been a worthy white/male composer, or have they all been problematic racists because of their demographic information? This guy is, basically, a clown. He, like many social-justice minded people, epitomizes Maslow's hammer. Writing in an academic style or in journals doesn't mean you have anything interesting to say. I did not agree with the author of the original article one bit, but I don't think they did any kind of disservice in their brief take on Ewell's paper(they even linked to it, which is at least a sign of good faith in my opinion).

zozbot234 5y ago

Schenkerian analysis is literally the idea of taking out all the "hierarchically inferior" black notes from a piece of music and showing only a handful of hierarchically dominant, big, important "white notes". Of course this basic idea has nothing to do with modern notions of race, but it turns out that the visual contrast of "colors" describes the idea quite precisely. So I'm quite OK with conceding that one point to Ewell. (It's worth noting the flip side of that argument, too - we literally have historical sources telling us "when you see a composition made of big, white notes, that will sound a lot better if the performer improvises on them melodically on the spot, keeping the overall meter of the white note" (Lorenzo Penna, Li primi albori musicali). And of course, on-the-spot improvisation has been mastered to an unprecedented degree in the modern day by the "black" tradition of Jazz!)