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America's Popular Music Traditions as "Canon-Fodder"

Popular Music and Society - March 22, 1998

Imagine for a moment that you are an American historian with the usual aspiration of teaching and conducting research in your chosen areas of interest. You quickly discover that this is impossible, however, because at virtually every university history department in the country, 98 percent of the curriculum focuses entirely on the last 500 years of the history of Western Europe's upper classes. Sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? We have only to substitute the words "music" for "history," however, and the above account would be an accurate description of the perspective at American university music departments today, as my recent research shows.

It has been nearly 25 years since one of the last scholars to do so complained that music education was "threaten[ing] to fly up into clouds of elitism" (Blacking, How 3) but so little has changed in the intervening years that we have to wonder whether the problem of elitism in music will simply go on forever. The intransigence of the problem also suggests that, without enlisting broader academic and public opinion, American music education may never be brought into the democratic mainstream and will continue to suffer elicit criticism on grounds of relevance and equity.

The rigid "classical-music-only" orientation has dominated American universities' music department curricula for so long, in fact, that this cultural style is now considered universal and is assumed to be the model for all others. We do not have "Theory of Music in the Elite Western-European Tradition" in the curriculum, we have "Music Theory"; not "Appreciation of Music in the Elite Western-European Tradition," but "Music Appreciation." And because entrenchment has rendered the Western bias invisible, we are rarely even aware of the throttling hold it has on our national musical conscience.

Some portions of this article used with the permission of The Chronicle of Higher Education, which published the author's editorial, "The Monocultural Perspective of Music Education" (The Chronicle of Higher Education 44 [9 Jan. 1998]: A72).

My own research, summarized below, reveals an American music education community almost exclusively preoccupied with music cultures outside the United States and their privileged classes, or with cultures historically subject to the Western powers; and it is possible that the disproportionate focus in ethnomusicology on the music of world regions which have experienced long-term colonialist occupation originally took a form more of exploitation than of enlightened patronage. The research also shows a scholarly music enclave in tragic philosophical disarray, with few among the active ranks who even recognize the depth of the problem.

Trends detailed in my curricular data alone prove that music is a powerful political tool of the elite, not only in my own region--the U.S.-Mexico border--but in the nation as a whole. The Western tradition must now be considered one last bastion of Western colonialism in this hemisphere, a stronghold of the principles of class hierarchy that represents in the public mind the unqualified preeminence of elite Western values in a singularly--even stunningly--diverse society. Hence, it should be expected that any challenges to that power--and the challenges have been frequent and many throughout the history of this struggle--will be met with opposition, disbelief, and hostility. Such recent findings also support the notion that music, far from being an inessential element in the functioning of any social group, is in fact quite central to it.

In an era in which multiculturalism in education is touted as progressive, desirable, and democratic, an enormous range of data indicates that the enduring monocultural perspective in American music education today represents an almost impenetrable educational monopoly. And the links this tradition has had historically with the expansion of the Western powers during the last five hundred years also show that the music has been an indispensable aid in extending Western influence throughout the remainder of the world.

Better defined as that body of musical work originally written by Europeans for consumption by the upper classes dating from roughly the medieval era to the first decades of the twentieth century, the elite Western tradition dominates not only the majority of American university music department course offerings, but the bulk of scholarly articles in leading national music journals as well, and remains the central focus in music programs at American public schools. Even ethnomusicology, lauded as the field of study that would bring universality to the American music academy, has narrowed its perspective to the point that few musical traditions are allowed into its curriculum except those of Asian High Culture or of other regions like Africa and Oceania.

In contrast, the results of my 1995-1997 public opinion survey show that these elite academic perspectives run counter to the wider American public's attitudes about music. Only 12 percent of a representative sample (more than 450) of respondents listed classical music as a preference (4 percent of Hispanics, none of African-Americans, 23 percent of Asian-Americans; and 30 percent of Anglo/European-Americans); while 88 percent (76 percent each of Anglo/European- and African-Americans, 92 percent of Asian-Americans, and 100 percent of Hispanics) said American students would greatly benefit if music from their own heritages were integrated into the classroom. More important, a majority--nearly 82 percent of all respondents, from four ethnic groups and ranging in age from 8 to 64--most preferred American popular forms such as rock, country, rhythm and blues, and related styles, while 51 percent said these styles played a pivotal role in their cultural heritage, indicating these forms hold the greatest significance for a majority of Americans today.

But the elite academic impasse persists, and in Texas, even the law has proven unequal to it. A recent legislative challenge--State Representative Roberto Alonzo's (D-Dallas) 1995 House Bill to establish a Tejano Music Hall of Fame--failed in committee largely because of intense opposition from vested University of Texas and other academic interests. Alonzo introduced the bill by noting the lack of official recognition for Tejano music, adding, "all over the country and the state we have [a variety of other] Halls of Fame, but.., nothing comparable relating to the history and development of the music of Spanish-speaking communities in Texas" (1).

We pay a cost for all of this which is impossible to assess. The failure of both ethnomusicology and musicology to answer the most fundamental questions about the nature of music and its important relationship to human cognitive functioning means that our understanding of ourselves as a species, and our perception of the struggle for identity in a troubled modern America, is woefully incomplete. And whether or not any of this seems important to those working in areas that appear to be more crucial to our sheer physical survival, it must be admitted that we simply do not know yet--because we have not asked--whether a deeper understanding of expressions like music might significantly contribute to the amelioration of our current intractable social predicaments.

Given the enormous resources and power of the elite music advocates, however, it is unlikely that change will occur from within. Today's universities are resistant to real change, and nonmusic scholars are often reluctant to critique colleagues, particularly since administrations frequently align themselves with more advantaged interests. Indeed, the history of the struggle indicates that without unequivocal intervention by sympathetic educators outside music or by student groups less invested in the academic power hierarchy, this cultural imbalance will undoubtedly continue.

Administrative budgetary cutbacks also frequently impact the arts most, in keeping with the Western conceptual model which regards a human expressive form like music as a sideline, a diversion to be enjoyed after the real work is done. But in other cultures, and in less advantaged socioeconomic groups, music is integrated into everyday activity, and as such is less an artistic frill than the important social record of the groups that create it.

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