In this episode, we talk about structural inequities in two music academies: higher education and the popular recording industry. We start by sharing some of our own experiences as graduate students in music theory, such as being the only woman in a classroom and never having a female music theory professor. We both discuss the impact of the 2019 plenary session (featuring Philip Ewell, Ellie Hisama, Joseph Straus, and Yayoi Everett) on our individual journeys, and how they affected music theory writ large. This podcast is, in large part, dedicated to continuing this anti-racist and intersectional-feminist scholarship in a public-facing way.
To ground our claims in fact, we consult demographic statistics from the Society of Music Theory (2023) and the American Musicological Society (2017). We’ll let you listen to the full report and draw your own conclusions. (Hint: to no one’s surprise, music theory is very white, very male, very straight… but that isn’t the whole story…)
We’ve also compiled data from similar structures of power in the recording academy, namely the Grammy’s and the Country Music Awards. (Hint: to potentially your surprise, a lot of the same racial and gendered hierarchies are still in play…but that isn’t the whole story…)
This episode provides foundational materials which we build upon in Episode 2 focusing on specific case studies in each academy. Tune in next time to hear about Florence Price and Beyoncé—or don’t, but that’s your loss! 💅
~K&K
LINKS Ellie Hisama, "Getting to Count," Spectrum 43.2, Fall 2021, pp. 349-63. Philip Ewell, "Music Theory's White Racial Frame," Spectrum 43.2, Fall 2021, pp. 324-29. Megan Lavengood, "Journal of Schenkerian Studies: Proving The Point," blog post, July 27,
Justin London, "A Bevy of Biases," Music Theory Online 28.1, March 2022. Cora Palfy and Eric Gilson, "The Hidden Curriculum in the Music Theory Classroom,"
Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy 32, 2018.
John Covach, "Popular Music in the Theory Classroom," in The Routledge Companion to
Music Theory Pedagogy, ed. Leigh VanHandel (Routledge, 2020), pp. 331-339. Justin London, "What Should an Undergraduate Music Theory Curriculum Teach? (And,
Alas, What Most of the Time We Don’t)," in The Routledge Companion to Music Theory
Pedagogy, ed. Leigh VanHandel (Routledge, 2020), pp. 424-32. "SMT Demographics," Society for Music Theory, 2023. "AMS Demographic Information," American Musicological Society, 2017. Marc Lafrance, Casey Scheibling, Lori Burns, and Jean Durr, "Race, Gender, and the
Billboard Top-40 Charts Between 1997-2007," Popular Music and Society 41.5, 2018,
pp. 522-538. Jada Watson, "Gender on the Billboard Hot Country Songs Chart, 1996-2016," Popular
Music and Society 42.5, 2019, pp. 538-560. Nicholas Shea et al., "Diversity in Corpus Studies," Music Theory Online 30.1, February
Chelsea Burns, "The Racial Limitations of Country-Soul Crossover in Bobby Womack’s BW
Goes C&W, 1976," Journal of Popular Music Studies 32.2, 2020, pp.112-27.
Episode Song Credits:
Intro/Outro Music: Florence Price, "Dream Ships" (1941), piano accompaniment from All Things Piano.
Brain Break Music: Beyoncé, "TEXAS HOLD 'EM" (2024).
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