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The work of developing an anti-racist pedagogy of music is way bigger than just replacing Mozart examples with Joseph Boulogne examples. And it's way bigger than any one of us can do on our own.
But the scale of the problem can be overwhelming, and can lead us to (a) just post articles saying that there is a problem without planning any concrete action or (b) be paralyzed into inaction.
This work is not going to be easy and it's not going to happen fast. But one thing is clear: we will have to collaborate if we want to see real change in our curricula and in our discipline.
To that end: here are several concrete steps you can take today and in the coming weeks to help make a dent in this work.
1. Join the slack channel set up by @Dr_VanHandel: we are sharing resources, discussing curriculum, and brainstorming ways to develop an anti-racist curriculum.
2. Help us build a database of teaching pieces. Do you have examples by composers of color that you already teach? Add them to this spreadsheet (made by @warevolf): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CMnSjvraO1Ho68XUrPpmegBhVmD0pSaQkj17T7MPA6w/edit?usp=sharing (Again: subbing out examples is not The Work, but this is still a much needed resource.)
3. Analyze a work by a composer of color, then add details about this work to the spreadsheet (linked above). There are many places to start; try cross-referencing this list ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:African-American_classical_composers) with IMSLP or your institution's music library.
4. Develop a list of pieces by composers of color for which we have scores and recordings, so that folks who don't know where to start can dive into #3.
5. Make an edition of a piece (that's in the public domain) that you'd like to teach and upload it to IMSLP. Lots of chamber and orchestral works by black composers are available on IMSLP, but only in parts. Or dive into this ready-to-go art song corpus: https://musescore.com/openscore-lieder-corpus/sets.
6. Do you have a decent microphone and an instrument? Bored at home? Make a recording of a good teaching piece that's not recorded. Or reach out to an out-of-work musician and ask them to record an unrecorded gem.
7. Help identify pieces for which we should prioritize making editions and or recordings, so that folks who don't know where to start can do #5 or #6. Develop an edition-making or recording assignment for your students.
8. Dive into the curriculum discussion on our slack channel, or here on facebook. And, critically, share resources. How have you decentered whiteness in your own theory teaching? Post about it. What materials can you share?
9. Identify a topic you'd like to learn more about so you can make it a more integral part of your teaching this fall. Put together a reading group and a bibliography. This summer can you develop a lesson/assignment/unit that you can share?
10. What areas of expertise do you have that could be used to decenter whiteness in the curriculum? Can you develop a sample lesson, assignment, handout, unit, syllabus to help those with different expertise? Can you identify collaborators with overlapping but distinct expertise?
Please post other ideas here for concrete actions that we can take, starting today.
For my part, yesterday I spent some time doing #2 and #3 on this list and I'll continue this work all summer. I'm planning for #9 (I'd like to learn more about analyzing hip hop) and #10 (I write about the complicated ways that notation shapes music history).
None of these steps will solve the problem on their own. But if we don't take concrete steps every single day we are never going to rebuild our curriculum.
And this work is not the responsibility of scholars of color, graduate students, or adjunct faculty. If you are fortunate enough to be in a stable tenured or tenure-track position, or to teach a manageable load, then this work is for you.
I'm excited for the opportunity that's ahead of us, even as I'm overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work we have to do. But this is a chance for us to work together to make something really great.
