Black Music, White Halls: Toward a Black American Music Curriculum

Music education philosophy has addressed issues of whiteness and racism in school music by encouraging discussions of race, critiquing Eurocentric musical practices, and identifying instances of institutional racism in higher education. Yet, discussions of epistemologies do not capture the nuance of performing multiple musics or the depths of antiblackness in music education. I begin this philosophical inquiry by critiquing notions of universality in music from Musician and Teacher. Afterwards, I utilize Wilderson’s theory of antiblackness, Afropessimism, to problematize multicentric music curriculums as missing the ways in which Eurocentric musical ideals form in opposition to Black American music. I then propose a transformation of the university school of music curriculum, where the essential Black American music traits of groove, improvisation, and call-response transform what it means to learn music at the collegiate level.