I gained a lot from hearing Ethan speak, and from everyone else too as he naturally opened up discussion in the class.
1970’s Pop As Deep Surrealism
Ethan mentioned a gig he did that paid his groceries for 8 years – he worked for someone who wanted to produce a country rock album but could barely sing or play instruments. So he produced a country rock sounding album that was actually a techno album.
I’m learning a lot about how music and sound is developing as recording and producing has become so high tech. Even the beatles, recording sounds of the cello so close to the strings so that it was bone dry, without any natural reverb in the room. It’s not produced to sound like you’re in front of a band acoustically. Instead, it’s making listeners imagine that the sounds are existing in a physical space that they physically cannot. “We’re all just blaisey about this deep surrealism.”
Teaching Theory to Bedroom Producers
Ethan’s building a music theory class with Ableton, using the arpeggiator (it sounds like a LOT, but I wish him luck). He talked a bit about theory in techno music too:
- Cadences in techno are a full stop, and that’s not useful. Instead we want chords that keep looping.
- Asking about melodies is as relevant as asking Beethoven where the beat is (I’m assuming like, the heavy bass beat here, not just whether a song is in 4/4 or not).
Someone else in the class (Rebecca I think?) asked about teaching music theory to bedroom producers. She’s a piano teacher with her own private studio, and a few of her students have come to her studio specifically asking. And we discussed this idea of when (if at all) to learn music theory.
Makes me think about the concept of teaching the foundations first. Because, what are the foundations of music? In our hypothetical class of 5 year old children, what should we teach them first? Is it:
- Singing folk songs familiar to general American culture, or
- Singing folk songs familiar their own culture (and the cultures of their classmates), or
- How to hold the recorder, or
- The basics of Western european music theory, or
- Creating their own instruments from scratch, or
- Playing piano, or
- Dancing, feeling the music, or
- How to play in an ensemble, or
- The science of sound acoustics, or
- Writing lyrics or rapping, or
- Sampling other’s music, or
- Creating their own music (and this could take so many forms), or
- Something else?
In the past I have tried to narrow down the best musical foundations for a new student to learn. Yet I am realising that that was all based off and underlying assumption: There is only one way to be a musician. And obviously, there isn’t!
In the case of bedroom producers asking to learn theory from Rebecca, I don’t think they’ve necessarily missed out on anything earlier on in their education. Perhaps if someone tried to teach them theory as a 5 year old they would have resisted. Isn’t it cool that they’ve come looking to learn? And as long as people get to love what they do, they’ll always wanna learn more.
I’m not saying foundations aren’t important. I just don’t think I need to always teach them first. Learning isn’t linear.
Who Makes Hip-Hop?
Ethan began his lecture delving into the white rap cover (check out his thoughts here), which we then discussed. Chris O’Thile, a bluegrass mandolin-playing musician, covering Kendrick Lamar’s Alright. I learnt a lot, notably that rappers don’t do covers – they sample (maybe as a homage, or because they like it), but write their own lyrics. Ethan talked about rap originating in communities and then being co-opted by capitalism: it all began improvised, was about expressing oneself and entertaining your community. Sam recommended bell hooks’ cultural criticism and transformation series, where she talks about rap. And Ethan recommended Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop by Joseph Schloss.
Ethan talked about how impressed and jealous he was of a group of young people freestyling together at the start of their concert – they all met because of an initiative called CORE, where people from the community could come and use professional studios when they weren’t in use (James tried to ask Hindson if we could the same with the con). He talks more about it here.
And we discussed rap in the classroom. Ethan’s prediction that JW Pepper is going to be publishing wind band arrangements of Kendrick Lamar, and is that okay? Some of us saying yeah, I guess it is because it introduces this music to these kids in a way that they know how to engage with. (I’d just like to point out the assumption that ‘we’re bringing this music to the kids we teach’, as if no one in a school I teach at already listens to Kendrick Lamar, and likely knows more about his music than I do. Music teachers are far from exclusive bringers of music to children.) And James argued the point that introducing hip-hop through wind band is legitimising it in the canon of Western classical music.
I’m Learning More About Hip-Hop Culture
Ethan told us about the trends he’s witnessed watching classical musicians vs hip hop musicians recording in studios. When recording with Pharrell Williams, you bring all your friends, hang out together for hours, in the last hour you get out your books, and then record in the last 15 minutes.
And then Ethan mentioned hip-hop educator Toni Blackman and the classes she runs on freestyling. She focuses on building confidence and empowering people, through theatre games and many group activities. Her philosophy for these workshops is You’ve been talking all your life [so I don’t need to teach you how to talk], you just need to improv and be comfortable. Looking at her website gives me further insights, on her homepage she’s quoted by Dr. Julius Bailey as someone who recognises that in order to be instructive we must know, but to be effective we must feel. And in her own words, her mission statement: To be a music maker, teacher and healer who uses hip hop to inspire people to go beyond their limitations, to become more articulate, and translate words into action that further personal and professional development and help to create a better world.
This idea of centering the person, focusing on hangout out and empowering and encouraging confidence is not new to me, it’s something myself and others (notably a friend of mine, Catherine) have explored in 2019 in Barbersoc. It’s really cool to learn more about how it’s (I think) ingrained in hip-hop, a context which is totally unfamiliar to me.
Ethan mentioned too about an afterschool program he’d been developing with Brandon Bennett and Roman Britton (he writes about it here). He talked about (in class and in his blog) some of the lyrics the kids wrote – most of them boasting about themselves and making fun of their friends, a few writing heartbreaking lyrics. And he talked about the confidence that these kids had, all passing around the mic at the end of the first class: after a little encouragement, a Haitian kid who doesn’t speak English dropped a verse in French. The eighth graders had a full-fledged rap battle. It’s really cool, shows the participatory culture of rap, and it may not have happened without Brandon and Roman leading the class.
What About In The Classroom?
I think there’s hope in community engagement and collaboration. We as teachers will never be qualified in everything, we just need to listen more.
But as Rachel brought up in class, “What about when you can’t get experts in, you don’t know people, you can’t find resources that don’t whitewash?” Ethan’s answer was “You get the kids to fill in all the gaps.” I love his answer, I think it’s a really powerful tool for teaching a group. Every student comes in with knowledge and experience, and there’s so much to learn just from one another. Children’s own musical cultures – whatever they happen to be.
I Have A Lot To Learn About Race
After class, I began reading more on Ethan’s blog. One of his posts that has made more internet waves is Teaching Whiteness in Music Class. A few things from his post stood out to me in particular:
“A nice person is not someone who creates a lot of disturbance, conflict, controversy, or discomfort. Nice people avoid potentially uncomfortable or upsetting experiences, knowledge, and interactions. We do not point out failures or shortcomings in others but rather emphasize the good, the promise, and the improvement we see. Niceness compels us to reframe potentially disruptive or uncomfortable things in ways that are more soothing, pleasant, and comfortable. This avoidance and reframing are done with the best intentions, and having good intentions is a critical component of niceness. In fact, as long as one means well, the actual impact of one’s behavior, discourse, or action is often meaningless (Castagno, 2014, p. 9).“
I recognise myself in this. As well as:
“To preserve white privilege, it is not necessary to be hateful; passivity and conflict aversion are sufficient.”
I would like to be more disruptive, less willing to play nice and more willing to make change.
He also mentions resistance theorists, and the idea that we should recognise nonparticipation in class as political opposition, rather than apathy or disinterest. When I consider my own education I remember resisting politically by non-participating (a PDHPE teacher of mine who was openly biphobic and discriminatory towards those with mental health problems), it’s peculiar that I’ve never applied that concept to the people I’m teaching. “Resistance in this case redefines the causes and meaning of oppositional behavior by arguing that it has little to do with deviance and learned helplessness, but a great deal to do with moral and political indignation (Giroux, 1983, p. 289).” Sometimes non-engagement is a moral objection.
He talks as well about the three models of disability: deprivation, difference, and culture of disability. Deprivation as the idea that people cannot perform tasks of schooling due to personal traits. Difference as the idea that within a different context, a certain disability is not one at all, perhaps even an ability. And culture of disability, where learning disabilities are categorised by society for political purposes. This last one is interesting, especially when considering learning practices that value precision and excellence (Western classical music, for one). For people to be succeeding, we must have failure to compare it to.
Ethan discusses deficits in other ways, such as the idea that hip hop artists only produce music in that style because they are too deprived to play real music. Which..isn’t true. “You know, everybody went to a school that had a band. You could take an instrument if you wanted to. Courtesy of your public school system, if you wanted to. But, man, you playing the clarinet isn’t gonna be like, BAM! KAH! Ba-BOOM-BOOM KAH! (quoted in Schloss, 2013, pp. 28-29). Similarly, the producer DJ Kool Akiem refutes the equation of rap production techniques with poverty: “Producing takes more money than playin’ a instrument” (quoted in Schloss, 2013, p. 29). We will only accord hip-hop the respect it is due when we understand it as a form of cultural wealth rather than merely an expression of cultural (and financial) poverty.“
And finally, culturally relevant pedagogy. “Culturally relevant pedagogy must provide a way for students to maintain their cultural integrity while succeeding academically” (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p. 476). […] The most difficult task facing educators is not delivery of content, or enforcing behavior standards, it is “making democrats in undemocratic spaces” (Ladson-Billings, 2015, p. 417). Culturally relevant music educators can embrace hip-hop not just as a music, but as a value system as well. Kruse (2016) urges us to ”keep it real” (be authentic), ”flip the script” (do the unexpected and deviate from the norm), “make some noise” (have students produce music actively, rather than just passively consuming it), and ”stay fresh” (continually evolve in the face of change).
What I’ve learnt today (and will keep on learning) speaks to me, there are some ideas here that I’ve grappled with before (treating my students as colleagues who have as much to bring to the table as I do, Western classical music’s culture of exclusionary excellence) that this lecture has put into a larger social context for me. And there’s much more that I’m learning for the first time.
explorationss 