Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Classroom

Description

Directly addressing the underrepresentation of Black composers in core music curricula, Expanding the Canon: Black Composers in the Music Theory Classroom aims to both demonstrate why diversification is badly needed and help faculty expand their teaching with practical, classroom-oriented lesson plans that focus on teaching music theory with music by Black composers. This collection of 21 chapters is loosely arranged to resemble a typical music theory curriculum, with topics progressing from basic to advanced and moving from fundamentals, diatonic harmony, and chromatic harmony to form, popular music, and music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Some chapters focus on segments of the traditional music theory sequence, while others consider a single style or composer. Contributors address both methods to incorporate the music of Black composers into familiar topics, and ways to rethink and expand the purview of the music theory curriculum. A foreword by Philip Ewell and an introductory narrative by Teresa L. Reed describing her experiences as an African American student of music set the volume in wider context. Incorporating a wide range of examples by composers across classical, jazz, and popular genres, this book helps bring the rich and varied body of music by Black composers into the core of music theory pedagogy and offers a vital resource for all faculty teaching music theory and analysis. Cover Half Title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments List of Contributors Foreword Introduction 1 Our Field at Its Best Part One Fundamentals and Diatonic Harmony 2 Rethinking Music Fundamentals: Centering the Contributions of Black Musicians 3 Change from the Middle, Right from the Beginning: Strategies for Incorporating Black Composers in a Music Fundamentals Course 4 Rhiannon Giddens and Francis “Frank” Johnson in the First-Year Theory Classroom 5 From Counterpoint to Small Forms: A Cross-Stylistic Approach to Centering Black Artists in the Theory Core Part Two Chromaticism and Other Advanced Topics 6 Modal Mixture 7 “Elite Syncopations” and “Euphonic Sounds”: Scott Joplin in the Aural Skills Classroom 8 Modulation Part Three Form 9 A Jazz-Specific Lens: Methodological Diversity in the Music Theory Core 10 Of Simple Forms and Firsts: On Francis Johnson and Harry Burleigh 11 A Trio of Art Songs on Texts by Langston Hughes 12 Teaching Sonatas Beyond “Mostly Mozart” Part Four Popular Music 13 Expanding the Scope of Analysis in the Popular Music Classroom 14 Formal Structures and Narrative Design in Janelle Monáe’s The ArchAndroid 15 Diving Deeper into Rhythm and Meter Through Drum Parts in Twenty-First-Century Pop 16 Developing Contemporary Rhythm Skills Through Contemporary R&B 17 Structural Shifts and Identity in Music by Ester Rada Part Five Twentieth-Century Music 18 Inclusivity and the “Perfect Teaching Piece” in the Undergraduate Post-Tonal Classroom 19 Dream Variations: An Analytical Exploration of Florence Price’s “My Dream” 20 Teaching Twentieth-Century Stylistic Pluralism Through the Music of George Walker 21 Teaching Julia Perry’s Homunculus C.F. Index