Why Music Theory Has a Whiteness Problem

Why Music Theory Has a Whiteness Problem

The first time I heard the term "white supremacist music theory," I thought someone was joking. Music theory is just chords and scales, right? A neutral language for describing how sounds work. But Philip Ewell, a music theorist at Hunter College, spent years inside the discipline, and what he saw wasn't neutral at all.

In his 2022 book On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone, Ewell makes a case that is both simple and devastating: American music theory, as it has been taught and practiced since the mid twentieth century, is built by white men, for white men, and about white men. The result is a field that treats European classical music as universal and everything else as a deviation (Ewell, 2022). The book has already been cited 76 times, but it deserves a wider audience. Because if Ewell is right, then millions of students have been taught a version of music that is not just incomplete, but actively exclusionary.

This is not an abstract academic debate. It affects who gets to compose, who gets to teach, and whose music gets called "sophisticated." And it starts with a question that most music theorists never ask: Why is the canon the canon?

The 19th Century German Men Who Built the Rules

How a Handful of White Europeans Became "Music"

Here is a fact that should be obvious but rarely gets stated: The music theory taught in American universities is almost entirely derived from the works of a small group of 19th century German and Austrian composers and theorists. Heinrich Schenker, Arnold Schoenberg, Hugo Riemann. These men wrote the textbooks. They defined the terms. And their framework treats the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms as the natural peak of musical evolution.

Ewell (2022) shows that this is not a neutral choice. It is a cultural choice dressed up as a scientific one. When a professor says "this chord progression is correct," they are not describing a universal truth. They are describing a preference for how German composers from 1750 to 1850 handled harmony. Jazz, blues, hip hop, and most non Western music simply do not fit into this framework. So they get labeled as "primitive," "simple," or "outside the rules."

The problem is not that Western classical music exists. The problem is that it got treated as the only valid form of musical logic.

The Textbook Problem

Ewell (2022) conducted a systematic analysis of the most commonly used music theory textbooks in American universities. What he found was a pattern of omission and distortion. The textbooks present the "common practice period" (roughly 1600 to 1900) as the core of musical knowledge. Within that period, they focus almost exclusively on white European men. Women composers are rare. Composers of color are nearly absent. And when non Western music is mentioned, it is often described in terms of what it lacks compared to the European tradition.

The textbooks also reinforce a racial hierarchy by the way they talk about musical development. European music is described as "evolving" and "progressing." Other traditions are described as "static" or "primitive." This is not just an aesthetic judgment. It is a racial one, rooted in 19th century theories of cultural evolution that ranked white Europeans at the top.

The People Who Are Left Out

BIPOC Music Theorists Face an Invisible Wall

Ewell (2022) does not just analyze textbooks. He also writes from personal experience. He describes the isolation of being one of the few Black music theorists in a field that is overwhelmingly white. The numbers back him up. According to data from the Society for Music Theory, the field is about 85% white and 65% male. People of color, especially Black scholars, are severely underrepresented.

But the problem is not just numbers. It is the culture. Ewell (2022) describes how BIPOC scholars who study music outside the European tradition often have to fight for their work to be taken seriously. Their research gets dismissed as "not really music theory." They are told to study something "more rigorous." They face microaggressions and outright hostility.

The result is that many talented scholars leave the field. And the ones who stay often have to suppress their own musical backgrounds to succeed. Ewell (2022) argues that this is not accidental. It is a feature of a system that was designed to exclude.

The Schenkerian Controversy

One of the most explosive sections of Ewell's book deals with the controversy surrounding the Journal of Schenkerian Studies at the University of North Texas. In 2020, the journal published a volume that included a response to Ewell's earlier work. The response was widely criticized as racist and dismissive. Ewell (2022) gives his side of the story for the first time in print.

The details are messy, but the core issue is simple. Heinrich Schenker, the founder of Schenkerian analysis, was an Austrian Jew who wrote explicitly racist and nationalist views about German superiority in music. He believed that only German music had true "depth." Ewell (2022) argues that this racist foundation has never been properly confronted by the field. Instead, Schenker's analytical methods are taught as if they are pure technique, divorced from their ideological origins.

This is not about canceling Schenker. It is about recognizing that his ideas come from a specific time and place, and that treating them as universal is a form of intellectual colonialism.

Antiracism in Music Theory

What Would Change If We Took Race Seriously?

Ewell (2022) does not just diagnose the problem. He offers a path forward. He calls for an explicitly antiracist approach to music theory. This does not mean throwing out Beethoven. It means expanding the canon, questioning the assumptions, and making room for multiple musical logics.

Here is what that looks like in practice:

• ▸Stop teaching European harmony as the only correct way to organize sound. Present it as one tradition among many.
• ▸Include composers of color, women composers, and non Western traditions as core material, not afterthoughts.
• ▸Teach the history of music theory itself, including its racist and colonial roots.
• ▸Hire more BIPOC faculty and actually support their work.
• ▸Rethink the curriculum from scratch, rather than adding a "diversity unit" at the end.

The Antisemitism Question

Ewell (2022) also addresses a topic that makes many people uncomfortable: the antisemitism of classical music. He notes that many of the foundational figures in music theory, including Schenker, were Jewish. And yet the field has a long history of antisemitic attacks on Jewish musicians and theorists. This is not a contradiction. It is a reminder that racism can be complex and layered.

Ewell (2022) argues that confronting antisemitism is part of the same project as confronting anti Blackness. Both are rooted in the desire to maintain a white, Christian, European ideal of music. Both have caused real harm.

What This Does Not Prove

The Limits of the Argument

Before I go further, I need to be clear about what Ewell's book does not claim. It does not claim that all music theory is worthless. It does not claim that European classical music has no value. It does not claim that every white music theorist is a racist.

What it does claim is that the field has a structural problem. The problem is not individual bad actors. It is the system itself. The textbooks, the hiring practices, the conference panels, the journal review processes. All of these have been shaped by a history of white supremacy, and they continue to reproduce that history unless actively challenged.

There is also an open question about how to change things. Ewell (2022) offers suggestions, but he admits that the field is resistant to change. The Society for Music Theory has made some efforts at diversity and inclusion, but progress has been slow. Some scholars argue that the problem is deeper than Ewell describes, that music theory as a discipline is fundamentally flawed. Others argue that the problem is not as bad as he says, that things are getting better on their own.

Ewell (2022) would probably say that the data does not support the optimists. The numbers are stubbornly white. The curriculum is stubbornly European. The field is stubbornly male.

Why This Matters Beyond Academia

Music Theory Shapes What We Hear

This might seem like an insider academic squabble. But it matters for everyone who listens to music. Because music theory shapes what gets taught in schools, what gets performed in concert halls, and what gets called "serious" or "important."

When a music critic says that a hip hop beat is "simple," they are using a framework that was designed to make hip hop sound simple. When a composition professor tells a student that their chord progression "doesn't work," they are applying rules that were written for a different kind of music. When a music streaming algorithm recommends "classical" but not "folk," it is reflecting a hierarchy that was built by white supremacists.

Ewell (2022) is not asking us to stop enjoying Beethoven. He is asking us to recognize that Beethoven is not the only way to be musical. And he is asking us to ask why we thought he was in the first place.

The Students Who Are Silenced

The most heartbreaking part of Ewell's book is not the theory. It is the stories. He describes students who come to music theory classes with a deep love of music from their own cultures, only to be told that their music is not "theoretical" enough. He describes Black students who are made to feel like they do not belong. He describes the slow erosion of confidence that happens when you are constantly told that your musical instincts are wrong.

These students do not just drop out of music theory. They drop out of music. They stop composing. They stop performing. They stop believing that their voice matters. And the field loses what they could have contributed.

What This Actually Means

• ▸If you teach music theory, audit your syllabus. Count how many composers are white men. Count how many are not. Ask yourself whether that ratio reflects musical quality or cultural bias.
• ▸If you are a student, know that the rules you are learning are not universal. They are cultural. You can learn them without believing they are the only truth.
• ▸If you are a composer, stop worrying about whether your music "follows the rules." Make music that sounds right to you. The rules were written by people who looked like each other and thought like each other. You do not have to join their club.
• ▸If you are a listener, ask yourself why you think some music is "more sophisticated" than others. The answer might have more to do with race than with sound.
• ▸If you are an administrator, hire BIPOC faculty. Give them tenure. Let them change the curriculum. Do not make them fight for every inch of ground.

The music theory that most of us learned is not a neutral description of how music works. It is a specific tradition, with a specific history, and a specific set of exclusions. The question is not whether we should abandon it. The question is whether we are brave enough to expand it.