Is Sheet Music Inherently Racist?

Photo by Weston MacKinnon on Unsplash

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, the University of Oxford is considering reforms to make its music curriculum less Eurocentric. Proposed changes go well beyond broadening the curriculum from a focus on 19th-century Europe, to be more inclusive of world music. According to the Daily Mail, a document even suggested that teaching musical notation — because of its association with the colonial period — would be harmful…