Off Tune?: Oxford’s Music Department Reviewing Sheet Music

Sergie Daez | March 29, 2021
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UPDATE: April 7, 2021 AFP reports an Oxford Spokesperson has informed them that “No proposals for the removal of Western notation, which some media have referred to as ‘sheet music,’ have been made by anyone in the faculty.” The university's Faculty of Music does plan to undergo a curriculum "renewal." This additional information has been added to this story in bold and the headline has been changed to reflect its content.

The British Comedy series "Blackadder" once described Oxford University as “a complete dump.” It was obviously a joke, but nowadays, it’s actually closer to the truth.

According to Breitbart, sheet music is under scrutiny at the famous university, because leftist educators in the music department are asserting that “teaching the Western form of musical notation has roots in ‘colonialism’ and ‘complicity in white supremacy.’”

The British paper The Telegraph UK originally published the story citing documents proposing "rethinking the study of musical notation." While the Telegraph originally reached out to Oxford for comment, at the time of publication Oxford had failed to respond.

AFP received comment from Oxford later, where a spokesperson for the university said: “No proposals for the removal of Western notation, which some media have referred to as ‘sheet music,’ have been made by anyone in the faculty.”

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There have been demands for the University’s administration to replace the classical music in their curriculum with “Hip-Hop and Jazz” tunes and other “non-Eurocentric” genres. This is an inherently bad idea, since today's hip-hop is rife with misogyny. In contrast, science has shown that classical music can improve emotional health.

Oxford told AFP the university's Faculty of Music does plan to undergo a curriculum "renewal."

If the faculty is willing to promote sexist songs for the sake of racial justice, then Oxford really will have become “a complete dump.”

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