r/musicology

Hello to everyone, here an historian with strong interests in music. Some time ago I've been thinking in this:

Western musical tradition was once harmonically based on drone compositions, similar to those found in Indian ragas. This type of music began to decline in the 16th century, when more harmonically complex forms started to emerge, resembling those commonly used today.

My question is whether this shift is related to the rise of humanism and the decline of theocentrism. Let me explain. The drone can be understood as representing the infinity of existence, as it sounds stable, uniform, and without tension—therefore lacking a clear beginning or end. By contrast, the harmonic compositions that developed after the Renaissance typically have a defined beginning, evolve throughout the piece, and ultimately create harmonic tension that resolves into a clear conclusion. In this sense, they could be interpreted as an aesthetic expression of anthropocentrism.

What do you think, musicologists?

Whether it’s borrowed, copied, covered, derivative of, sampled, stolen, or simply influenced by, the amount of music always increases

Mind blown right now!

As I’ve been learning bass, I just connected Down With Disease to Respect by Aretha…. Which was originally by Otis Redding and then also Minglewood Blues and then New Minglewood Blues ….. and then Funky Bitch 🤯

I’m sure there’s more out there

It’s cool and I had to share! That’s all 🤘

Its 5:20 am, i’m and hour late.. 😂

Hey everyone,
I’m a Black fan who has been down since the 90s, which—as a lot of you know—was extremely rare back then. On top of that, I’ve had the opportunity during my lifetime to work with and for a lot of the record companies we all looked up to growing up. Looking back, the scene is very different now than it was back then.
Being a Black fan of horrorcore, ICP, Twiztid, straight-up metal, and even Tech N9ne back in the day was heavily frowned upon in the Black community. It got to the point where my own family pretty much disowned me, thinking I was in a cult because I was constantly traveling to shows and working for these music companies.
Now, I know some of you might not view the scene this way, and some might turn a blind eye to the negativity that minorities face in this subculture (or what I call a subculture of a subculture), but just like in normal life, that shit happens. A lot of times I’ve been around "Fam" and something is said where I’m not really sure how to respond. I *want* to speak up, but I feel like if I do, the crowd—which was usually a majority of white fans—will turn against me. It’s happened before, and it makes you want to just keep your mouth shut.

One thing that has always struck me as odd: ICP literally has a song called "Rebel Flag," yet there are a number of fans who publicly post on social media with a Confederate flag hanging in their bedroom or on the front of their house. I know it may mean something else to them, but the vast majority of people see that particular flag as a racial thing.
Honestly, I’d like to ask anyone who actually hangs a rebel flag, takes pictures with it, or uses it as a profile picture: **Why do you do that, and can you officially call yourself a fan if you misread the message that hard?**

I want to share one example of something that happened to me at an outdoor ICP show. It’s burned into my memory, and I still think about it because it bothers me to this day.
There was an entryway to the concert grounds, and to the left was the merch booth (I believe Jumpsteady and/or Tom Dub were there, if you remember him.. heehee). I walked over to the booth with my friend and we bought a few things. My friend walked off, and right as he did, a group of four or five guys walked into the grounds in a diamond formation and headed directly toward me. I understood why I stuck out; I was probably one of only two Black people at the entire concert.
I was maybe 10 steps away from the merch booth, so it’s not like the staff could hear them. The guy in the front was wearing a tank top and baggy jeans. He got about three feet from my face leaned in and said, *"What's up, my nig**r?"*
He used the hard "R." But the craziest part was looking at his neck—he was wearing a Hatchetman charm, and right next to it was a swastika charm. I was completely thrown off. I looked around for my friend because there were five dudes in front of me and I didn’t know if this guy wanted to fight. I just said, "What?" and he just repeated himself.
He knew damn well what he was saying. I felt like I couldn’t say a fucking thing because I wasn’t trying to get jumped in a state where I didn’t live, and my friend was gone. I had to just walk away. Things like that happened a lot. Now, I know some people grow up a certain way and genuinely don’t understand the difference between the ‘gga’ version and the hard "R," but I’m positive this dude knew exactly what he was doing and did it on purpose.

I'm definitely not saying all interactions are like that. In fact, I can tell you about many occasions where the exact opposite happened and I felt the love immediately.
Take the first time I ever got into a mosh pit. I got fucked the fuck up—straight-up headbutted by accident. But two ninjas immediately picked me up off the ground so I didn’t get trampled. That was my first experience with a pit; I didn't know it worked like that! I thought you just got messed up and left on the floor, so being helped right back up meant a lot, but my teeth were fucked for a minute.

It always bothers me when TV shows do parodies of us and choose to only show white people, portraying everyone as meth users who live in trailer parks and rob people. Mainstream media has turned the culture into a total stereotype (I think they even put a ‘stereotypical’ jugg in the last GTA game, right?). How do we get over that?
I’m asking because it's something I think about for the next generation. My kids listen to the music now, and my daughter is really into it, which is how I know the fandom has become a little more welcoming and open today. But it was actually one of my sons who brought the rebel flag thing to my attention. He might even get on this board and see this post—he might not even know it’s me!
Shoutout to the only other Black Juggalo I know who has been down since the 90s and is cool as fuck. My ninja, Reginald—what up man!
I prefer speaking face-to-face because people usually get uncomfortable talking about race and subculture like this, but I’m hoping the anonymity here will bring out some honest questions. Let’s get some dialogue going so we can all get some insight into how it was back in the day versus how it is now.

**Ask me pretty much anything you want.**
*(Note: If a question is just wild as fuck or straight-up racist, you will be blocked immediately.)*

***************
7:06 am
Someone made a post that I should write a book, but I’ll leave tidbits here whenever I think of something that I either think is funny or maybe be interesting to you guys so it doesn’t get lost.

—- I’ve been to a lot of shows from all the artist, and I can say one of the funny things that messed me up at the beginning of twisted career, I’ll say I haven’t seen it happen since 2008, but there were Black people that would come to Twiztids show, thinking Twista was supposed to be there because they didn’t totally read properly, are someone told them the wrong thing thinking Twista was going to be there. I’ve been next to the people sometimes when they start talking about, I thought Twista was supposed to be, why is everybody painted up like Dead Presidents? ( seriously though I only heard the dead presidents thing one time, but I have been to multiple shows where they thought it was a Twista show 😂 😂)

———
7:45 pm

I just thought of another story and I’m sorry it’s another negative one. I’ll add some more positive before this a.m. is over., but one of the reasons I stopped wearing face paint it shows and what not, was because one show I went to it could’ve been Icp or something because pretty much everybody had their face painted, one single person walks up to me and asked me this with no shame whatsoever: “ you know how for a special occasions Icp will do different face paint where they only use like half of it and only put the black on their face and not the white part, since you’re black, do you only do the white part sometimes?”

My answer to him was that I’m not that dark, but I’ll think about it for the future.

If I were to put together African drum music, ancient Chinese music, Indian ragas, and Bach's fugues, an alien would most likely perceive all of them as "ethnic music" from Earth.

However, in formal music education, Bach belongs to the category of "required courses," while most of the others fall under general education classes like "ethnomusicology" or "world music."

Even today's "music conservatories" are essentially "vocational training institutions for European classical music (especially the German-Austrian tradition)." We spend four years studying harmony, counterpoint, and musical form—all of which are rooted in the specific aesthetics of a particular period (1750–1900), a particular region (Western Europe), and a particular social class (aristocracy/middle class).

What exactly did European classical music do right that allowed it to shed its own "ethnic" label and usurp the position as a synonym for "music"?

In fact, much of the current musicological research—covering topics like gender, class, and race—has already partially explained this phenomenon. For example, the construction of the "canon," the monopoly of the middle class, and the deliberate guidance of authoritative textbooks like *The Norton Anthology of Western Music*. But I still feel this explanation is incomplete and only scratches the surface.

I would really like to know the complete process behind this. Are there any relevant studies? Or does anyone have their own thoughts that we could discuss together?