The Global Musicianship Imperative:

Broadening the Relevance of Undergraduate Music Theory for the Twenty-first Century

Mark Hijleh, Houghton College

It‟s Monday morning, 9:00 am. The first class of the first day of the first week of the first
semester of Naomi‟s new life as an undergraduate music major. Naomi glances again at
her schedule: “Music Theory”, it says. “Aha”, she thinks, “the theory of music. This
ought to be really interesting; I‟ve always been curious to know how and why music
works.” During her journey to campus a few days earlier, a nervous Naomi took comfort
in the diverse collection of tunes stashed on her iPod. Over the past few years, those tunes
constituted only one part of her musical life, but a big part. Playing clarinet in the school
band, singing in the choir, those too were important; after all wasn‟t the inspiration
Naomi drank in from her music teachers a major reason why she decided to pursue music
ed in college? And she will not soon forget the endless attempts to draw the members of
her rock band together for practices. “Yes”, thinks Naomi, “music has always been a big
part of my life: that Persichetti piece we played in concert band in the morning, the Sousa
march during the late afternoon drill rehearsals, the African-American spirituals and
Korean folk songs we sang in choir and that wild Radiohead album I downloaded last
month. Mom‟s Beethoven CD and Dad‟s Beatles collection. The music from “The Dark
Knight” and “Bend It Like Beckham” and “Spongebob Squarepants.” Oh, and that cool
Salsa tune the band offered up at the senior prom. Music theory, the theory of music –
finally I‟m going to learn what‟s behind this fascinating musical world I‟ve fallen in love
with.”

But if Naomi is a typical undergraduate music major today, we know what she‟s about to
discover: not the theory of why the diverse musical life she has led is so rich, but rather
the theory of how Western tonal music works, more specifically, Western tonal harmony
and the repertoire in which it dominates: European art music of the Common Practice era.
If any of Naomi‟s theory teachers is especially progressive, there may be some brief but
laudable forays into folk or commercial music, but these will generally be at the margins.

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If she is lucky enough to have a full semester on twentieth-century music, it will probably
be narrowly oriented toward theories of atonality. Most likely, Naomi‟s entire
undergraduate music theory experience will be designed to support an intense and
rarefied Conservatory bubble in which she will artificially exist over four short years.
Naomi is not very likely to get much meaningful help understanding the complexity of
the musical world in which she actually lives, to say nothing of the global musical world
she is about to inherit.

And so we find ourselves faced with a choice that is driven both by ideology and by
pragmatism. What is the theory curriculum supposed to accomplish in Naomi‟s life? We
have the opportunity and perhaps even the obligation in our theory programs to nurture
the musical imagination of students like Naomi in terms that comport with the vibrancy
and variety of their musical experiences, past and future, while at the same time
providing them with a way to continue in the growth of their musical sophistication. To
do so in our time, we must come to grips with the implications of ever-accelerating cross-
pollenization among global musical materials and practices. In short, we must deal with
the global musicianship imperative.

But this is by no means a simple task. Composer, theorist and ethnomusicologist Michael
Tenzer captures the challenges inherent in Naomi‟s situation (and ours) quite well in his
“Analytical Studies in World Music” (Oxford University Press 2006):

In coming years it is conceivable that we will want a world music theory…. The purpose
of such a theory would be in the first place to start making sense of our complex cross-
cultural musical selves and perceptions. We are often told of the world‟s vast and rapid
changes but rarely advised on how to make sense of them as musicians. A world music
theory would be a response to economic and cultural transformation making it desirable
for musicians to acquire competence not just passively hearing, but contemplating and
integrating any music. The well-established ethnomusicological model of bi- or tri-
musicality is inadequate to describe us anymore; we are approaching multi- or a virtual
pan-musicality. For many this is already a fact of life, and not just for composers: trumpet

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players do salsa, Corelli, free jazz, and mariachi all in the same week, and the iPod
shuffle mode compresses infinite musics, cultures, eras, and locales for listening with
consummate effortlessness.

Yet real musicality actually comes from prolonged exposure to deep details which
we learn to experience cognitively and feel bodily. That takes years of focused
study. To suggest world music theory implies a comparative perspective so
diffuse that it would seem to preclude such closeness. Before any implementation,
music education would have to change more radically and rapidly than
institutions that provide it tend to do. Could such a course coexist with the need
for students to master particular instruments and traditions? How could the
unwieldy breadth of world music theory not stretch it too thin? And who will have
the mastery to teach it? The questions are discouraging, yet the problem remains.
Music theory in Europe and North America, oriented so heavily toward Western
art music, fails to address the needs, selves, and likely life trajectories of more and
more musicians (2006: 33-34).

Tenzer‟s penetrating analysis cries out for a third way. Even if we were able, we do not
have the time to teach Naomi the theory and practice of every individual music she is
likely to encounter in our Friedman-esque-ly “flat” world, nor do we any longer have the
luxury of immersing her only in a heavily common-practice-oriented Western art music
milieu. What we can do is teach Naomi a theory of music as synthesis: as a synergism of
eclectic influences, as an integration of interrelated and overlapping elements of time,
pitch, timbre and process. This then is the “global musicianship imperative”: What
Naomi needs first and foremost is a music curriculum that helps her develop both the
abilities and the sensibilities for a life of musical freedom and flexibility in the context of
a musical world that now has conceptually limitless creative possibilities. Naomi needs a
music theory that encourages her understanding of synthesis rather than one that focuses
on the rigid preservation of difference, category, boundary and hierarchy, not because we
would seek to erase difference (as if that were possible) but simply because, to one
degree or another, global fusion is what now most clearly defines and enlivens the

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activities and products of our musical world. Some understanding of difference is clearly
necessary in such a milieu; in fact, thinking integratively actually helps one understand
what makes musics different from one another. But it also helps one understand how
different musics operate as syntheses of other syntheses, and so on, which is why it is the
most appropriate paradigm on which to base a 21st-century music theory.

As Kwame Anthony Appiah has recently noted, “a world in which communities are
neatly hived off from one another seems no longer a serious option, if it ever was one”
(2006: xx). Since musics arise from cultures, this suggests that we can no more imagine a
world of truly discrete musics than we can one without mobile telephones. Thus we do
need, as Appiah might put it, a “cosmopolitan” theory of music, a theory that
acknowledges that we are (or ought to be) citizens of a much broader musical world. But,
since we cannot be full citizens of every musical culture, we must instead become
musicians who more readily apprehend musical universals as they are manifested in
musical localities; that is, we must focus on learning how musical elements are woven
together to create various unique styles and practices. To be sure, this is itself a type of
analysis deeply informed by Western contributions, but also one that might be applicable
to a wider range of musics precisely because it is more susceptible to a kind of flexibility
that Kofi Agawu suggests might “facilitate a more even-handed traffic in intellectual
capital between musical cultures”; a method by which “Eurocentric cross-culturalism
[could be] replaced by a dense network of exchanges in which origins and destinations
change regularly and swiftly and are accessible to, and at the same time enriching for, all
actors” (Agawu 2006: 188). In short, we need to ground Naomi in a music theory that
allows her to operate effectively in the complex web of globalized musics that defines our
time, of which the ongoing traditions of the West are certainly an important part, but not
the totality.

As a conceptual framework upon which to build such a pedagogy of global musicianship,

Jan LaRue‟s Guidelines for Style Analysis (1970) may serve well. Proceeding from the
very useful observation that music is a process of synthesis (“Growth”, as he would call
it), LaRue rightly notes that rhythm, melody, harmony and what he calls “sound”

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(primarily timbre, dynamics and texture) are the essential, overlapping, interactive
elements that contribute to that synthetic process and product. Though his specific
examples and orientations are all Western (and most from the Common Practice era),
LaRue nevertheless supplies us not only with a practical method for approaching any
music, but also with a pedagogical framework on which to construct a more
comprehensive and flexible theory curriculum.

The possibilities of such an approach are endless, but for the purposes of a broad (though
by no means fully formed) curricular outline I would suggest beginning with what is
perhaps the most foundational and ubiquitous musical element, rhythm, at first artificially
separated from pitch, but presented in the context of a world rhythmic theory that
ultimately rests on fuller integration of pitch and time. I myself have recently proposed
such a theory, the thesis of which is that “for the practical purposes of human music
making, all rhythm can be understood and expressed as a complex web of relationships
between durational groupings of two and three at various hierarchical levels.” In any
case, well-defined rhythmic patterns from various world musics could serve as exercises
for aural, analytical, kinesthetic, improvisational and compositional development.
Possible basic examples include Arabic iqa’at, Indian talas and African “timelines”,
among many others. After introducing rhythmic concepts through such pattern-based
materials, contextualized analysis of rhythmic phenomena such as syncopation could
proceed, though fuller study of rhythmic process would have to wait until later in the
theory sequence due to the need to understand how pitch, timbre, texture and other
elements often define rhythmic considerations.

The next area of focus might be melody, which, like rhythm, is more foundational than
harmony is to a wider variety of musics. One frame on which to hang such a unit might
be pentatonicism (both hemitonic and anhemitonic), along with common subsets, due to
their ubiquity in various musical cultures. However, basic linear principles of Western
tonality and modality would also be included here, as well as issues of ornamentation,
most notably the sort of ornamental micro-tonality that characterizes many African and
Asian musics (and which dominates melodic practices in globalized popular musics),

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along with timbral and tuning implications. Some attention to well-established systems
such as raga, maqam and the blues scale along these lines might be a particularly
efficient approach.

The curriculum might then proceed to the study of harmony, with emphasis on Western
tonality and modality. Because these harmony units would of necessity constitute a
smaller percentage of the full theory sequence, very careful choices would have to made
about what is and is not truly essential. Moreover, this portion of the curriculum would
need to be designed so as to emphasize the ways in which Western tonal harmony has
been manifested in globalized musics, such as jazz and rock, and would therefore also
need to build on the broader tonal/modal concepts introduced in the melodic units.
However, carefully adapted underlying principles of four-part writing would likely
remain the most efficient method for teaching harmony in a broadly applicable way.

The last portion of the curriculum would be devoted to the heart of the matter: how
rhythm, melody and harmony work together with timbre and texture in musical
processes. While some level of synthetic thinking would certainly have been a part of the
previous semesters, its culmination would be most explicit here. Extreme creativity of
method would be required to make this final portion of the sequence a true “capstone”,
such as considering what an African drummer might have to say about a Beethoven
sonata, how understanding the Japanese concept of jo-ha-kyu might enhance the
improvisatory elements in an Indian kriti performance or what hocket in the panpipe
music of the Peruvian altiplano might have to do with Jordin Sparks‟ latest Top-40 hit.
Composition, improvisation, arranging and adaptation projects offer some of the most
concentrated ways of demonstrating synthetic thinking – an example of which was
displayed at a most sophisticated level by a recent London staging of The Magic Flute set
in a traditional African cultural context, complete with dance and authentic instruments
adapted to the needs of Mozart‟s music.

Emphasis throughout the entire sequence would of necessity be on how various world
traditions have contributed to globalized musics, which would require new theories of

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how the elements of each could be effectively considered in multiple contexts. Repertoire
would thus need to be drawn from many world music traditions, including the Western
common practice, as well as from more recent and more deliberately globalized musics.
Consideration of music from the Americas might be a particularly fruitful place to begin,
since much is clear as to the various streams of global influence in such musics. Jazz,
rock and pop; Broadway, Hollywood and Bollywood; and contemporary art music from
around the world also offer a wealth of materials, though it is obvious that such examples
would need to be made more accessible in studiable forms than they often currently are.
Though a few anthologies of world music transcriptions are now available, such as
Jonathan Stock‟s “World Sound Matters”, we are still in real need of collections that
feature both global and contextually globalized musics in complementary written and
audio forms. This raises critical issues about text publication, intellectual property and a
host of other thorny issues that are well beyond the scope of this paper, but which are
nevertheless already coming to the fore. If we are going to help prepare our students for
their cosmopolitan, contemporary musical world, we are going to have to find ways of
studying it that represent compromises acceptable to all interested parties.

Such profound changes call for new or creatively adapted theories, pedagogies and
teaching materials, as well as carefully considered applications of technology, all of
which should lean toward the practically applicable rather than the esoteric. Moreover, it
seems essential that courses in the sequence feature seamless integration of analytical,
improvisational, compositional and performative activities in both aural and written
contexts, thus encouraging the development of creative and re-creative abilities rather
than isolated intellectual understanding. To recall Michael Tenzer‟s apt example,
anything we can do to help “trumpet players do salsa, Corelli, free jazz, and mariachi all
in the same week”, and do it well, is a good thing.

A necessary and even appropriate intermediary step toward a fully reformed curriculum
might include focusing first on how 20th- and 21st-century Western art music is taught,
while leaving the earlier portions of the theory curriculum more or less alone (something
we are doing at my institution, Houghton College, though we have and will continue to

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experiment with fuller reform as well). Presenting the music of the last 120 years or so
from the perspective of world synthesis means, among other things, spending less time on
formal theories of Western atonality and more time on the globally integrative aspects of
the work of certain composers. This might include, for example, more detailed study of
the elements of Javanese gamelan as part of studying Debussy, more study of Indian
music as part of understanding Messiaen, and more study of African drumming as part of
understanding Steve Reich or John Adams. But it also entails consideration of other
globalized musics that often get short shrift. One interesting example is the score for
director Ang Lee‟s 2003 film “Hulk”: Danny Elfman‟s music includes many beautiful
Middle-East-inspired rhythmic, melodic and timbral elements even though the subject
matter of the film has nothing to do with Middle Eastern culture, and his combining of
such sounds with elements of extended tonality and non-tonality represents the kind of
globalized musical world that Naomi experiences every day. If the story of 20th- and 21st-
century music can be framed as the process by which musical globalization has continued
to accelerate, and contemporary music theory can be shown to provide aesthetic and
technical concepts with which to apprehend and enjoy such music, this final portion of an
otherwise more traditional theory sequence is likely to be far more meaningful to Naomi
and her classmates.

An even more modest step in the broader direction I have suggested would simply be a
more explicit practical acknowledgement that any music can be understood as a
synthesis, not least the art music tradition of the West. Bruno Nettl put this in perspective
not so long ago by suggesting that if Western musical purists could travel back in time to
the Vienna of the 1780s, they might be “scandalized that Mozart, evidently a member of
the 18th-century world music movement, claimed to be able to write Italian, French,
German music, old and new, mixing in Bohemian and Hungarian and „Turkish‟ styles”
(2000: 24-25). Mozart taught his students with figured bass exercises because those
techniques were sufficient for synthetic musical thinking in the world as he and his
European contemporaries understood it. Limiting ourselves to those same exercises is not
sufficient to the largeness of the musical world we have since encountered.

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The question of faculty preparation and development looms large here, and I can offer no
especially easy solutions. At first there would need to be a vanguard of faculty willing to
do the hard extra work of re-tooling, and adequate resources would need to be made
available to them. The College Music Society has very helpfully begun the trend with its
summer world music theory pedagogy workshops. As with most significant change,
many elements might evolve incrementally among faculty and students. Once a
generation or two of undergraduates are introduced to a new way of considering music
theory, they in turn can begin the process of exploring and expanding such ideas further
in graduate school as they prepare to become faculty members themselves.

Global musical superstar Yo-yo Ma, someone for whom musical breadth is an
opportunity for ever fresh synergistic exploration and renewal rather than an excuse for
mediocre dilettantism, recently noted: “In my musical journey I have had the opportunity
to learn from a wealth of different musical voices ... and have wondered how these
complex interconnections occurred and how new musical voices were formed from the
diversity of these traditions.” In undertaking his Silk Road Project, working with fiddler
Mark O‟Connor and recording numerous film scores, among other diverse activities, Ma
has been able to make such explorations largely outside the syntax of his traditional
music theory training, but perhaps Naomi needs a bit more directed help from us. A few
schools, such as UCLA and the University of Virginia, have begun to understand and act
upon the global musicianship imperative in limited ways. But a reformed music theory
and musicianship curriculum can and should stand at the center of the academic musical
enterprise rather than at the periphery. Ghetto-ized world music survey courses will not
be a sufficient substitute. And indeed, if the music theory curricula in our institutions do
not begin to seriously address the issues raised here, they will soon become largely
irrelevant, a fascinating but quaint picture of some imagined musical “museum culture”
that does not accurately represent the sweep of human musical history. “I want to live in
the whole world of music”, the American composer Henry Cowell proclaimed. Indeed, so
does Naomi, as well she should.

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