giradiscos

Of all the world’s cultures, aristocratic European Art has developed the most elaborate doctrine of its supremacy to all plebian and non-European, non-white cultures. It has developed the most elaborate body of “Laws of Music” ever known: Common-Practice Harmony, 12-Tone, and all the rest, not to mention concert etiquette. And its contempt for musics which break those Laws is limitless. Alfred Einstein, the most famous European Musicologist, said of “jazz” that it is “the most abominable treason”, decadent”, and so forth. Aristocratic European Art has had a monstrous success in forcing veneration of itself on all the world, especially in the imperialist period. Everywhere that Bach, Beethoven, Bruckner and Stockhausen are huckstered as “Music of the Masters”, “Fine Music”, “Music Which Will Ennoble You to Listen to It”, white aristocratic European supremacy has triumphed. Its greatest success is in North America, whose rulers take the Art of West Europe’s rulers as their own. There is a Brussels European Music Competition to which musicians come from all over the world; why is there no Competition, to which European Musicians come, of Arab Music? (Or Indian, or Classical Chinese, or Yoruba, or Bembey, or Tibetian percussion, or Inca, o rhillbilly music?)