"On Music Theory is a unique book for a unique time, filled with critical materials and action
items that justify its position as a central text in music theory’s antiracist turn. . . . We hope that On Music Theory can begin a new era of disciplinary change based in collective action, respectful disagreement, and methodological diversity."
—Music Theory Online: A Journal of the Society for Music Theory— Music Theory Online: A Journal of the Society for Music Theory
“Philip Ewell’s sweeping and brave On Music Theory is certain to make an indelible mark on our discipline. Ewell’s racial re-framing of the discipline’s intellectual heritage draws forth conclusions that are by turns powerful, shocking, revealing, and ultimately hopeful. The book will be vital to the future survival of music theory as an academic discipline.”
— Roger Mathew Grant, Wesleyan University
"This book may represent the cusp of a racial reckoning for music theory in the US. [E]veryone—students and
faculty—involved in music theory should read it. . . Essential."
— Choice, B. J. Murray, Miami University
"It is an essential component of a longer anti-racism reading list for anyone engaging in academic music disciplines today."
—CAML Review— Robin Attas, University of Manitoba
“Phil Ewell kicked the hornet’s nest in 2019 in a conference paper on the white racial frame of standard music theory. He was not the first to question tonality’s hierarchical principles whereby the dissonant other must be subsumed or eliminated for the sake of harmony: Schoenberg, George Russell, Christopher Small, and feminist theorists have raised similar critiques. But three years of panels, denunciations, and lawsuits have not settled the controversy over Ewell’s presumed transgression. In On Music Theory, he mounts a detailed defense of his arguments, as well as an account of the repercussions that followed in the wake of his talk. A crucial book for those involved in the ongoing debates over covert biases in academic disciplines.”
—Susan McClary, Case Western Reserve University, Author of
The Passions of Peter Sellars: Staging the Music
— Susan McClary
"It should be required reading for all who teach music theory and for all who aspire to work toward racial justice in the academy. Ewell’s book is a gift and an invitation. We must not squander either."— Anders Tobiason, Notes: the Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association
"Ewell deserves profound acknowledgment for doing the grueling work of unraveling a particularly insidious, intractable, and deeply embedded mode of racialized, gendered, and institutionalized hegemony. One can only imagine the experiences that inspired him to write this book, but like the artists mentioned above, he has transmuted those experiences, and by extension those of many others, into a powerful disciplinary critique that is likely to stand as a watershed moment in the evolution of Western music theory."— Journal of the American Musicological Society
“On Music Theory leaves no doubt about the discipline’s deeply ingrained antiblackness. In doing so, Ewell successfully demonstrates that the problems facing music theory are systemic and not simply the fault of a few bad actors. The book provides a framework and vocabulary that will enable future scholars to identify and challenge racism in the field and demonstrates a new approach to music theory that draws on interdisciplinary scholarship about race.”
—Loren Kajikawa, George Washington University, Author of Sounding Race in Rap Songs
— Loren Kajikawa
“A pathbreaking scholar, Dr. Philip Ewell thoroughly examines the white racial framing underlying much of music-making and music-teaching in the long western classical tradition. Using Schenkerian music theory as a major example, he details extensive racial framing in this music theorizing and its application over decades of classical music development. He further buttresses well-documented scholarly analysis with vivid accounts of whites distorting or suppressing his critiques of the extensive antiblackness and white-centeredness in the western classical music sphere.”
—Joe Feagin, Texas AM University, and author of
The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing
— Joe Feagin
