Philip Ewell Go Down In History

“I believe my mandate as a music teacher is to help my students become better musicians.” – Philip Ewell

Introduction

In the last four years, Philip Ewell has risen to international attention as a music theorist and public intellectual, specifically in the area of Critical Race Theory as he believes it should inform academic music theory and, to some extent, classical music as a whole. This article is neither a response nor a rebuttal to Ewell. It rather provides context and supplemental information to the words and behavior of Ewell and those whose opposition and support he has amplified and brought to prominence in the media in and outside of classical music. It also proposes alternative directions to those that have been tried so far in response, on both sides.

The short film below contains highlights from the Chopin Cello Sonata, performed by Ewell.

Philip Ewell is not primarily a performing cellist, though he has been represented as one in some media coverage. Since music is for both the trained and the untrained, inevitably some will hear the problems in these performances more obviously than others. To understand this article, readers without aural or technical understanding of music or string playing must be willing to benefit from some guidance in assessing these performances.

Ewell’s playing ability is roughly that of an average undergraduate at a mid-level music school or conservatory. He can barely get through a phrase without a serious technical or musical deficit. He plays atrociously out of tune, cannot execute smooth left hand shifts, possesses a brittle, at times screeching, tone, and a blundering, joyless, workmanlike approach to cello performance that reveals wide and fundamental gaps in musical understanding and imagination. Though his selection of standard cello literature appears to portray Ewell as a developed and mature player, its challenges are quite beyond him. Readers who do not fully appreciate this are encouraged to listen to this and more of his performances with these thoughts in mind, and further to familiarize themselves with the repertoire as performed by others.

It may appear cruelly irrelevant to open an article on a music theorist by pointing to his weaknesses outside of his area of specialty. But Ewell’s cello performances turn out, as this article will show, to be a quite significant aspect of both his career trajectory and his recent activity as a scholar and public intellectual. In fact, they will be among the most relevant and overlooked topics of the debates Ewell has instigated.

To be exact, the problem is not that Ewell plays far below the level expected of a cello professor, but precisely that he is not one. This is important because, as will be shown, Ewell speaks on topics beyond the realm of academic music theory alone and appears to consider himself qualified to do so. That he would expose himself by posting such inadequate performances as part of his public presentation as a professor of music is surprising and might be considered of concern to his institution, Hunter College, CUNY, and his students. He seems at once utterly committed to and unembarrassed by any of it. By the end of this article, however, it will be possible to listen to Ewell’s cello performances, and to read and listen to his writing and talks, with fuller comprehension and, where necessary, compassion.

About This Article

This article will appear as a series in six parts. This first is an overview of academia, and specifically academic musicology and music theory. It is intended not just as an introduction, but to be read by professionals and the uninitiated alike, as it highlights several things easily forgotten even by those who practice or were trained within American universities or conservatories. Though some of what I point out may provoke disagreement or even offense, it is important not to treat gently how American academic culture has itself contributed to the power and attention Philip Ewell and similar figures in Critical Theory have been able to attain. As Ewell himself will agree, we must be willing to “sit with discomfort.”

The second part is a new narrative of Philip Ewell’s rise to attention, showing how he has employed Critical Theory methods in the propagation of his ideas from the world of music theory into the mainstream of classical music and the media. It also points out several unfortunate missteps his opposition has made to concede ground and further amplify his views.

The third part covers several less widely noticed or covered aspects of Philip Ewells words, beliefs, and behaviors, using video examples from his presentations and live-streamed forums with students.

The fourth part probes more deeply into specifically musical topics underlying all of the preceding, adding information unknown by most journalists, the media, or the general public. Aspects of Ewell’s motivations, ideas, and aspirations that have been unnoticed or uncommented upon thus far will be revealed through excerpts from his publicly streamed video panels and presentations.

The fifth part propose why musicians are in a unique position to find meaningful answers to the impact of Critical Theory and its practitioners on our field and perhaps in general. It suggests some possible ways out of the seemingly unresolvable frustration, disorientation, and sadness felt by both performers and lovers of music whose careers, lives, or joy in music may be distracted, destabilized, or otherwise impacted by Critical Theory.  I direct these not as rebuttal to Ewell or other Critical Theorists, but to musicians and teachers of music who find themselves at a loss for meaningful response, musically or otherwise, to the subversive and successful efforts by Critical Theory’s adherents to impose their views upon our deeply treasured art and profession.

The sixth part presents specific ideas, actions, and changes to make in response.

The Road to Academia

Five main things happen to people who cannot play an instrument at a high level of mastery: they quit music, they become conductors, they become composers, they become music educators, or they go into academia. No stigma is implied in any of these routes, as all can have meaning and impact both for the person and for the profession; many of the greatest musicians or teachers of music are known best for areas they turned to only when unable, for any number of reasons, to pursue their first choice.

It is important to note, however, that the vast majority of performer aspirants never achieve professional-level mastery on an instrument, and a large number of these choose to remain in the music profession in some capacity. As a result, the population of academic and other non-performing vocations expands exponentially every generation, leading to the present situation in which most faculty in American music schools and conservatories are not actually practicing or performing musicians.

Academic Life

The cool, clear style of published academic writing camouflages an altogether different world. Academic musicologists and music theorists, like most in American academia now, experience enormous frustrations in their daily lives and work. After completing advanced degrees, years or decades can elapse before job applications result in sustainable employment. Some subsist on adjunct positions, or worse, accept full time workloads for unlivable salaries. This has worsened in recent decades as faculty have been tempted even out of teaching into administration, which has in turn consumed more money and resources, while full-time professorships have been replaced piecemeal with hourly adjunct jobs.

Even after successful employment, the rise through faculty ranks can bring shocking obstacles and bitter disillusionment. Even the most gifted and enthusiastic individuals who enter American academia may find their lives and minds soon riddled with stress, doubt, and pressures never remotely anticipated. The politics of tenure, faculty rank and promotion, administration, committees, service, and student life at American universities can feel intensely laborious, petty, and depleting. By the time they achieve tenure, many either want out of academia or disengage from any but the most superficial commitments. Professors may involuntarily accumulate jealousies and resentments even toward former trusted colleagues and friends, leading to feelings of isolation, suspicion, insecurity, and finally burnout or severe mental health crises.

It is not surprising that American Critical Theory itself fermented in such an environment, or that many faculty in all fields have found Critical Theory an appealing and ready-made worldview through which to interpret the personal diminishment and fear that academic life can bring.

Musicology

Musicology is, essentially, the study of the work done by musicians, as distinguished from the study of music itself. It is hard to name any other field, in or out of academia, with a recognized subfield devoted to the exclusive study of itself and its own past and present practitioners. Musicology is one of those academic fields so specialized as to sometimes push esotericism to the bounds of absurdity. Articles like, for example, “German music from the perspective of German musicology after 1933“, suggest it is even useful for musicologists to actually study neither music, musicians, nor musicology, itself but other musicologists. It does not take much thought to realize that the potential for recursive subfields, each one studying practitioners of the previous, is infinite. Most musicologists will note this in good humor. Some will not.

Music Theory, Music Literacy and Musical Skill in Academia

Music theory, characterized variously as either a subset of or separate field from musicology, can be summarized in any case as the study of the exactly nameable and quantifiable elements of music, most often outside of any performance context. These typically involve either explicitly notated items such as pitch, rhythm, harmony, meter, dynamics, etc., or else things generally derivable from analyzing these, such as form, structure, style, linguistic elements, underlying stylistic patterns, and so on.

Even when treating music that is not fully notated, such as jazz, music theorists usually rely on transcriptions or similar written or graphic documentation that can be analyzed with the same methods. When the possibilities within these areas seem to have been exhausted, music theorists, like many in specialized academic fields, may extend esoteric hypotheses and attempt evidential proof, via written papers, about compositional (or improvisational) methods and processes. These regularly extend outside the practitioners’ primary areas of knowledge to nearly any other field, such as linguistics, physics, sociology, philosophy, gender studies, and so on.

Music literacy must be distinguished from musical skill: the ability to perform, or execute, musical ideas with accuracy, comfort, flexibility, and real-time response to context.

Though some music students arrive to music college or conservatory with little or no written music literacy or skill, most arrive with some, and some arrive with advanced written and aural skill integrated into performance ability. Of this latter group, many are astonished to discover how desperately their theory professors and graduate assistants struggle aurally even with the rudiments of music, rhythm in particular, and to witness how quickly their skills collapse when confronting anything not expressed visually or verbally. Standard introductory textbooks exceed five-hundred pages and are taught with such verbosity and ponderous elaboration that students can feel almost as if they are being made to restudy, for example, the alphabet, or first-grade grammar.

The fact that others may feel very challenged is no better success on the part of teachers or curriculum planners. There are surely exceptions, but the level of musical skill, as well as musical literacy, among American both academic faculty and students has declined noticeably over even the last few decades. Which group has brought down the other could be a topic for endless study.

It is important to recognize that almost no one in the world, even among professional musicians, generally reads, listens to, or cares about what academic music theorists or musicologists think, write, or say. Here again I intend not to offend but to inform. The primary audience for musicologists and music theorists is, in fact, other musicologists and music theorists. Though trends and fashions in academic music scholarship may be of central importance in the lives of the small populations who study them, it is easy for those practitioners to forget just how hermetic and self-reinforcing life in academia really is.

Most classical musical audience and laity in America, along with the general population, are only barely aware of musicology or music theory as distinct professions. Music theory papers, when read at all, are mostly read in specialized academic journals, or aloud at conferences of other professors. Seldom does debate of any kind make its way out of the insular, tenure-seeking world driven by the pressure to publish in order to remain employed.

That is the reason Philip Ewell’s sudden rise to international visibility is so remarkable.

Philip Ewell Until 2019

Ewell spent most of his previous career producing a small but respectable bibliography of writings on Russian composers including Scriabin, Gubaidulina, Rimsky-Korsakov, and topics related to Russian opera and music theory, rap, hip-hop, sampling, and race. Prior to his present position at Hunter College, CUNY, he taught theory at North Central College, Naperville, Illinois and the University of Tennessee School of Music, Knoxville, where he had various duties in administration, curriculum development, advising, and thesis supervision. As emphasized above, he also played cello on faculty recitals, and coached student cellists. He has also taught cello.

How did Ewell manage to leverage such inauspicious circumstances to international attention in only a few years?

> Part 2 : That Scared the Shit Out of Them: A New Narrative