Ask Althea: Private music teaching advice column (no.5)

Welcome back to this series about sensitive legacy pedagogical material. It's exciting, it's controversial, and it's complicated. There is a lot to unpack, including issues of colonial heritage and racial hierarchy; mid-20th-century cultural attitudes; our pastoral responsibility towards pupils of all colours; and more.

In my first column on this topic, I discussed recent changes to John Thompson's Easiest Piano Course, Part Two (2019 edition). ‘Ten Little Indians’ has become ‘Ten Little Dancers’, while ‘Indian Tom-Toms’ is now rendered as ‘Tom-Toms’.

Titles are extremely important, so changing the name of a racially or culturally sensitive piece is a serious option to consider. It's not necessarily straightforward, however. Firstly, there is the issue of copyright. Legacy issues related to a deceased composer's estate may preclude any title changes by subsequent publishers.

Secondly, living composers may not agree to it – particularly in the case of programmatic works. My own ABRSM Grade 1 clarinet piece, ‘Rainbow's End’, is a case in point. The music flows from the title, which I chose before composing a note. Therefore, its change is something that I would resist.

Is a title change enough?

It depends on the nature of the material. In the case of an original piece – which is abstract or only moderately programmatic (so that the title can easily be swapped with something similar) – a title change may be viable, subject to copyright issues and musical authenticity. If the piece is well-known in the public domain, with traditional status, the change becomes more problematic. People who know it under its original title can take umbrage at the new one. ‘Ten Little&’ falls into this category.

I do think that there is some merit in what Hal Leonard, the John Thompson publisher, has done. Because the ‘Ten Little&’ title has been fairly fluid in the past, the recent change is unexceptionable. The new words are sufficiently neutral, and the last command to ‘Spin!’ is nice. One imagines children turning and falling onto the grass, laughing. It's a good effort.

For me, though, no sanitisation of the title will ever make this piece acceptable. The history it carries – through its linked 19th- and 20th-century minstrel/literary derivations – is so toxic, that the stain is ineradicable. I strongly recommend that readers carry out an internet search on it. Even though the systematic elimination of the boys (in both folk and art versions) corresponds with historical truth about cultural annihilation, that is no reason to perpetuate the song. Its lyrics promote racial disdain, and the musical content is unexciting.

Some music teachers argue that such pieces create opportunities for historical discussion. Leaving aside the fact that history teaching is not part of our core mission as music teachers, the discussion of cultural genocide (particularly in the case of decimated Native American cultures) should be carried out in an appropriate context, with reverence, humility, and intellectual rigour. A children's counting game is hardly a proper forum for this.

Pastoral responsibility

Never put a racially offensive title on a child's music stand. Whether the child is White, Brown, or Black, it is my firm opinion that any piece of music with a questionable title should be withheld from pupils until the matter is dealt with by the publisher. A practical way of doing this is to tape together two pages of the tutor book, so that the child moves straight on to something else. Alternative repertoire should be sourced or composed.

The principle here is one of pastoral responsibility. If a child is experiencing racism on a daily basis, as I did, growing up in Australia, music lessons can be a sanctuary from the daily ordeal of school bullying and street abuse by strangers. To have been forced to practise questionable music by my teachers, pretending that I hadn't noticed the derogatory word in its title, would have been the last straw for me. I knew the meaning of these words by the age of eight. I didn't need anyone to explain them to me.

From the opposite perspective, pastoral responsibility is precisely why private music teachers need to refrain from inadvertently teaching outdated racist language to pupils through contextual explanations. An immature child may decide to try the word out at school the next day, on the Brown child in the playground that they've never liked. Many people argue in favour of contextualisation and explanation, while failing to perceive the hidden dangers.

Many thanks for reading, and there's still more to come.

Althea

www.althea-composer.com