Barbershop’s Cautionary Tale for Academic Music Theory: A Response to Stephen Lett

Abstract

Abstract This response to Stephen Lett’s article draws parallels between the institutional histories of the Society for Music Theory (SMT) and the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS). While both societies have struggled with racial diversity and inclusion, the structural racism that has pervaded the BHS since the civil rights era offers a potent and eerily familiar example of how seemingly innocuous, apolitical institutions can be sites of exclusion and inequity that plague the United States at large. Echoing Lett’s sentiments, I urge my fellow SMT members to recognize the inherently political nature of our craft as we reassess and rebuild our Society’s culture in this period of reckoning.