Cultural policy infrastructure and the representation of Nigeria’s music in education

Abstract

Serious systemic and unethical consequences of notation-based music theory, which focuses on tonality, include its contribution to excluding the discourse of most of the world’s music traditions because most of them are not notated. New projects seeking inclusion require the analysis of the meter for accurately documenting and discoursing music. The implications of the results of this study will likely involve significant music education policy and cultural infrastructure policy adjustments and change (Calilhanna, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021; Calilhanna et al., 2019). Some of these changes will involve key competencies; other policies will require cultural heritage acknowledgement, further consideration to research-based evidence for transferable skills, and literacy and numeracy. A scientific approach to analysing similarities and differences of music traditions delves into finer details with suitable analytical instruments and processes. Yet most of the cultural contributions, the musical heritage of people worldwide, for example, the traditional music of post-colonial countries such as the Igbo in Nigeria, has been silenced, is at risk of extinction, remains unaccounted for or is inaccurately explained. Cohn’s (2020) psychoacoustic approach to the meter is discussed through visualising the beat-class in a three-step approach with the ski-hill, circle, and linear, cyclic graphs.