Ep 43 Nate Holder

Music Therapy Conversations

Nate Holder BA, MMus is a musician, author, speaker and music education consultant based in London. He is an advocate for decolonising music education and has been writing, speaking and consulting on the subject for the last five years.

Nate brings his passion and skill in public speaking into leading CPD training and workshops; helping address bias and underrepresentation in music classrooms, departments, hubs and boards across the UK.

His first book, 'I Wish I Didn’t Quit: Music Lessons', became an Amazon bestseller and is currently available worldwide. His second book, ‘Why Is My Piano Black and White’, was released in Sept 2020.

Nate talked about his own musical education, and what might be missing from mainstream education more generally, in particular due to racial bias. We also discuss his poem, 'If I Were a Racist', featured on his #decolonisemusiced blog, including the reactions to this, both positive and negative.

Nate also refers to his own experience of music therapy, taking a music therapy module as part of his music degree, and refers briefly to the book Hit Makers, by Derek Thompson.

Phillip Ewell's address to the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory is here, and the reference to his article on Schenker's racism is as follows:

Ewell, P. A. (2020). Music Theory and the White Racial Frame. Music Theory Online, 26(2).