In Western music theory, a foundational assumption is that tones separated by a 2:1 frequency ratio—an octave—are perceived as essentially the same note, differing only in register. For example, tones at 440 Hz and 880 Hz are typically perceived as belonging to the same pitch class (A), despite differing in pitch height.
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Decolonization is not a metaphor.
Nor is it a product.
It is a process.The phrase itself comes from Indigenous scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, whose 2012 essay Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor challenged the way the term was being casually adopted in academic and cultural spaces.In their 2012 essay, Tuck and Yang insist that decolonization is materially grounded — tied to land, sovereignty, and the dismantling of colonial structures. When the term becomes metaphorical, it becomes safe. And when it becomes safe, it stops unsettling the systems it names.This matters not only in questions of land, but also in questions of knowledge.Because colonialism did not only occupy territory — it reorganized epistemology. It universalized certain frameworks of science, rationality, classification, and aesthetics while marginalizing others. It determined what counted as legitimate knowledge and what required “correction”.Sound is not outside that history.To understand how, we can step back into 1932.
Cairo, 1932In 1932, Cairo hosted the First International Congress of Arab Music. It was an Egyptian initiative sponsored by King Fuad I, bringing together musicians and scholars from across Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA), alongside Turkish and European counterparts. Performances took place. Traditions encountered one another. Some were even recorded for the first time.
It was an Egyptian initiative, yet it unfolded under British colonial ruleAt the congress, different visions of the future of Arab music confronted one another. On one side were more conservative positions, invested in preserving established forms and transmission practices. On the other were reformists who advocated adopting tools associated with Western music — standardized notation, orchestration, harmonic thinking .And within that setting, one of the central debates was not simply about music — it was about how music should be known.
The Question of Standardization
At the heart of the congress was the maqām system — the melodic framework that structures much of Arab music. Maqām is not equivalent to a Western scale. It involves specific intervallic relationships, tonal centers, characteristic phrases, and affective trajectories.It does not fit neatly into the twelve equally spaced tones of Western equal temperament.Some European delegates viewed this difference as instability. As something in need of clarification and order. A proposal gained traction: divide the octave into 24 equal quarter tones. A rational grid and a measurable structure. A system that could be standardized, orchestrated, aligned with Western theoretical models.Scientific. Neutral. Mathematical.But neutrality is never innocent when one framework determines what counts as clarity and what counts as disorder.Turning sound into numbers is not merely descriptive. It is prescriptive. It reshapes instruments. It trains ears to hear certain intervals as correct and others as deviant or “out of tune”.This was not a technical adjustment. It was epistemic translation or to quote Jose Claudio S. Castanheira:A piano keyboard is a mechanical device that lifts a hammer and drops it back onto a string, a string that can be tuned to anything. There is no need to equate the piano with 12-EDO.Refusal as PracticThe congress did not reach consensus on standardizing maqām into a 24-tone equal system. While some European participants viewed this as a limitation for orchestration and institutionalization, the absence of agreement can be understood otherwise.Rather than a failure to modernize, it may reflect a reluctance to reduce a relational and context-sensitive sonic practice to a fixed, evenly divided grid. Maqām’s precision does not necessarily depend on equalized measurement.In this sense, refusal appears not as confrontation, but as non-alignment — a decision not to fully translate into the dominant framework.is.
Listening as Power
For centuries, Western tonal systems have been treated as universal — while the musical traditions of colonized peoples were positioned as regional, traditional, or in need of refinement.But sound is not universal. It is culturally constituted. Sonic systems encode relations — between bodies, between communities, between past and present.
The way intervals are tuned, the way melody unfolds, the way silence is held — these are not neutral aesthetic choices. They shape how worlds are perceived and inhabited.When one tuning system becomes the global standard, it does more than organize pitch. It organizes perception and hierarchy.
This is where Tuck and Yang’s warning resonates beyond land politics. If colonialism reorganized knowledge, then it also reorganized listening. It established hierarchies of intelligibility — deciding which sounds appear ordered and which appear chaotic.
To say decolonization is not a metaphor, in this context, is to refuse to treat these dynamics as merely symbolic. The push to standardize maqām in 1932 was not just about musical efficiency. It reflected a deeper assumption: that legitimacy comes through conformity to Western rational frameworks.A Practice of Re-Orient-ationIf decolonization is a process, then it must include listening.Not as a grand declaration, but as a series of minor re-orientations.A decolonizing practice of listening might mean resisting the urge to correct what does not align with familiar grids. It might mean acknowledging that intelligibility is culturally produced.
It might mean recognizing that what sounds “out of tune” in one system may be precise within another.It also means accepting that not everything must be unified.The 1932 congress reveals that even in moments framed as collaboration and progress, underlying logics of standardization can reproduce hierarchies. Yet it also reveals something else: the possibility of refusal.
The possibility of protecting relational systems of knowledge without translating them fully into dominant forms.Decolonization is not about replacing one universal with another.And perhaps it begins here — in the recognition that listening is never neutral, and that how we hear the world is already shaped by histories of power.
In my latest release ZURNA RAVE, I challenge colonial legacies in music production. Unlike an octave divided neatly into equal parts, the project resists final resolution.
It was an Egyptian initiative, yet it unfolded under British colonial ruleAt the congress, different visions of the future of Arab music confronted one another. On one side were more conservative positions, invested in preserving established forms and transmission practices. On the other were reformists who advocated adopting tools associated with Western music — standardized notation, orchestration, harmonic thinking .And within that setting, one of the central debates was not simply about music — it was about how music should be known.
The Question of Standardization
At the heart of the congress was the maqām system — the melodic framework that structures much of Arab music. Maqām is not equivalent to a Western scale. It involves specific intervallic relationships, tonal centers, characteristic phrases, and affective trajectories.It does not fit neatly into the twelve equally spaced tones of Western equal temperament.Some European delegates viewed this difference as instability. As something in need of clarification and order. A proposal gained traction: divide the octave into 24 equal quarter tones. A rational grid and a measurable structure. A system that could be standardized, orchestrated, aligned with Western theoretical models.Scientific. Neutral. Mathematical.But neutrality is never innocent when one framework determines what counts as clarity and what counts as disorder.Turning sound into numbers is not merely descriptive. It is prescriptive. It reshapes instruments. It trains ears to hear certain intervals as correct and others as deviant or “out of tune”.This was not a technical adjustment. It was epistemic translation or to quote Jose Claudio S. Castanheira:A piano keyboard is a mechanical device that lifts a hammer and drops it back onto a string, a string that can be tuned to anything. There is no need to equate the piano with 12-EDO.Refusal as PracticThe congress did not reach consensus on standardizing maqām into a 24-tone equal system. While some European participants viewed this as a limitation for orchestration and institutionalization, the absence of agreement can be understood otherwise.Rather than a failure to modernize, it may reflect a reluctance to reduce a relational and context-sensitive sonic practice to a fixed, evenly divided grid. Maqām’s precision does not necessarily depend on equalized measurement.In this sense, refusal appears not as confrontation, but as non-alignment — a decision not to fully translate into the dominant framework.is.
Listening as Power
For centuries, Western tonal systems have been treated as universal — while the musical traditions of colonized peoples were positioned as regional, traditional, or in need of refinement.But sound is not universal. It is culturally constituted. Sonic systems encode relations — between bodies, between communities, between past and present.
The way intervals are tuned, the way melody unfolds, the way silence is held — these are not neutral aesthetic choices. They shape how worlds are perceived and inhabited.When one tuning system becomes the global standard, it does more than organize pitch. It organizes perception and hierarchy.
This is where Tuck and Yang’s warning resonates beyond land politics. If colonialism reorganized knowledge, then it also reorganized listening. It established hierarchies of intelligibility — deciding which sounds appear ordered and which appear chaotic.
To say decolonization is not a metaphor, in this context, is to refuse to treat these dynamics as merely symbolic. The push to standardize maqām in 1932 was not just about musical efficiency. It reflected a deeper assumption: that legitimacy comes through conformity to Western rational frameworks.A Practice of Re-Orient-ationIf decolonization is a process, then it must include listening.Not as a grand declaration, but as a series of minor re-orientations.A decolonizing practice of listening might mean resisting the urge to correct what does not align with familiar grids. It might mean acknowledging that intelligibility is culturally produced.
It might mean recognizing that what sounds “out of tune” in one system may be precise within another.It also means accepting that not everything must be unified.The 1932 congress reveals that even in moments framed as collaboration and progress, underlying logics of standardization can reproduce hierarchies. Yet it also reveals something else: the possibility of refusal.
The possibility of protecting relational systems of knowledge without translating them fully into dominant forms.Decolonization is not about replacing one universal with another.And perhaps it begins here — in the recognition that listening is never neutral, and that how we hear the world is already shaped by histories of power.
In my latest release ZURNA RAVE, I challenge colonial legacies in music production. Unlike an octave divided neatly into equal parts, the project resists final resolution.
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