Responding to "Music Theory and White Supremacy" (Adam Neely & Philip Ewell) 

Thank you, sir. Signed, Adam Neely's mom

When music educators say they are too busy to teach diversity in the music curriculum they are wrong. Irish, African, Native, and German folk music is the true foundation of what is music in America. When conservatories teach only classical music and students forget their musical heritage and culture. When marching bands and corps play music from a show script written by another DCI or BOA show there is no room for learning how to make a show or creativity or even accommodation for people who are impaired or disabled. This is why Star of Indiana the foundation of the show Blast, left DCI for good and now needs to wake up to the damage DCI and BOA have done to the next generation of students.

I agree with your response video completely! I made this comment in another response video as well as Adam's video. But I feel that the better subject/term we use is not "Music Theory" but "Music Theory Pedagogy". Because it's really the pedagogy, the way the theoretical material is selected, organized, and more importantly *advertised* by academia/music programs is problematic. I think if the title of the video is "Music Theory Pedagogy is Racist", it'd make people think more "why do you add the pedagogy part? So it's not music theory in itself. . . ." But of course, it's a less clickbaity title. I'm coming from a non-musician POV, but am in academia, so aspects of this made me realize how the problem is truly real and needs to be solved within the music theory academia.

Sir, I admire not only your convictions, but also your ability to precisley construct your claims. Excellent.

Speaking of racism, Schenker was Jewish, but on the other hand, he deprecated Italian music. He argued that it did not have the same tonal structures as German music. That is a very questionable proposition. More to the point for him, it wasn't German. Schenker had the good fortune to die in 1936 before he would have been carted away to a concentration camp.

point clearly made. as someone with no formal background in music or music theory, i'd be interested in your thoughts on how music education could be different.

this seems more like an explanation of the Adam Neely video

Adam Hypothesis holds incredibly well. He uses actual proof to demostrates 4 postulates A) Music Theory is prescriptive and not descriptive. B) Modern Music Theory stablishes an arbitrary standatd of value in music. C)Modern Music Theory proposes, without proof, there is objective value in music. D) Modern Music Theory was not born as a tool for musicians but as a mean to prove the superiority of European Music. Anyone that follows logic and proof instead of emotion and rage can see Adam is right. He quotes historical texts and neuroscience, he puts a lot of effort

I've seen good arguments here against your position and I'd like to point out more. We study music theory from the west because, well, we are in the west and it's the basis for the popular music styles worldwide today. Everything we do in our culture in music is in relation to that theory background, even when choosing to depart from it. As some points out, when you go to India and study classical Indian music, it's your studying the basis for the music of that culture. One would expect nothing less. Calling our music racist or white supremacist is pointless and the theory itself is far from useless or lacking because it doesn't dive into other cultural expressions. In fact, if we do dive into it, we are accused of cultural appropriation. It's a progressive ideological minefield where westerners are set up to fail. I'll give you two cases in point. First, Ariana Grande was accused of cultural appropriation because of rhythmic devices in her music that are predominant in hip hop music. Adam Neely himself did a video on how this was not actually cultural appropriation, seeing as these rhythms weren't specific to hip hop culture because they were preexisting in Scottish music and were even known as Scotch hops. I didn't learn about them in music theory in college, by the way but that didn't mean we're steeped in supremacy against Scottish culture. Likewise, a white man writing classical Japanese tunes under a pseudonym was outed for using a Japanese sounding name and progressives started an outcry against him that resulted in him losing most of his publishing. I can't remember his name but he made a public apology and continued writing under his own name. This wasn't good enough for the rabid, far left who dominate the arts. Classical musicians I work with continued to try and totally destroy this man's career because in their minds he was appropriating the music of that culture. So, it's really pointless for us to delve into music if other cultures in western music. We're faced with a damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don't scenario where we don't dare use that knowledge or be branded racist as well. I unsubscribed from Adam and didn't subscribe to you because I think we shouldn't be practicing bullshit politics in our music. I've been a musician for 43 years, a producer for 23 years and own a media production studio and music and art learning center and I'm viridian to see all this backlash culturally against people just trying to learn and make music. Living in a country whose progressive left destroyed the business of two white ladies die making and selling tortillas in California, it's easy to see why we would shy away from studies within our music classes of other cultures but that isn't the point. Classes that do that are widely available but the point of music theory classes is to give a good foundation into the music of our culture and raise new generations of classical musicians. Anything else is a specialization.

Great response and clarification of the ideas in Neely's video. We will be discussing this in a University of Virginia music department graduate seminar. Thanks for your contribution to the discourse.

Adams video hit me on so many levels. Thank you for unpacking it more.

Great video. I've been learning "music theory", and it's helped tremendously with scales and putting pieces together. Buuut, when I'm playing, I ignore it, and play what sounds good to me, and that doesn't always fall into any specific theory concepts. My point is, it's useful as a tool, but it's certainly not the whole toolbox.

"18th Century German Musicians" then lists: Bach (18th century, German) Beethoven (18-19th century, German) Bartok (20th century, Hungarian) Wagner (19th century, German) Schenker (19-20th century, Austrian) Toch (20th century, Austrian) Schumann (19th century, German) Hindemith (20th century, German) Basically, it's not limited to 18th century, or to Germans, but it's a harmony book from the perspective of European/Western classical music. I'd be surprised if it didn't also talk about some Russians (Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, etc), French (Debussy, Faure, etc), Americans (Copland, Barber, etc). It's an old book so maybe, but most such books will go well beyond Germans or "Germanic-adjacent nations" (aka Europe?). Too much is also made of the book name being generic. That's pretty common. If you went into a book store in India and found a book called something like "Principles of Melody" and saw it was all about Indian (or India-adjacent) classical musicians and didn't even talk about Beethoven or Duke Ellington, would you be upset and conclude that it was trying to trick you into being an Indian supremacist?

I find it pretty petty to claim that because it is called theory it shouldn't focus primarily on western composers. Obviously theory written in a European language published in a Western country is going to be about western music. I am pretty sure if I go to India and find some Hindi book from the 1930's it is also going to be called something like "the rules of music" but then in Hindi. There is a docu on Netflix called "Hip-Hop evolution", obviously it is going to be about American hip hop history and not Bangledeshian hip hop history. Is it now wrong that they didn't specify that it is American hip hop? Are they therefor implying that only American hip hop is real? Is that perpetuating a African-American supremicst idea? In front of me I have a book called "Harmony for a new Millenium" by Randy Sandke, is that now also America supremacist because it doesn't directly specify that it is about Jazz harmony? It says Harmony so it must claim that all other harmony is inferior. That is what I hear when people claim Music Theory is racist or white supremacist because it calls itself music theory and not western music theory.

jazz is more technical then classical. jazz is a branch off of classical. you dont know what the heck a major7sus4 chord is before you know what a simple triad is. makes sense theyd focus on the classical first… is foundational to understanding the others

Thank you for your contribution!

I personally feel as if the statement "Music Theory is White Supremacy" or "Music Theory is Racist" or "Music Theory and White Supremacy" are very extreme which creates instant bias for or against the statements. I think "Music Theory stems from people who were white supremacists" or "The whole system of Music Theory as we know today has been and still is somewhat taught through a single lens" is far more level-headed. It specifies this lesson is simply historical cause and effect, which I have no problem with. I personally feel as if the main reason Western music is our default historical reference in many of our books on music theory is the sole fact that we live in the West therefore it's the most relevant to us. I personally never took Bach or Mozart as the "top dog" in music universally, but strictly in the West, that's just me. I think African music schools reference their top dogs in music by default because it's the most relevant to them. I don't feel as if this part has anything to do with race, but more what part of the world you are being taught in, that's just my opinion however. I also don't like that this is being taught/taken as if it's a problem that needs to be addressed or else something of significance will occur. Here's one of my favorite quotes, "Our world is not divided by race, color, gender, or religion. Our world is divided into wise people and fools. And fools divide themselves by race, color, gender, or religion" ~ Mohamad Safa. I think people just need to accept the fact that people of all colors were racist back then, especially people of higher importance (like Schenker). It doesn't have to be a divisive thing, I hate to see people divide themselves over topics that are simply misunderstood. I initially was angry with Neeley like many others, but I found rather than wallow in irritation, I simply said "this is how things were back then, and it isn't negatively effecting the majority of people today, so as long as people avoid unnecessarily creating conflict over something that doesn't ultimately matter, then I have no issue with it." I agree with you when you say that this isn't new information. To me, this carries the same importance of pointing out the fact that plantation owners in America during the early 1800's were racist and owned slaves. Uh... duh... that's not new, racist people are racist, but I hardly think it's one of the biggest issues today. I appreciate your rather open-mindedness, you believe Neeley is correct, but also understand that 18th century European white men being racist isn't a modern revelation.

@dan reitz sorry to come to the party late, if you're up for it would be keen to hear just a little bit on how the music theory field views 20th c western avant garde, modernism and orientalism/ primitivism. If it's treated as part of the imperial project, or resistance, or not important ... Just a curious onlooker.

"Melody and harmony are universal concepts" Except that they aren't.

I was educated 30 years ago in this framing: Germanic musical practice and it’s theoretical codification by mostly Germanic born or acolytes of Germanic born music theorists. Riemann, Albrectsberger and H. Schenker. Of course we an Italian (Zarlino) and a Frenchman (JH Rameau). That was 70% of my MT masters exams. The other 30% was some other Viennese inspired theorists like Milton Babbit and Allen Forte. I think you and I are aligned; to challenge Neely and Ewell effectively you’d have to address the social and intellectual context amidst which MT arose. Social context : the arbiters of inclusion in the MT compositional and MT canon were and are to a large extent still European Men, oh so white. The intellectual context is essentialism and universalism. Statements like ‘Harmony and Melody are universal’ suffer from this framing. Values could be heightened in these realms but rhythm and timbre could also be heightened in others. I would tweak the language ‘you are engaging in white supremacy’ when you practice music theory a la Schacter, Schenker and Schoenberg to the one more closely resemble the one Neely uses. I’d say ‘when you consciously or unconsciously approach traditional western academic music theory you are engaging in a praxis that was framed by a power structure soaked in implicit and explicit European cultural supremacy, oh so white’. To defend the universalism and essentialism of that framing is racist, period. Lauding the achievements of the western canon are not problematic if we hold the framing in mind when we do so. So, it is not ‘woke’ to acknowledge this; that implies this is a fad or superficial. Not at all! Ewell to me is talking about power. This is a permanent reversal of fortune for the western academic canon. It’s pretty simple - we have long ago stopped writing music we care about that fits like a cadaver in that coffin. I revere Beethoven’s music. I can’t undo the profound impact of his music on my soul. But neither can I erase Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis or Derrick May. Wachtet Auf, uns die Stimme. New voices will be heard if we open up.

that video was pure pandering. looking back, it did nothing, it changed nothing its very clear that he is just sucking up to blm crowd that were thrashing the cities at that time. it was his way of saying „look guys, im helping”. he uploaded that video, scored some social points and completely forgot about that. did adam do anything related to that after he uploaded the video, did he try to at least stir up some movement in the academia? no, he just checked the box on this toppic and carried on just like so many other spineless „creators”.

Garbage clickbait. What have you or Neely created anything of musical value. San you say, NOTHING. The inherent superiority of so called "white supremacist theory" is the inescapable truth that Gemanic music and all modern expressions of Western music is based on SCIENCE. First formulated by old Greek mathematicians and should be the first page of theorists who display the visuals of the OVERTONE series. Neely and this bloggers content is just a click bait, revenue enhanced exchange of ideas full of intellectual garbage designed to take advantage of the current mania to jump on the bandwagon of the current Meme, and IMO, cringeworthy. Smh

Did you READ Ewells paper?? It’s obvious u haven’t. It’s a critical theory paper. This is Complete Nonsense. They show NO reasons why this is true. It is complete speculation and Ewell says so in his paper. You haven’t a clue bro

Seek some alternative viewpoints and see where the path forward is. Ewell’s take is based on critical theory and postmodern deconstruction of culture. It’s flawed and it’s also dangerous in the way it’s being actualized in current discourse. Don’t just take it as gospel without a deeper analysis

Nice extension of Adam Neely's video.

But the whole point that "Music Theory" is tied to explicit white supremacy is a strawman. German supremacy is not white supremacy. Here is what Schenker had to say about fellow white people "the Anglo-Saxons, the French, the Italians, the Slavs etc. will discover that these peo- ples all lack power of creativity at the highest level of genius. Genius is possessedness, demonic nature. . . . No Anglo-Saxon, French, or Italian mother could ever carry in her womb a Moses, a Christ, or a Luther . . " Does that sound like a white supremacist?

I'm curious as to why "18th century" is specified.

Sure, you can't deny the fact that present Music Theory🎼🎵🎶 was created and designed by European White Men at a time when European Colonialism and domination was pervasive Worldwide!🌍 So what! That's life! That's History and present! What's the big deal now? It's still Beautiful Music🎵🎶and the people who have a problem with that can listen to some other type of Music,🎵 if they don't appreciate it. The people who want to whine and complain that we don't appreciate other types of musicians or music need to do their own soul searching 🔎 and try to zero in on their own personal problems and why they have a problem with the biased preferences of a White Musical🎶 Art🎭 form that's appreciated the World over! I know the people who want to complain about this biasness in Music Theory🎶, can also use the same biased logic 🤔 against the Constitution of the United States!🇺🇸 Which incidentally, was written by, for and in favor of White Men! What, are we supposed to not adhere to the Constitution📃? Even though it has been amended at points in time, for good cause, are we supposed to throw the baby 👶out with the bathwater🛀 too? The people that have criticisms against present Music Theory, Still also benefited from studying it! A little appreciation and humility would be better suited for this long lasting Musical tradition!🎼🎶🎵🎓 Just food for thought!💡 Peace!✌🖖😇🙏🎶🎵📯🎷🎺🎻🎭🎹🎼

I agreed with the arguement even when i first watched Adam's upload, as a Germanic speaking European (like, as in actually speaking European Germanic language, besides English which hardly qualifies anymore) i have some thought's on it: it's the completely irrational and unhistorical conflation of Germanic, European, White with *German* Italian and French. I'm pretty damn white, european and germanic, but there has never been an opera written in my language, our folk music doesn't exactly follow 18th century high european standards (aka. German, French and Italian). The arguement is lost in Americanisms surrounding history, honestly it'd be more accurate to say that it's christian and rich people supremacy, since those are the roots of why German, French and Italian had that position in aristocratic culture, and why most of Europes folk music was suppressed since it was made illegal in many countries for anyone but court-certified musicians to play music for hundreds of years, it didn't exactly make it disappear, but it had immense effect on the education and academia of music up until a few decades ago. Inadvertantly saying that it's white supremacy and/or Germanic supremacy is actually racist, because what am i then? an inconvenience?

I hope that wasn't too difficult for you to admit. "Reshape the message, reshape the mind." Thank You!

The roots are deeper than racism. It’s a common thing for people to believe that where they are born, that’s where the absolute truth is and everything pute is there. Take religion. If you’re from Europe or USA, you’re probably told about god and jesus and his next coming and the bible. Most people from EU/USA believe that is the ultimate truth. They were born in the right religion. Some people think that food made where they lived or made by their mothers is the best food in the world. It’s more of a nationalist / traditionalist inclination than racist. Sure, those people were what we call racist, but they were really just confused.

The enlightenment was wacist.

Music Theory is just that, theory, not practice. So, being mostly euro-centric, it is not of much use. Also, even if it wasn't euro-centric, I think it would not be of much use. Why? Because it is not music that is played, heard and enjoyed, it is just a bit of that and a bit of that with a lot of (too much of) explanations. Yeah, I could be wrong, but seriously... if you want to learn particular music style, european, american or indian, please do not use music theory book of any kind. Take the particular song or a movement, listen to it, play it, enjoy in it and repeat. Contrary to popular beliefs, that is enough to understand it, and even compose it or play it. Bottom line: stay away from "music theory".

Adam Neely’s reference to the harmonic styles of 18th century composers is a fallacy, and I feel bad for the individuals who have not yet developed their critical thinking faculties well enough to comprehend that. Joplin composed his rags using the same chords that one would find in a sonata by Mozart. The same is true of the music of Florence Price and Samuel Coleridge Taylor amongst many other Americans black white or otherwise. Joplin earned a place in history deserved by one whose output was comprised primarily of dance music along with two operas and one ballet. If Mozart wrote only 44 or so waltzes, two operas and one ballet he would likely occupy a station in music history similar to Joplin’s. If there really were inherently white supremacist “harmonic styles of 18th century European composers” then someone really should have told the black composers in America who composed their music according to the same procedures. Recall that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann, etc. have cemented their place in history above myriads of other white European composers; this includes scores of other second rate German composers who have faded into obscurity. Being white and European has not aided composers like Kullak, Thalberg, Heller, and hundreds of others who wrote works on themes as dull as dishwater achieve the status of Beethoven, whose musical ideas were superior. We frequently use examples by Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, whose “harmonic styles” are in many ways dissimilar, because the melodies of their operas, symphonies, and concerti (etc.), are catchier than the tunes of other composers. Everyone who studies music at the collegiate level is required to identify where the tonic, subdominant, and dominant chords are used in 18th and 19th century music, but almost no one can create a melody that instantly catches the attention of a large audience supported by these harmonies like Beethoven did in the first four measures of his opus 67. Music is good or not good because of a certain “je ne sais quoi”. This fact has apparently left the door open for people like Adam Neely to ascribe racism to it’s mystique. In the time it took him to construct this ridiculous argument and get as many people as possible debating this nonsense he could have instead been hard at work on composing a piece of music that encapsulates the indescribable and inspired others to do the same. Or could he have done so really?

It's not a new idea and there is lots of credit to give to other cultures. Music theory might be kinds racist, they say . Every kind of music that can be liked or dislike can be considered as being pushed as better music. . but what you elite Leftists are doing, building up others to put down irrationality of whites (as if blacks might not be more irrational) , is playing with fire and will and is backfiring. The germanic music is not the best but was an advanced. Because even that video has holes in it and the complete story is not being told. I can tell you I could not comment like I have on here a month or two ago but after Trump is gone and Biden's madness is starting up, it's more ok to differ. My comments are a little less deplorable, or I am a nut/ I didn't vote for Trump, I am moderate but i am very annoyed by lies of the Left (not that the Right doesn't lie but their lies are now exposed and exaggerated and reason for dismissal aren't reasoned either .. its' all part of the dirty white culture . Leftist lies .. like CNN 24/7 hating on deplorables, is sick, one-sided, not reasoned. It's subtle what you do in this video and not obvious to many but i hate your thinking only because it's not logical at times and you act as if you point of view on music can't be challenged. It can Why wouldn't dance be required a lot more? Right just give the reasons why to include but not why it really shouldn't be required or why it is not significant. Hey let's teach pottery to everyone too and shovel your dirty ideas into it. Use straw man Ben Shapiro as you will, but others see what you are doing. I have elaborated below, Not perfect logic but I make good points that you will not acknowledged because you are smothered in PC thought. Ben might be racist in that way, partly due to his religious background though and the horror of whiteness, But so are lots of minorities very religious and definitely not as logical as the average white, even if whites are mostly not logical and when black can change, the whites will change. The point is people don't change much. Studies show young whites still think blacks are slower and lazy some as grandparents than whites. They just are more accepting and cooler about it, that's all. . Also, blacks think they are superior to whites in other ways. It's called the Illusory Superiority Complex of Psych. It's a survival mechanism where we all try to feel our best and think we are better than others in most ways. Do you think fat people realize it most of the time that others thing they are fat ? Wrong if you do. A 400 lbs man might but a 250 , 5'9" man thinks he's stocky or average but others thing he is fat depending on distribution of mass. Just using an example.. I don't dare use women in this example ha! When you are forced to swallow pc thinking , some of it nonsense and some of it is OK or once in a while good,. But take it too far as you do, making a science of opinion, and you get AOC who's potential is far more fascistic than Trump's was and she can't play but a false note. I know you don't care or think about this. When news is now mostly Leftist, lies are spread more easily and people think less with a knee-jerk predisposing to what the new culture tells them. You join the so-called deplorable when you don't self-examine and be self-critical. Could it be that European philosophy is superior to African due to environment and biology? Could it be that art work is more sophisticated by whites? Impossible! lol, that is something I should be jailed for writing. There are reasons why a step by step analysis shows European had some cultural and biological advantages and they produced greater work than blacks. Oh but the Egyptian pyramids prove that this is nonsense? Right, it could be aliens who built it, could have been helped by whites (oh god to think that though) or that Egyptians spend all their lives planning for this graveyard for their highest ranking people or a tribute to the gods. If they did little else, why is it so amazing? I really don't know, you can find your math genius to testify anyway you like. The math behind it was very good but not necessarily amazing like we are taught. And if it couldn't be done by white, not ever! That's what some like to believe sop they can feel falsely superior. Good to feel superior right? Or that one or two of such exceptions like pyramids actually tests the main rule that Europeans contributed so much more than others. Hey you don't have to like facts. A stop clock is right twice a day .. would pyramids be looked at in this light.? I give credit to blacks for great contribution but some western classical music could be considered more sophisticated but of course Jazz from blacks is probably better. County music is probably a lower form, though for some reason those with the highest IQ like country, Indie and alternative is considered much better than Soca or gospel but Gospel adds a lot . This is an explanation of the wrong headed vide that fails. Maybe European will always go down at better do matter has you try to bring it down. Hey ii don't most of but I don't have to like Shankar. And I don't worry about how good is European music .. it matter not, it's not my mind of music but i would bet it's better than soca and gospels which are soaking with black supremacy. And if you think blacks don't feel superior to whites, you are unforced. They are also happier than whites. They feel their culture is better despite aggressive, loudness, and riot's. This is all a fight against are "we are better that you" is what it comes down to. .

There is also a Italian guy there with dismatless the whole point for me but still.

Rather ask yourself why your musical "work" does not make more than 50 views on you tube ( A little bit like the videos of Philipp Ewell ).

Music Theory is stuffy and old fashioned.

Having a culture is not “white supremacist.” Nobody says that people, say, participating in Indian culture are “Indian supremacist.” Adam is involved in empty virtue signaling. Furthermore. I know how this sounds. But at the same time, I know, as everyone knows, that it’s true: Western culture is superior to every other culture. Be it art, politics, economics, social acceptance of minorities (gays, women, blacks, trans, the poor, etc). But I’ll just focus on music. Western music is vastly more complex, innovative, and artistic than any other culture’s system of music. Furthermore, the enthusiasm with which Western music incorporates ideas from other cultures’ music only strengthens my case, rather than point to the ugly idea of “cultural appropriation.” I could give countless examples, and will do so if asked. To say otherwise, is simply to be involved in empty virtue signaling. Oh Adam Neely, you’re such an ally for calling Western music “White supremacist!”

I think I’ll be the first to comment.

👍

Adam Neely’s approach was quite willy-nilly ( ba-dum-tss)