Ewell Challenges Schenker Canon as Race Clashes Hit US Music Curricula
Adam Neely
American music academies present 18th-century European harmonic practices as a universal grammar to preserve an exclusionary white racial hierarchy codified by Heinrich Schenker.
AI-assisted summary of Music Theory and White Supremacy — original source. Check the original for full context.
Source published:
Key ideas
- Academic music theory in the United States primarily operates within a 'white racial frame,' treating the 18th-century harmonic practices of European court composers as the universal baseline for analyzing all global music. (2:53)
- Foundational curricula continue to mandate figured bass exercises that 19th-century masters like Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov discarded as obsolete in 1884, largely using them as preparation for Schenkerian reduction. (4:17)
- Heinrich Schenker's influential analytical method was fundamentally rooted in white supremacy and German nationalist ideology, explicit political views he documented in personal correspondence praising Adolf Hitler in 1933. (32:24)
- Alternative analytical traditions—including George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept, Barry Harris's sixth-diminished scale, and North Indian classical raga systems—provide sophisticated tools for analyzing tonal spaces while avoiding European-centric biases. (16:52)
Detailed notes
## Background Published on YouTube by musician and educator Adam Neely on September 7, 2020, this video essay is built around Dr. Philip Ewell's landmark academic paper "The White Racial Frame of Music Theory." The video's description credits Dr. Ewell, links to external research sources, and details chapter markers spanning non-Western music systems, the legacy of theorist Heinrich Schenker, and institutional pushback.
## TL;DR Neely demonstrates that what Western academia labels universal "music theory" is actually a narrow codification of 18th-century European harmonic practices used as a gatekeeping standard. Drawing on Dr. Philip Ewell's critique of music theory's white racial frame, Neely highlights rich alternative frameworks—from North Indian classical music to African American jazz theories developed by George Russell and Barry Harris—that institutional curricula largely ignore. He traces how 20th-century academia repackaged Eurocentric music theory as objective mathematics, downplaying the overt German nationalism and white supremacism foundational to influential figures like Heinrich Schenker. Ultimately, Neely argues that deconstructing this bias is not about canceling historical composers, but about recognizing Western classical tonality as just one situated tradition among many rather than the default measure of musical value.
## Atmosphere & style The presentation blends scholarly depth with Neely's characteristic dry wit, engaging visual diagrams, and measured, conversational delivery. The video builds from accessible pop-culture listening comparisons into a somber, unflinching historical dissection of institutional gatekeeping, academic backlash, and systemic prejudice. Despite navigating tense culture-war controversies, the tone remains analytical, patient, and pedagogically earnest, resolving its heavy subject matter with a signature moment of deadpan humor in the coda.
## Bulletin - [02:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=173s) Academic music theory in the United States primarily operates within a 'white racial frame,' treating the 18th-century harmonic practices of European court composers as the universal baseline for analyzing all global music. - [04:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=257s) Foundational curricula continue to mandate figured bass exercises that 19th-century masters like Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov discarded as obsolete in 1884, largely using them as preparation for Schenkerian reduction. - [32:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1944s) Heinrich Schenker's influential analytical method was fundamentally rooted in white supremacy and German nationalist ideology, explicit political views he documented in personal correspondence praising Adolf Hitler in 1933. - [16:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1012s) Alternative analytical traditions—including George Russell's Lydian Chromatic Concept, Barry Harris's sixth-diminished scale, and North Indian classical raga systems—provide sophisticated tools for analyzing tonal spaces while avoiding European-centric biases.
## Key takeaways - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=0s) Substituting 'the harmonic style of 18th-century European musicians' for 'music theory' exposes how narrowly academic curricula define musical structure. - [02:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=173s) Dr. Philip Ewell identified that the discipline functions through a 'white racial frame' that presumes white European musical frameworks are inherently superior and objective. - [04:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=257s) Centuries-old conventions like figured bass act as institutional gatekeeping mechanisms, despite being rejected as pedagogically impractical by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1884. - [08:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=508s) Complex, highly developed music theory traditions exist globally outside of Europe, as exemplified by the intricate melodic and rhythmic rules of North Indian classical music. - [14:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=845s) Comparative analysis between Western scales and Indian ragas reveals that musical techniques like ornamental slides (meend) are essential structural parameters, not mere decorations. - [16:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1012s) African American jazz theorists such as George Russell and Barry Harris created tonal systems that are equally, if not more, adept at analyzing 19th-century European music than figured bass. - [20:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1255s) Music is not an inherently universal language; cross-cultural musical translation loses meaning when one system's parameters are forced onto another. - [22:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1324s) The Cold War push to align music theory with hard science and mathematics had the sociopolitical effect of masking the cultural whiteness of its assumptions. - [23:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1400s) Cognitive neuroscience validates West African musical pedagogical models where dance and embodied movement are inseparable from rhythmic comprehension. - [25:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1506s) Pundits like Ben Shapiro rely on an 'epistemology of ignorance' to delegitimize genres like hip-hop by recycling 100-year-old exclusionary definitions of music. - [28:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1704s) Heinrich Schenker's analytical model reduces classical masterpieces to a fundamental contrapuntal structure (the Ursatz), essentially ranking works by how neatly they conform to this template. - [32:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1944s) Schenker's structural pitch hierarchy directly mirrored his belief in racial hierarchy, which held German culture as supreme and viewed other races as inferior. - [36:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=2179s) The University of North Texas's Journal of Schenkerian Studies generated widespread academic condemnation for publishing a symposium attacking Dr. Ewell without offering him rebuttal space. - [40:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=2434s) Music theory acts as an economic class signifier because access to elite institutions teaching 18th-century European harmony is largely restricted by socioeconomic privilege. - [41:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=2515s) Reforming music theory is not about canceling historical figures like Beethoven or Schenker, but about transparently dismantling structural bias and expanding the curriculum to include global frameworks.
## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=0s) “The Harmonic Style of 18th Century European Musicians”
Adam Neely opens with a mental substitution exercise: whenever encountering the phrase “music theory” online or in textbooks, replace it with “the harmonic style of 18th-century European musicians” and observe whether the sentence still holds together. Testing this substitution across everyday discourse immediately exposes how narrowly the term is applied. An online article praising pop music claims to unlock the musical genius of Lady Gaga through this lens, pointing out that her hit “Bad Romance” uses a raised leading tone in a minor key—a standard device in 18th-century Europe. College course catalogs touting comprehensive “music theory” reveal syllabi dominated almost entirely by common-practice European tonal harmony. On Reddit, an electronic music producer asks the Deadmau5 community whether Joel Zimmerman uses “music theory”; Zimmerman himself explicitly rejects the comparison in interviews, explaining that his craft relies on modern technical production rather than classical composition, noting he considers himself more of a tech person than a Mozart. Forum posts asking whether the Beatles knew music theory or how modern chord progressions fit classical rules sound instantly absurd when phrased as asking whether 20th-century pop songwriters followed 18th-century European court practices.
Neely argues that while popular media and academic institutions condition listeners to treat “music theory” and 18th-century European tonal rules as synonymous, analytical frameworks built for Ludwig van Beethoven fail miserably when applied to rock, country, R&B, electronic dance music, or virtually any contemporary music people actually consume. What academic institutions label universal theory does not accurately reflect broader musical practice; instead, it measures the output of every culture against the specific stylistic preferences of a handful of historical European composers. Neely drives the point home with a visual contrast: comparing iconic American composers like Scott Joplin, Charles Mingus, or George Gershwin to their European counterparts. Neely sardonically remarks on the German masters: “They clearly have the superior music, they clearly have a superior culture, they are individuals of genius who rise above the degenerate masses and their degenerate music.”
- Replacing “music theory” with “the harmonic style of 18th-century European musicians” reveals how limited conventional academic definitions are. - Modern genres (rock, country, R&B, EDM) operate on distinct sonic principles that standard common-practice analysis fails to describe adequately. - Institutional music theory functions not as a universal grammar, but as a comparative metric centering historic European court styles over living musical traditions.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: The Scope of Conventional Music Theory accDescr: Diagram illustrating how general music theory in Western academia actually narrows down to 18th-century European harmonic practice.
subgraph Universal["Universalist Claim"] A["'Music Theory'"] -->|"Purports to explain"| B["All global music, contemporary genres, rhythm, timbre"] end
subgraph Reality["Institutional Reality"] C["Curricular Core"] -->|"Restricted to"| D["Harmonic style of 18th-century European musicians"] D -->|"Used to judge"| E["American music, pop, jazz, EDM, non-Western traditions"] end ```
---
[02:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=173s) Part I: The White Racial Frame of Music Theory
The video transitions to its first chapter, introducing Dr. Philip Ewell, an associate professor of music theory and cellist at Hunter College in New York City. Dr. Ewell brought these institutional contradictions to national academic attention during his keynote address at the Society for Music Theory (SMT) annual conference, delivering the paper *The White Racial Frame of Music Theory*. Ewell argues that American music theory operates within a pervasive racial ideology that inherently treats the cultural products, aesthetic values, and theoretical concepts of white European men as superior, universal, and objective, while sidelining non-white perspectives. As Dr. Ewell observes during his talk: “Our white racial frame believes that the music and music theories of white persons represent the best framework for music theory.”
Neely acknowledges the immediate institutional discomfort and political pushback surrounding terms like “racial ideology” and Critical Race Theory. Joking about right-wing accusations that such critiques are “un-American,” Neely pivots to examining the music itself to show how this ideological framing operates purely on a curricular level. The dominance of the white racial frame is evident in which specific, antiquated musical conventions are preserved in textbooks and classroom settings, while equally rich or far more practical harmonic systems are left out entirely.
- Dr. Philip Ewell presented his landmark critique at the Society for Music Theory conference. - The “white racial frame” posits white European musical practices as the default standard against which all other music is measured. - The framing permeates pedagogical materials, course syllabi, and academic expectations across higher education in the United States.
---
[04:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=257s) Figured Bass and the Archaic AP Spanish Analogy
To demonstrate how the white racial frame prioritizes arbitrary historical artifacts, Neely and Dr. Ewell examine figured bass. Figured bass originated in the 17th century as a functional shorthand—numbers and accidentals written underneath a bass line indicating intervals to be realized above it. It functioned essentially as the chord chart or lead sheet of the Baroque era, allowing keyboardists and lutenists to improvise their accompaniments in basso continuo. Ewell, an accomplished cellist who has performed continuo with premier Baroque ensembles, notes that while figured bass is historically fascinating and intimately familiar to early-music performers, its mandatory presence in introductory music theory courses makes little educational sense today. Comparing Johann Joseph Fux’s 1725 treatise *Gradus ad Parnassum* with Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter’s 2011 textbook *Harmony and Voice Leading*, Neely points out that modern college textbooks remain virtually identical in structure to manuals printed 300 years ago.
The absurdity of keeping figured bass at the center of music education was recognized well over a century ago. In 1884, Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov published his classic harmony textbook and eliminated figured bass entirely, calling it an obsolete waste of students' time. As Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote in 1884: “In most of the existing manuals of harmony we find rules for reading the now obsolete figured bass, but little or no practical advice for harmonizing melodies or selecting chords.” Despite Rimsky-Korsakov’s observation 140 years ago, modern American music curricula—including the AP Music Theory exam—continue to mandate figured bass exercises. Dr. Ewell argues that clinging to figured bass serves primarily as a gatekeeping mechanism to police and reinforce whiteness under the banner of historical preservation. Neely illustrates this disconnect with an analogy: if an AP Spanish class spent an entire school year teaching students exclusively 300-year-old archaic grammar rules useful only for reading *Don Quixote*, students would never learn to converse with native speakers across the modern Spanish-speaking world. In the same way, prioritizing Baroque voice leading over practical, global musical comprehension sacrifices musical literacy in the service of preserving a Eurocentric hierarchy.
- Figured bass served as a practical 17th-century shorthand for basso continuo improvisation, similar to modern chord symbols. - Textbooks from 1725 (*Gradus ad Parnassum*) and 2011 (*Harmony and Voice Leading*) mirror the same foundational exercises despite three centuries of musical evolution. - Rimsky-Korsakov explicitly removed figured bass from his 1884 harmony textbook because it offered no practical guidance for harmonizing melodies. - Insisting on archaic European techniques in foundational classes acts as an institutional filter rather than a necessary foundation for modern musicianship.
---
[08:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=508s) Part iim: North Indian Classical Theory and Anuja Kamat
Neely challenges the underlying assumption that European classical tradition is the only tradition possessing rigorous, highly developed music theory. Every culture that produces music also develops an intricate theoretical framework to analyze, teach, and conceptualize it. To illustrate this, Neely highlights the work of Anuja Kamat, a young Indian vocalist whose YouTube educational series breaks down the foundational mechanics of North Indian (Hindustani) classical music. Kamat’s channel explains sophisticated theoretical principles that parallel Western concepts while preserving unique cultural priorities.
Kamat covers microtonal tuning and temperament, explaining *swara* (musical notes) and introducing the concept of *swarakshetra*—the specific frequency range within which a given swara operates. She details distinct ornamentation styles, such as *zamzama*, a rapid, percussive vocal embellishment common in Maharashtrian and Punjabi folk songs. Rhythm is governed by *tal* (meter composed of specific bols/syllables and beats) and *laya* (the tempo or space between beats). Melodic construction is guided by *raag* (or raga), which Neely notes is a melodic framework designed to evoke specific emotions and aesthetics. Kamat illustrates that while the underlying scale degrees of the natural scale (Bilawal thaat) correspond to the Western major scale, the Indian system uses sargam solfège (Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni). She frequently demonstrates these cross-cultural connections by singing Western pop songs—such as Christina Perri’s “A Thousand Years” from *The Twilight Saga*—using Indian solfège syllables, proving that formal music theory is neither exclusive to Europe nor limited to common-practice Western rules.
- Anuja Kamat’s educational series provides an accessible primer on North Indian (Hindustani) classical music theory. - *Swara* denotes a pitch, which occupies a functional pitch space or frequency boundary called *swarakshetra*. - *Zamzama* is a specialized vocal ornamentation frequently utilized in folk traditions across Maharashtra and Punjab. - *Tal* provides the rhythmic structure (specific beat counts and mnemonic syllables), while *laya* dictates the tempo and spacing between pulses. - *Raag* provides the melodic framework and emotional identity of a performance, illustrating that complex theoretical categorization exists outside the Western canon.
[10:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=615s) Comparative Pedagogy: Raga vs. Scale and Building an Inclusive Music Theory
Anuja Kamat illustrates the core identity of North Indian classical music through *Raag Yaman*. She demonstrates that the phrase *Ni-Re-Ga* (Ni Re Ga) forms the vital signature of Yaman: rather than simply ascending sequentially (*Sa Re Ga*), the performer executes the specific motion *Ni Re Ga*. Every rag possesses a *chalan*—a set of governing rules detailing the melodic movement and combination of notes. For students of Western music, this distinction captures the exact difference between the Western concept of a scale or mode and the Indian concept of a rag. Adam Neely observes that Anuja uses Western music theory as an accessible foil to explain North Indian theory so students can comprehend both frameworks more deeply.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Comparison of Western Scale and Indian Raag accDescr: Diagram contrasting the linear pitch collection of a Western scale with the rule-governed identity and ornamentation of an Indian raag.
subgraph WesternFramework["Western Concept: Scale / Mode"] W1["Linear Pitch Collection"] --> W2["Expressive Nuance (Portamento is Optional)"] end
subgraph IndianFramework["North Indian Classical: Raag"] I1["Chalan (Governing Melodic Path)"] --> I2["Essential Phrases (e.g., Ni-Re-Ga in Yaman)"] I2 --> I3["Inherent Ornamentation (Meend / Glides are Essential)"] end ```
In typical Western education, this kind of cross-cultural context is completely absent. Even highly trained musicians often find fundamental North Indian concepts—such as a *zamzama*—entirely unfamiliar. Dr. Philip Ewell proposes restructuring introductory curricula to reflect global diversity from day one:
> “You can begin by putting out music theory and talk about asiatic or african or middle east, you can talk about the americas, south america, ideas that came from all over the planet in terms of pitch, rhythm, meter, and and probably most importantly scale, ragas, and maqams that immediately come to mind, and then you could pivot into a sections, section or sections of the music theory that you and I were taught.”
Instead of stuffing textbooks with fifty excerpts by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ewell suggests reducing that to two examples. While Neely acknowledges Bach's greatness, he reminds viewers that Bach was relatively obscure in his own day and rarely performed immediately after his death; his staple status in modern concert life was largely resurrected through 19th-century revivalists like Felix Mendelssohn. Because the archival dedication needed to preserve marginalized figures was denied to women and composers of color, academia inherited a monochromatic, Eurocentric canon. Ewell makes it clear that he harbors no personal animosity toward towering figures like Ludwig van Beethoven:
> “He deserves a seat at the table, he wasn't a bad composer, as I said in my blog he was an above average composer by golly, happy to play, I'm happy to hear him, I don't have a problem with Beethoven, I have a problem with what happened after he died in 1827.”
Neely cites music critic Alex Ross's article on African American composer Florence Price:
> “Reducing music history to a pageant of masters is at bottom lazy; we stick with the known in order to avoid the hard work of exploring the unknown.”
Ewell summarizes the fundamental illogic of contemporary academia:
> “What we've done is we've taken musical examples that represent probably not even 0.1 percent of the world's music, we have claimed that it is music theory—not western, not even not not white music theory, not even western music theory—music theory for music kind of for the world, right? I mean that's just so absolutely illogical.”
[14:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=845s) Case Study in Cross-Cultural Analysis: Shuddha Kalyan and Xavier Montsalvatge
To put this comparative model into practice, Neely contrasts two vocal performances: Anuja Kamat singing the North Indian *Raag Shuddha Kalyan*, and soprano Kathleen Battle singing Xavier Montsalvatge’s lullaby “¡Ninghe, ninghe!” (from *Cinco canciones negras*). Despite originating in vastly different musical cultures, both pieces produce an unmistakably similar melodic atmosphere:
| Musical Element | Xavier Montsalvatge: “¡Ninghe, ninghe!” | North Indian Classical: *Raag Shuddha Kalyan* | |:--- |:--- |:--- | | **Pitch Inventory / Swaras** | Major pentatonic subset (*Do, La, Sol, Mi, Re*) | *Sa, Dha, Pa, Ga, Re* | | **Ornamentation** | *Portamento* (expressive, stylistic vocal slide) | *Meend* (mandatory, foundational smooth glide) | | **Structural Role of Bend** | Optional nuance; scale survives without it | Essential to the identity of the rag (e.g., *Sa* to *Dha*, *Pa* to *Ga*) | | **Temporal Associations** | Lullaby conventionally sung in the evening | Strict evening rag |
In Western theory, portamento functions merely as an expressive technique layered atop fixed notes, whereas in *Shuddha Kalyan*, the *meend* (a continuous, smooth glide between pitches) is structural. As Anuja explains, sliding from *Sa* to *Dha* and *Pa* to *Ga* constitutes the very soul of the rag. Furthermore, North Indian classical tradition associates specific rags with distinct times of day; *Shuddha Kalyan* is exclusively an evening rag. By coincidence, Montsalvatge’s piece is a lullaby, naturally intended for bedtime.
Ewell notes that Western tonality should not be discarded, but repositioned as one interconnected thread among many:
> “Western music theory will be, will continue to be part of the curriculum, as it should be, because it is such a, an integral part of the American musical experience.”
Broadening this lens simply grants students a richer, more accurate perspective on musical structure worldwide.
[16:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1013s) Part IIIm7b5: Alternative Perspectives to Western Theory (Russell, Harris, and Kholopova)
Even when confining analysis to Western tonal harmony, institutional pedagogy has historically centered a narrow white, male viewpoint while ignoring powerful alternative frameworks. Neely highlights prominent non-white music theorists who developed sophisticated systems for analyzing tonal spaces:
```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Alternative Analytical Frameworks for Tonal Harmony accDescr: Flowchart illustrating theoretical models developed outside the conventional European classical figured bass approach.
subgraph JazzTheorists["African American Jazz Theorists"] direction TB GR["George Russell"] -->|"Lydian Chromatic Concept"| LCC["Vertical & Horizontal<br/>Tonal Gravity"] BH["Barry Harris"] -->|"Sixth-Diminished Scale"| BHS["Alternating Tonic 6th<br/>& Diminished Chords"] end
subgraph RussianTradition["Soviet / Russian Theory"] direction TB VK["Valentina Kholopova"] -->|"Parameter Complex"| PC["Consonance vs. Dissonance<br/>in Articulation & Timbre"] end
JazzTheorists -->|"Applicable to"| TC["Analysis of 19th-Century<br/>Western Tonality (Chopin, Brahms)"] RussianTradition -->|"Applicable to"| MC["Twentieth-Century / Avant-Garde<br/>Form (Sofia Gubaidulina)"] ```
- **George Russell and the Lydian Chromatic Concept**: Mixed-race jazz composer and educator George Russell formulated *The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization*. Rather than treating the major scale as harmony's root foundation, Russell designated the Lydian scale as the primary source of tonal coherence. In interviews, Russell explains the duality of tonal gravity: > “There are essentially two kinds of tonal gravity: vertical, that is tonal gravity inferred by the chord, where the chord infers the tonic; and horizontal tonal gravity, tonal gravity inferred by the scale, for instance a blues scale.” As his *New York Times* obituary highlighted, Russell's method enabled jazz improvisers to navigate any key or chord progression without sacrificing authentic blues roots. His theories directly influenced Miles Davis’s modal breakthrough on *Kind of Blue*, the best-selling jazz album in history, and found institutional footing at conservatories like the New England Conservatory. - **Barry Harris and the Sixth-Diminished Scale**: Renowned jazz pianist and educator Barry Harris codified bebop harmony through what many label the bebop scale, but which he formalized as the "sixth-diminished scale" (a major scale with an added sharp-fifth/flat-sixth). Harris taught students to view harmonic tension through movement: > “Tomorrow everybody should know all the six diminished scales, but the diminished notes—diminished notes are weird notes, they say, they say: ‘Move me somewhere!’” Harris argued that familiar sonorities like a major seventh chord are not merely stable, static endpoints; structurally, a major seventh chord functions as a tonic sixth chord containing one unstable diminished note demanding resolution. Neely stresses that because jazz harmony and 19th-century European classical music share common tonal roots, systems pioneered by Russell and Harris can readily analyze composers like Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, or Gustav Mahler: > “Honestly to me, it just makes a lot more sense to analyze Chopin through the sixth diminished scale than it does through figured bass.” - **Valentina Kholopova and the Parameter Complex**: In contrast to Western Europe and the United States, Russia developed a strong lineage of prominent female music theorists, partly because the Soviet system treated musical culture as a feminine discipline. Theorist Valentina Kholopova, collaborating closely with contemporary composer Sofia Gubaidulina, created the concept of a "parameter complex." Kholopova organized sound design across five distinct expressive dimensions (such as dynamics, register, and articulation), asserting that any musical element can be categorized as either consonant or dissonant—for instance, treating short, detached staccato articulation as an inherently dissonant expressive parameter.
Ewell reflects on the structural exclusion that erased these diverse analytical vantage points:
> “We've only seen music from this angle, and it's been a white angle, and it's been a male angle, and together—not or, but white and male—and we've completely put everything else out, we've excluded everybody else.”
[20:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1255s) Musical Perspective and the Illusion of Universality
In discussing alternative analytic frameworks—specifically referencing Sofia Gubaidulina—Adam Neely explains that musical parameters can be reconceptualized beyond traditional harmony. For example, playing staccato (short and detached) versus playing legato (long and connected) can be categorized as parameters of dissonance versus consonance. While applying harmonic terms like consonance and dissonance to physical instrumental articulation may seem strange at first, Neely argues that expanding this lens provides fresh ways to analyze significant 20th-century composers. However, adopting such models requires accepting a fundamental premise: music theory is not an absolute truth, but an inherently situated perspective.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Cross-Cultural Musical Incommensurability accDescr: Chart illustrating how the same acoustic pitch sequence yields entirely different meanings when filtered through Western versus Hindustani frameworks.
subgraph Acoustics["Acoustic Reality"] A["Audible Melodic Contour"] end
subgraph WesternFrame["Western Music Theory"] B["Descending Major Pentatonic Scale"] C["Focus on Pitch Collection & Harmony"] end
subgraph IndianFrame["North Indian Classical Theory"] D["Raag Shuddh Kalyan"] E["Focus on Melodic Movement, Ornamentation & Raag Rules"] end
A --> WesternFrame A --> IndianFrame WesternFrame -.->|"Lost in Translation"| IndianFrame ```
Neely demonstrates this cultural relativity by revisiting the comparison between Kathleen Battle singing the lullaby *Ningen Ninge* and Anuja Kamat performing Raag Shuddh Kalyan. Acoustically, the pitch contours are remarkably similar, yet they are governed by two entirely separate conceptual frameworks: - Saying Anuja was simply singing a "descending major pentatonic scale" makes as little sense as asserting that Kathleen Battle was intentionally executing the descending phrases of Raag Shuddh Kalyan. - Just as nuanced nuances vanish when translating directly from English to Hindi, musical ideas cannot cross cultural systems without significant loss of context. - “Spoken language is not universal, and neither is music.”
---
[22:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1324s) Part IVmaj7 - Music Is Not a Universal
Neely pushes back against the pervasive cultural assumption that music is a transcendent, self-evident phenomenon standing above human society. Western culture has long maintained an association between music and mathematics, rooted in ancient Greece with Pythagoras—popularly regarded as the foundational father of both disciplines. In medieval European education, music occupied a place within the quadrivium alongside arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy: - **Arithmetic:** Number in the abstract. - **Geometry:** Number in space. - **Music:** Number in time. - **Astronomy:** Number in space and time.
During the Cold War era of the 1960s, American academia initiated an intense push to re-frame music theory as a rigorous, hard science rather than a subjective humanistic art. Theorists sought to re-establish the mathematical purity of the ancient quadrivium: - Milton Babbitt strived to produce empirically testable, scientific statements regarding musical compositions. - Benjamin Boretz pushed this direction further by applying formal symbolic logic to generate rigorous musical propositions. - Neely observes the sociopolitical side effect of this hyper-formalism: “The push to make music theory more and more objective had the effect of erasing any trace that ever had a white European cultural perspective, because after all, how can mathematics have a cultural perspective?”
This pseudo-scientific framing fuels modern appeals to race-neutrality and colorblind ideology ("Why do you have to bring race into it? It’s just about good music versus bad music"). Neely stresses that this colorblind stance collapses because different cultures, races, and ethnicities not only prioritize different musical elements, but diverge fundamentally on what constitutes music itself.
To illustrate this divergence, Neely cites Dr. Kofi Agawu's work on West African rhythm pedagogy and the standard bell pattern: - Agawu poses a thought experiment: imagine a world order where West African rhythmic pedagogy took center stage in the American music academy. In that curriculum, no student could receive a music degree unless they could demonstrate proficiency in dance. - While this requirement seems alien to Western institutional academia, it represents common sense in West African traditions, where complex polyrhythms and nested metric layers are directly realized through bodily movement. - Modern cognitive neuroscience supports this, demonstrating that embodied cognition and physical sensorimotor integration form the baseline of human metric perception. Neely asks why Western conservatories do not mandate dance for theory students if physical movement is proven to be fundamental to rhythm processing.
---
[25:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1506s) The Epistemology of Ignorance and Pop Punditry
Neely introduces philosopher Robin James’s concept of the "epistemology of ignorance"—the systematic practice of isolating musical analysis from its living cultural context, thereby laundering the intuitive cultural habits of the most privileged members of society as neutral, objective facts. This manifests openly in popular media, notably when conservative commentator Ben Shapiro attempts to argue that hip-hop does not qualify as music.
Shapiro argues that according to his music theorist father who attended music school, music contains three mandatory components: 1. Harmony 2. Melody 3. Rhythm
Because Shapiro claims rap music only contains rhythm, he categorizes it not as music, but as mere "rhythmic speaking." Neely notes that this claim is not original; it directly mirrors a racially charged 1918 essay titled *Jazz and Jass-Sick*, which attacked early Black American jazz: “Jazz is the brotherhood of those who, devoid of harmonic and even a melodic instinct, love to fairly wallow in noise.”
Neely dismantles Shapiro's logic by showing that hip-hop and jazz plainly possess melody and harmony, and by flipping the ideological premise through Kofi Agawu's lens: - If a society framed West African rhythmic values as the objective standard, a critic could argue: "Dance is an essential quality of music, as everybody knows, as neuroscience proves, and so Bach chorales objectively are not music" because nobody can dance to them. - Neely remarks: “The argument doesn't really make sense, it's a bad argument, but it's no worse than Ben's hundred-year-old racist view on Black music.”
He further points out how pop music analysis often relies on this same underlying chauvinism. Mainstream think pieces regularly attempt to legitimize pop hits (such as songs by Lady Gaga or Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream") by claiming they secretly follow 18th-century European tonal rules: - One article praised Lady Gaga's genius purely by pointing out her use of a classical raised leading tone. - Another piece argued that "Teenage Dream" topped the charts specifically because it served as a textbook realization of the supreme rules of Western harmony. - Scholar William O'Hara explains that these articles treat music theory as esoteric, hidden knowledge invoked to confer institutional prestige and identify "genius." O'Hara shows this directly parallels the original analytical methodology developed by Heinrich Schenker in the early 20th century to elevate the Austro-German canon above all other musical traditions.
---
[28:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1704s) Part V7(b9,#9,b13) - Heinrich Schenker and His Legacy
Neely pivots to Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935), arguably the single most influential figure in American university music theory programs. Schenkerian analysis is treated as a mandatory rite of passage for American graduate students in the field. Historian David Carson Berry traces Schenker's mid-century American popularity to a 1930s academic urge for objective, systematized musical evaluation—the exact ancestor of modern pop think pieces that lean on tonal theory to validate aesthetic worth.
| Schenkerian Structural Level | Description | |:--- |:--- | | **Foreground** (*Vordergrund*) | The surface of the score: immediate notes, embellishments, and local rhythms. | | **Middleground** (*Mittelgrund*) | Intermediate contrapuntal voice-leading reductions showing structural bridges. | | **Background** (*Hintergrund*) | The underlying structural foundation, famously centered on the *Ursatz*. |
Schenker posited that genuine musical masterpieces arise from a simple foundational contrapuntal schema (the *Ursatz*), featuring a fundamental descending line in the upper voice:
$$\hat{3} \rightarrow \hat{2} \rightarrow \hat{1}$$
accompanied by a fundamental harmonic progression in the bass:
$$\text{I} \rightarrow \text{V} \rightarrow \text{I}$$
Whether spanning two measures or unfolding over hundreds of bars in a movement by Beethoven or Mozart, this structural reduction was Schenker's test of musical greatness. Neely quips that this analytical dogma essentially reduces every canonical European masterpiece to an elaborate version of *"Three Blind Mice."*
Schenker’s canon of recognized "geniuses" was unapologetically exclusive: - He maintained an extremely narrow list of roughly 11 or 12 composers deemed truly great. - Every composer on his list was a white European man. - All were German-speaking, with only two exceptions: Frédéric Chopin (Polish) and Domenico Scarlatti (Italian).
For those interested in exploring the mechanics of Schenkerian notation and voice-leading reductions, Neely points viewers toward the educational YouTube channel of music theorist Dr. Jacob Gran for clear, accessible tutorials on the subject.
[30:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1840s) Schenkerian Foundations and Theoretical Blind Spots
Understanding Schenkerian analysis requires familiarizing oneself with foundational concepts like figured bass and basso continuo, heavily drawing on 18th-century theories of melody. When studying music theory pedagogy, it quickly becomes obvious why figured bass saturates modern textbooks: the curriculum is built from the ground up to prepare students for Heinrich Schenker's framework. This objective is directly acknowledged in the preface of the prominent textbook *Harmony and Voice Leading* (by Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter), which explicitly notes that its analytical approach reflects Schenker's system and serves as preparation for advanced Schenkerian study.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Schenkerian Pedagogy Pipeline accDescr: Diagram illustrating how foundational music theory leads into Schenkerian analysis and excludes non-canonical music. subgraph Fundamentals["Curricular Foundations"] FB["Figured Bass & Continuo"] HV["Textbooks (e.g., Harmony and Voice Leading)"] end subgraph SchenkerFramework["The Analytical Goal"] SA["Schenkerian Analysis"] WC["Western Classical Canon (18th-19th Century)"] end subgraph Excluded["Ignored Elements & Traditions"] NC["Non-Western Music & Modern Styles<br>(Meshuggah, James Brown, Anuja Kamat)"] NE["Non-Pitch Elements<br>(Rhythm, Timbre, Dance)"] end
FB --> HV HV --> SA SA --> WC SA -.->|"Cannot adequately analyze"| NC SA -.->|"Fails to explain"| NE ```
The fundamental flaw of this pedagogical design is that Schenkerian theory is largely useless outside Western classical music. It offers no viable tools to analyze rhythmic, timbral, or groove-based traditions—such as the polyrhythmic metal of Meshuggah, the funk of James Brown, or the classical Indian forms taught by educators like Anuja Kamat. Even within the Western canon itself, Schenkerian reduction fails to explain rhythm, timbre, or dance—elements vital to an African musical worldview. By establishing this specific vocabulary as the baseline for all music theory, the discipline implies that music incompatible with Schenker's tools is inferior or undeserving of rigorous analytical study. As Adam Neely remarks regarding this exclusionary mindset and its cultural inheritors:
> “Western music theory has developed a language that attempts to show white culture superiority over non-white cultures under the guise of objective analysis.”
- *Harmony and Voice Leading* overtly frames core harmony concepts as Schenkerian preparation. - Analytical frameworks focused entirely on pitch hierarchy neglect rhythm, timbre, physical movement, and dance. - Music outside the specific Austro-German canon is implicitly delegitimized by being unanalyzable under these classical rules.
---
[32:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1944s) Schenker’s Ideology and Academic Complicity
Schenker made no effort to separate his musical theories from his sociopolitical views; his hierarchical understanding of music directly mirrored his hierarchical view of humanity. In his writings, Schenker established a strict cultural ladder that placed white people—specifically German musical masters—at the apex. Concepts like foreground reduction and structural pitch levels directly reflected his conviction that a small handful of German musical "geniuses" (a term serving as clear code for white and German) were uniquely superior. In his essay *Schenker the Regressive*, conductor and scholar Leon Botstein noted that the fact that Schenker—an observant Viennese Jew—ardently propagated ideas of German cultural supremacy demonstrates how deeply internalized this ideology was in German-speaking Europe.
Historical documentation of Schenker's extremism is undeniable. In a May 1933 letter to his student Felix-Eberhard von Kuba—written four months after Adolf Hitler's rise to power—Schenker praised Hitler, openly made anti-Semitic statements despite his own Jewish identity, declared that Black people were incapable of self-governance, and claimed that the white race needed to annihilate the Japanese. Rather than being isolated personal flaws, music theorist Carl Schachter acknowledged in his writings that Schenker viewed his musical and political ideas as unified armaments in a cultural war to regenerate German society, advocating an aristocracy to foster rare genius. Shockingly, Schachter added that he was not prepared to say Schenker was altogether wrong about this cultural aristocracy. Dr. Philip Ewell and Leon Botstein both insist that these ideas cannot simply be swept under the rug. Confronting these origins requires acknowledging how thoroughly the entire discipline was built to elevate whiteness. As Dr. Philip Ewell observes:
> “The people who have devoted their careers, their, their energy, their, you know, toil to, uh, to a field don't want to see it uprooted, they don't want to see their work undone; it's very difficult for that person to look into a mirror and say race exists, whiteness exists, we've been rooted in pushing whiteness, and whiteness has had the leg up this whole time, and, and there have been other non-white groups who have been greatly disadvantaged.”
- Schenker praised Hitler in private correspondence with Felix-Eberhard von Kuba shortly after Hitler took power in 1933. - Schenker used "genius" as a racial and nationalistic designation reserved almost entirely for Austro-German composers. - Prominent theorist Carl Schachter publicly conceded that Schenker's political and musical views were interconnected components of a cultural struggle. - Dr. Ewell describes how deeply invested music theorists resist confronting these realities because doing so threatens their life's work.
---
[36:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=2179s) Part vim - The Backlash: UNT, Timothy Jackson, and the Culture War
Following Dr. Philip Ewell’s 2019 plenary address at the Society for Music Theory (SMT) and his subsequent summer 2020 interviews, the institutional resistance was swift and aggressive. The *Journal of Schenkerian Studies*, housed at the University of North Texas (UNT), published a symposium containing 15 response papers attacking Ewell's thesis, entirely excluding Ewell himself from participating. The resulting issue featured staggering lapses in academic standards: one submission was merely a single brief paragraph, another was published completely anonymously, and a lengthy essay by UNT professor Timothy Jackson went on an erratic tirade. Jackson quoted at length from the Wikipedia article on misogyny in rap music, accused Ewell of Black anti-Semitism, argued that Black musicians had not yet been brought "up to standard," and patronizingly asserted that listeners could enjoy Black music even if its creators were not supreme geniuses on par with Western classical composers.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Academic Controversy and Media Reaction Flow accDescr: Flowchart tracking Dr. Ewell's address to the UNT symposium response, academic backlash, and political weaponization. PE["Dr. Philip Ewell's SMT Plenary Address<br>(Exposing Schenker's Racism & White Framing)"] JSS["UNT Journal of Schenkerian Studies<br>15 Symposium Responses (Ewell Excluded)"] TJ["Timothy Jackson's Essay<br>- Lengthy Wikipedia citations<br>- Racist assertions on Black musicians<br>- Accusations of Black anti-Semitism"] PET["Academic Outcry<br>(Open letters protesting scholarly incompetence & bias)"] CW["Media Weaponization<br>(Fox News & National Review frame debate as 'Cancel Culture')"]
PE --> JSS JSS --> TJ TJ --> PET TJ --> CW ```
The response generated immediate outrage in the wider academic community. Critics circulated open letters condemning Jackson's personal attacks, blatant prejudice, and failure to observe basic scholarly standards—such as citing Wikipedia in a formal academic journal. Yet right-wing media outlets, including Fox News and *The National Review*, quickly adopted Jackson's defense, portraying his contribution as serious archival research and weaponizing the conflict into a broader culture-war narrative about "cancel culture." In reality, Dr. Ewell never advocated cancelling Schenker or banning classical masters like Schubert; he called for transparently examining the historical fact that 19th-century music theory was built directly upon assertions of white superiority, an ideology that was stated openly until the mid-20th century forced it to operate in disguise. As Dr. Philip Ewell makes clear:
> “It's not about canceling anybody, it's about addressing difficult issues directly, forthrightly; we're going to talk about it openly, we're going to talk about white supremacy, the roots in white supremacy—I mean, that's a statement of fact, it's not under question.”
- The *Journal of Schenkerian Studies* (UNT) published 15 critical responses without inviting Ewell to provide a rebuttal. - Professor Timothy Jackson cited the Wikipedia page on rap misogyny and claimed Black musicians need to be raised "up to standard." - Conservative publications defended Jackson's paper, framing academic pushback against it as an attack by "cancel culture." - Addressing white supremacy in music theory is about honest historical reckoning, not eliminating historical figures like Franz Schubert.
[40:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=2434s) Rethinking the Default: Style, Schenker, and Class
Reflecting on the mental exercise introduced at the start of the video, Adam Neely asks viewers to revisit the idea of replacing the phrase “music theory” in media with “the harmonic style of 18th-century European musicians.” While people occasionally refer to musical organization outside that tradition, the overwhelming majority of the time, that specific European idiom is precisely what is being designated as universal theory. Neely clarifies that there is inherently nothing wrong with 18th-century European harmony; he personally loves the music of J.S. Bach and considers it a core part of his identity. Likewise, Heinrich Schenker’s analytical framework can be genuinely illuminating when analyzing Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven, and Neely admits the graphing notation itself looks visually impressive. However, utility in examining a specific historical repertoire does not justify crowning that style or Schenker's worldview as the default standard for all musical understanding.
Neely also addresses a crucial dimension omitted earlier in the video: the tight relationship between music theory, economic class, and racial inequality. Formal music school education requires substantial financial resources, which restricts access. Because higher education institutions are the primary gatekeepers where 18th-century European harmony is systematically taught and validated, possessing this specific theoretical vocabulary functions as an elite class signifier. Within the United States, class and race remain deeply intertwined, meaning that the white racial frame governing music theory inherently reinforces socioeconomic barriers as well.
- Acknowledging the beauty and utility of 18th-century European classical repertoire does not require accepting it as the universal foundation of musical thought. - Schenkerian analysis offers compelling analytical tools for Germanic repertoire, but its adoption should never entail adopting Schenker’s ideological worldview. - Music theory fluency serves as a class marker because the institutional training required to learn it remains cost-prohibitive for many people.
[41:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=2515s) Structural Bias, Music Pedagogy, and the Coda
Addressing the irony of framing a critique of Eurocentrism largely around the American educational system, Neely explains that he can only authentically speak from his personal lived experience. During his own conservatory training, he never encountered Beethoven analyzed through the harmonic paradigms of innovative theorists of color like Barry Harris or George Russell. Instead, his education emphasized figured bass as part of a pipeline leading directly to Schenkerian analysis—a method historically devised to demonstrate German cultural supremacy. He was never exposed to the theoretical frameworks of Ottoman, North Indian, Japanese, or African traditions as foils to Western theory, nor did his coursework incorporate movement or dance.
Neely emphasizes that acknowledging these structural flaws does not mean accusing individual music theory professors of being conscious white supremacists. Rather, institutional racism operates because the established pedagogical apparatus itself is structurally rigged to privilege 18th-century European musical values above all others. Acknowledging with a touch of dry humor that discussing Critical Race Theory might land viewers on an anti-American blacklist, Neely reiterates that institutional racism remains a reality within academic music theory. As Adam Neely summarizes: “I don't imagine my teachers were explicitly white supremacists in their view of music theory, well most of them anyway, but that doesn't mean that the system itself that they had to work with wasn't structurally biased towards the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians.” The video then concludes with a humorous coda of Neely silently eating Fritos over an ambient musical backdrop.
```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Structural Bias in Conventional Music Theory Education accDescr: Diagram illustrating how historic pedagogical pipelines prioritize 18th-century European harmony over global and alternative frameworks.
subgraph InstitutionalPipeline["Traditional Music Pedagogy"] A["Figured Bass & Partimento"] --> B["Harmonic Style of 18th-Century Europe"] B --> C["Schenkerian Analysis"] C --> D["Implicit Institutional Standard"] end
subgraph MarginalizedTraditions["Omitted Theoretical Perspectives"] E["Theorists of Color\n(e.g., George Russell, Barry Harris)"] F["Non-Western Systems\n(North Indian, Ottoman, African, Japanese)"] G["Embodied & Rhythmic Practices\n(Dance & Movement)"] end
InstitutionalPipeline -.->|"Excludes / Marginalizes"| MarginalizedTraditions ```
- Standard American music curricula routinely funnel students through figured bass into Schenkerian analysis rather than engaging alternative frameworks by Black theorists such as George Russell or Barry Harris. - Global musical cultures—including Ottoman, North Indian, African, and Japanese traditions—are systematically neglected in standard core curricula. - Institutional bias persists not necessarily through individual malice, but because the foundational curriculum itself was designed around European musical supremacy.
## Notable quotes > [30:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1840s) Western music theory has developed a language that attempts to show white culture superiority over non-white cultures under the guise of objective analysis. — Adam Neely
> [02:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=173s) Our white racial frame believes that the music and music theories of white persons represent the best framework for music theory. — Dr. Philip Ewell
> [10:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=615s) Reducing music history to a pageant of masters is at bottom lazy; we stick with the known in order to avoid the hard work of exploring the unknown. — Alex Ross
> [20:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1255s) Spoken language is not universal, and neither is music. — Adam Neely
> [14:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=845s) Western music theory will be, will continue to be part of the curriculum, as it should be, because it is such a, an integral part of the American musical experience. — Dr. Philip Ewell
> [04:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=257s) In most of the existing manuals of harmony we find rules for reading the now obsolete figured bass, but little or no practical advice for harmonizing melodies or selecting chords. — Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
> [16:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA&t=1013s) Honestly to me, it just makes a lot more sense to analyze Chopin through the sixth diminished scale than it does through figured bass. — Adam Neely
## Mentioned Adam Neely, Dr. Philip Ewell, Society for Music Theory, Hunter College, Johann Joseph Fux, Edward Aldwell, Carl Schachter, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Anuja Kamat, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Florence Price, Alex Ross, Xavier Montsalvatge, Kathleen Battle, George Russell, Barry Harris, Valentina Kholopova, Sofia Gubaidulina, Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Miles Davis, Milton Babbitt, Benjamin Boretz, Dr. Kofi Agawu, Robin James, Ben Shapiro, William O'Hara, Heinrich Schenker, David Carson Berry, Dr. Jacob Gran, Leon Botstein, Felix-Eberhard von Kuba, University of North Texas, Journal of Schenkerian Studies, Timothy Jackson, Lady Gaga, Deadmau5, The Beatles, Scott Joplin, Charles Mingus, George Gershwin, Christina Perri, Katy Perry, Meshuggah, James Brown, Franz Schubert, Domenico Scarlatti, Fox News, The National Review
## Video description Thanks to Phil Ewell and his paper: https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.20.26.2/mto.20.26.2.ewell.html
Support this channel: https://www.patreon.com/adamneely
SOURCES https://bit.ly/2ZdxpMW
0:00 Introduction 2:53 Part I - The White Racial Frame of Music Theory 8:28 Part iim - North Indian Theory and Perspectives 16:52 Part IIIm7b5 - Alternative Perspectives to Western Theory 22:04 Part IVmaj7 - Music isn’t a Universal 28:24 Part V7(b9,#9,b13) - Heinrich Schenker 36:16 Part vim - Responses to Phil Ewell 40:19 Part viio - Coda
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[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr3quGh7pJA)