That or you can only leaves comments once you have finished 100% of the video. A lot of ignorant folks misrepresenting Adam’s position. But that was inevitable whenever you suggest racism is more than just bad words.
In high school I used to compose music heavily inspired by Japanese video games. When I showed my piano teacher, she said "it's not supposed to end on a chord like this" "there are certain rules you need to follow" this video helped me gain a new perspective on what that could have meant because she definitely didn't explain lol
That's a very dogmatic understanding of music, even with music theory. It's the THEORY of music and now the LAW of music for a reason. Also, Japanese video game OSTs aren't that compositionally different from _"`18th century European"_ compositions. She's being ridiculous. Other genres diverge in composition MUCH more.
Music theory, (Yes, the White, Eurocentric kind) helps to illuminate and explain patterns and rules of thumb. These rules can be broken in creative, musically pleasing ways, if you find a way to pull it off. It’s not “Laws” of music.
I always felt composers like Yuki Kajiura and Shigeru Umebayashi had firm foundations in "classical", but they always had their own "groove" if I can say it like that. That makes them so much more approachable imo.
Hi, I am an Indian. While it's nice to see you highlighting the fact that we have our own theory and a very elaborate grammer divided into multiple scriptures. I would also like to point out that our music theory doesn't do harmony very well. It's mostly about the mood of the melody. Raag's even have their own catchy tune written inside the raag. But for an outsider trying to learn western music the traditional method did provide a good framework (credit where it's due). Also I can't fathom the fact that people actually believe that there is only one music theory.
I dont think its that people think there is only one type of music theory, but in western culture it is the most relevant to us (not to say Indian music isnt relevant) but for me as a white westerner i will mostly play white music with the exception of a few African American artists from the 40s/50s
There are literally older comments that are shocked by the idea. I think your comment is also misleading, because nowhere does Adam say that you shouldn't use Western Music Theory, only that you shouldn't ONLY use Western Music Theory. (And as he mentioned, it isn't even the only Western Music Theory made). But official schools and idiots like Ben Shapiro act like there is only one type of theory, made by people 300 years ago in a small part of Europe, that applies to everything.
@@nunyadambidniss And no one is saying that it does. But that's beside the point. I am south american, our musical history is deeply culturally mixed, we've got african, middle-eastern and european styles mixed with our own indigenous styles. And even with that rich culture AND an enormous interest in music, I've never even thought about the existence of a music theory other than the european one - why's that? Think, why in all of our history is the european way of analysing music the only one widely known? That is the supremacy part.
i think what really grinds my gears about music theory is that they laud composers that broke the rules of the time (like Beethoven, Stravinsky) or had immense talent (Bach, Paganini), but we in the modern day under formal tutelage cannot break any of the rules ourselves because then it won't sound "correct", despite it being a more genuine expression.
None of them broke the mathematical basis underlying musical theory. Maybe that's the problem with musicians who comment on this without any knowledge of the mathematics. No matter how you try and crowbar race into the issue, the mathematics are quite clear. Black people greatly contributed certain aspects to music but the greatest examples of this fusion were mixed with western musical theory. Basically the music claimed by black people would not exist without western music theory. And once again this is based in mathematics. Why can't we just accept the beauty is in the combination instead of trying to claim it belongs to one race or the other?
@@laughingachilles applying an objective science like math to a subjective art form like music seems like only half the battle to me personally. yes, there is a lot of math in music, i'm aware of that myself, but subjective taste and objective data are so far removed from each other-- you can call a piece "wrong" but calling it "bad" leaves a bad taste in my mouth. that's my problem, not race. assuming any particular template to be "superior", white or black, is my problem more than anything.
@@basedokadaizo Here is the problem with your response...all of these systems involve mathematics! I would argue it is incredibly racist to suggest any system is outside of mathematics when they all follow maths in one way or another. Or do you believe that only westerners are capable of mathematics?
@@laughingachilles i... i literally just acknowledged there's math in music? i said my problem with the modern methods of music education boil down to restriction versus true expression? brother i dropped race at the door and wanted a GENUINE discussion about the flaws in modern music education, what the fuck is wrong with you?????
@@laughingachilles for real i am NOT letting this discussion revert after dropping my actual honest opinion on the issues of music education you are NOT doing that shit to me this time this is the ONE topic i go absolutely ballistic over
"Western Classical Music theory". That's what it's called here in South Africa, there is clear line here say between, cape jazz theory, and western classical theory
@@billpeel4408 yeah no of course. When I started my degree (in 18th century European music theory😂) there was alot of heavy focus in the first year of our Musicology module on thinking outward about musical interpretation down to the tiniest pieces of information. And it was made perfectly evident that "music theory" is a euro-centric term, just as "World" music is a heavily Western biased ideology, amongst other topics
No kidding. As an example, Middle Eastern music has nothing to do with the music of Japan, which has very little to do with the music of India, which is different from Mongolian music, and it all encompasses Asia. There's a literal world of music out there that we now have access to.
He kinda generalized Africa though ':D not sure if there is a reason for that or not Anyway, i don't wanna be a nit picker, this video is asesome and informative and i wanna go talk to my old music teacher now
@@catherine6427 Probably because it's a specific subset of west African music that made its way to the United States, and going over all of it just in that region would be a video of its own.
So then, how about whenever TODAY’S MODERN MEDIA extols some big contemporary BLACK music figure like Michael “King of Pop” Jackson or Aretha Franklin or Beyonce or Whitney Houston or Tupac Shakir or Stevie Wonder or Little Richard or Snoop Dawg or Gladys Night or Diana Ross or James Brown? .. . THEN are THEY promoting BLACK “supremacy”.
I am 77yo, played by ear most of my life, but decided to learn music theory since everyone said this was a must know for song writers like me. Jazz was my main inspiration because being able to improvise is what motivated me to play for over 60 years. Music theory is not bad, but it does limit your music to a European based music. I like all kinds of world music because music they sound nice and do not stick to western rules.
I disagree. It is true that most people who will teach you music theory will often use western musical ideas to communicate the information relevant to what you're learning, but music theory itself and its concepts remain what they were always meant to be. A tool to codify and communicate musical ideas. If you can learn to codify and connect the sounds of a particular musical genre or culture to the appropriate concepts and notations present in music theory, then you will be very able to effectively use music theory to compose and play any type of music. The sounds have always existed. Creating a language around them did not change that. Every person, including you, playing any type of music has their own version of music theory. Their own set of concepts and ideas which they turn to when they need to navigate with their instrument. Note that I do not deny the fact that the way we learn music theory, as well as the way we teach it, influences the way we and others play. My point is strictly that music theory itself does not do that to you.
jazz literally uses western music theory. jazz originated from americans trying to imitate classical music, thats how we got ragtime. Also the western european music theory is very versatile, you just have to learn the rules before you break them.
Exactly. It just happens that the most used one in music industry is european (mostly italian and german) music theory, but each ethnic group has some level of music theory, and some are very advanced like indian music theory or chinese music theory.
@@ProvenScroll If you're talking about the sound itself, then yeah you can say it's akin to the universal consistency of math. It's just how that sound is formatted/organized which makes it unique. Just a piss in the dark guess.
In Uganda we don't really have a word equivalent to "music". Rather music is defined by how one dances to it. Studying it therefore invariably means studying the dances.
@Sergeant NPC Well, it's something that white and non-white people enjoy together, and we can't have that, because then we'd all recognize our common interests and start calling for a wealth tax, the cancelation of student and medical debt, campaign finance reform, a breakup of the big media monopolies and tech companies, and then, worst of all, an end to endless wars and illegal military interventions.
I feel very lucky that in my school (Higher School for the Arts, department Music and Technology, Netherlands) we are being taught "music theory" in a different way. I started last year, about to start the second. I had a significant basis in understanding western harmony and had trained my ears passionately. When we started going to these theory classes, I was surprised to see that we were not only going over the origins of western theory (think Gregorian singing, unison, that kind of thing), but also traditional Indonesian instruments, composing with it, playing it, and even synthesizing it to make it playable with al the weird temperaments included. Furthermore Balkan music, clave rhythms, Jamaican and Caribbean rhythmic composition made the rounds and it felt new and refreshing, comparing what I already knew and understood about western music to this new thing I hadn't heard of before. Edit: "... with all the weird temperaments..." is not the right thing to say. Let's change it to "... with all these - in western - uncommon temperaments
@@chosenone-cs9vm God created people, he didn't "invent" them. He didn't create gay people, he created people, everyone is born with their own sin, it's up to the individual to renounce their worldly (material, fleshly, base etc) desire / will, in favor of the Divine Will of God. Crazy you don't understand nuance.
Interesting. We in Korea learn three kind of music theory in a school. Classical music(old European), practical music(contemporary African American) and Korean traditional music.
omg gimme your music theory class rn I neeeed more non-western music classes don't get me wrong, European composers slap, but lemme learn some Japanese folk songs and pentatonic scales pls
While I have been a great admirer of your channel for several years and have been inspired by your insights into music, I have not been compelled to express by admiration of your work until viewing this video. I am a black man, with a doctorate in music composition, who taught jazz theory and improvisation over twenty years ago at an "illustrious" institution that only with great trepidation indulged my passions. I say trepidation, but also great resistance to changes in music curriculum that I represented and which most of my colleagues viewed as unfortunately necessary. Viewing your video brought back some pain and anguish that I thought I had "gotten over," but it would seem had only repressed. Alas, that I didn't have the presence of mind and the calmness of spirit to express back then what you have done with such passion and aplomb. I salute you!
Don't be a an absolute d*nce. Jazz couldn't exist today without the bedrock of European harmony that it was built on. There's nothing to rebel over when it comes to teaching the foundations of our music. This video is an embarrassment. Be smarter than him at least, Mr. "I have a doctorate."
@@morejazzplz5746 I don’t think I had a stroke. I think you saw those two sentences and your brainwashed mind got triggered. Then, you had to come up with some sort of story; anything that would make you feel like you are superior. So I guess the story your mind generated was that I had a stroke…..Enjoy not having a working brain.
Im more of a metal/rock guy,made a full song in Japanese scales (Joshi Iwato) Why? Because idk its weird and cool Basically today u have everything its not fun to just play scales and notes fast,we miss creativity and passion
@@thomaswhite3059 the far left is spewing from this attempt to explain "why?". White people could read and write. We know the past, but don't blame the past on us in the presence.
When I suggested that Schenker was valuable but "not the be-all-end-all," as this video also suggests, I was eliminated from consideration by Carl Schachter for a position on the Queens College music faculty. That was over 25 years ago. I guess I was ahead of my time, so to speak.
Was Schenker really considered fundamental? Was it thought essential to understanding Bach-to-Brahms music in this country? In the 90's? Thought only Germans were that crazy.
@@prgxl Schenker has left a far bigger footprint in American academe than in Germany. In the US, I get the impression that Schenker has been the go-to theory for understanding and discussing classical composition until fairly recently; in Germany he has never been taken all that seriously; in Europe, the UK and Finland are really the only places where you will find much work in Schenkerian analysis being done.
@@kospandx “in Europe, the UK and Finland” Europe is a broad group of places. Which countries or regions do you mean? Finland is one of them but where else?
this goes both ways, and ur gonna find other places where their cultures version not the be all end all will get you kicked out, welcome to humans, the west isnt special
I remember stumbling across the limitations of western theory when an Persian guy tried to commission me to write some iranian-style music for his film (that sadly never got made, couldnt get funding to move out of preproduction) and I thought "OK this is a challenge, I'll try" (Also, this was well before the current popular understanding of appropriation, it just wasnt on the radar) , and after about 3 weeks I had to call him and cancel out. Other than his fairly specfic requirement of the style of Iranian from a village in the north his famly comes from, the theory is just lightyears away from ours. The microtonal adjustments required to replicate the scales was fine, but the rest was absolutely alien to me. I found out there was a Turkish professor who specialized in "middle east music" at the conservatorium so I made an appointment with him and he just straight up said "Dont do it. *I* wouldn't attempt it and I learned my theory in the country next door to Iran." He pointed out that even within Iran, a person from one area would be learning completely different styles and rules to a guy in a village 100km away. Even more, musicologists have actually struggled to understand the persian music families in any sort of analyical framework that can be translated into english concepts. Even saying whats *different* has proved a struggle. So a 20yo amateur composer with no experience of Iranian music outside of cab driver radios had no chance. I mean I could have faked it and come up with something that sounded to ME like "Iranian music", but anyone from that region would have found it offensive, or at best embarassing, and I just dont wanna be THAT guy. My turkish contact gave me a contact for an actual Iranian composer which I forwarded onto my guy. And I think this is all excellent ,because its a reminder that music is a language, and languages are always historically and spatially practices, filled with excesses of meaning and filled with implication, explicit and implicit. All of which is part of why music has been such a powerful expression of the human condition.
So then, how about whenever the TODAY’S MODERN MEDIA extols some big contemporary BLACK music figure like Michael “King of Pop” Jackson or Aretha Franklin or Beyonce or Whitney Houston or Tupac Shakir or Stevie Wonder or Little Richard or Snoop Dawg or Gladys Night or Diana Ross or James Brown? .. . THEN are THEY promoting BLACK “supremacy”.
@Shayne Well, obviously you didn't study hard enough to learn about everything there is to know, and you didn't acquire wisdom beyond human comprehension. In the meantime there shouldn't be a "music theory" book, on the basics from Europe, about "very specific persian village music from a village located beyond the giant rock shaped like a priests hat, when the wind blows 20° off towards the west". You know you sound like nutcases, when you talk about this, right? They teach EUROPEAN music in white countries. Unbelievable, I know, but hear me out: "You go to Persia / Iran to learn about persian music". But go figure: People can write books. Imagine that: books. Could you write one, maybe, and stop this whining?
@@sloancostella2772 This was the slippery slope that shone out from the video, at some point extolling any one music type comes to be seen as disproportionately favoring that one type, at the expense of any other. It's the same problem even a kind and empathetic parent has if they don't manage to deal out their kindness and generosity equitably among the kids. Moreover, isn't it precisely through such extolling/favoring that each type of music rose to such preeminence that it became integral to, and emblematic of, its particular culture/sub-culture in the first place? In a similar vein, oughtn't the very good point about the limited reliability of Wikipedia, given the even more unreliable and considerably more limited sources available to anyone living centuries ago (including you and me, if we'd been there) to have been put forward as precisely the reason why these historical figures should be cut considerable slack? We are all privileged to be granted a world view through the internet, more then a hundred years of recorded music- most of it available free online, to say nothing of the passports, visas, prosperity, plastic money, wide-bodied-jet affordability of travel etc that have better informed our views. Irrespective of any supremacist or relativist notion, the bigger question , I suggest is, to what extent your culture and exposure to its music inadvertently either enables or constrains your capacity to appreciate music conceived in a different cultural milieu? One glance through any TH-cam comments thread confirms that, although music is often vaunted as a universal language, "It 'aint necessarily so".
I was fortunate enough to be trained in acting, dancing and music and I never really got what the huge differences between those three things was. Each requires rhythm; each requires a deep understanding of emotions; each requires harmony between multiple parts, each is a form of storytelling, and each is a performance art! I'm always dumbfounded when people go, "oh wow! That's really incredible. You have so many talents!" to me, growing up, they were kind of the same. I was never good at music school because I couldn't separate them. I would sing, dance, all the time. I could not understand how other students were making music if not by living it through your body as much as possible!
Speaking as an Indian learning Western Classical Violin, My teachers did use some Indian Music Theory in teaching me, and it was hugely beneficial, both in understanding different musical traditions and appreciating their similarities and differences, and in innovation! Indian Classical Musical Traditions( Hindustani, Carnatic and various others) are wonderful and deserve some more appreciation!
Quick question: how does the application of non-western music theory concepts such as classical Indian music theory translate to instruments of western origin, such as your own violin? I known there is such a thing as an Arabic violin, adapted to Arabic music concepts, so you could probably adapt it to other theories of music.
@@maxpieters7934 Different kinds of slides and intonation/tuning temperaments can be applied to most fretless string instruments such as the violin. Also, the style in which Indian classical music is played on the violin is slightly different. In general, there are a wider variety of slides which are more frequently used, some of which would require a lot of dexterity.
@@maxpieters7934 As Ananth said, fretless instruments aren't restricted to western tuning systems. Violin is in fact pretty extensively used in Carnatic music here and it's not unlike a kind of Indian fiddling in the way that it throws conventional tuning and even intonation out the window. As a piano player, I'm sadly a bit limited here.
Shreshth Adavi this is great. India has one of the greatest music traditions around the world. Maybe one day we will have universal music theory(if it is even possible)
I took AP music theory in high school, and my awesome teacher always made it clear that "AP music theory" was one approach to music and that outside the confines of the course, the rules of 18th century baroque and classical did not apply to "all" "music" (both in quotes because each word in the term is loaded). Lead to me filling my uni's diversity credits by taking classes on American music and non-Anglo world music, and while I'm a very amateur hobbyist I noticeably write better music because of it.
Not from the US, but I was going to take our "AP music theory" course after 4 years on a music scholarship. I believe the only genre studied in the main course was classical, and for two years, at that. There was a similar course that was Jazz/Blues-focused, but my primary instrument was flute, so I was directed into the 'classical' course, instead. So glad I didn't waste my time on it and chose Biology instead. Although, the racial ideologies in music only just followed me in the form of Charles Darwin instead, and the many other "enlightened" of the 19th century.
@cyotee doge the fuck are you saying lol. Just because there is one example of progress doesn't mean "ohp, the problem actually isn't real, stop making shit up video >:("
The fact that Chevalier got ignored by the music loving scene (even the figure skating one!) despite him being an aristocrat from royal France and being a legit composer is....very telling. I've always loved Chevalier, and seeing people discover him and his work through a long overdue movie is gratifying af lol
@@thomasdupont7186yeah from an American culture war perspective, the story of Joseph Bologne is almost too perfect as a mixed race Renaissance man, contemporary of Bach, kept from positions of high esteem for purportedly racist reasons. Even tangentially tied into the French Revolution I think
cuz the movie was shitty looking. also in the fricking trailer they portray mozart as some uptight aristocrat which he was the opposite of and every classical music lover knows that.
@@madtheorist1856 Well yeah he was a high ranking soldier (a colonel I think) and a revolutionary first (for French historians at least but that's their problem I guess), he was born as a slave too. As well as a high level fencer, a enlightment enthusiast, a violinist virtuoso AND a recognized composer. And I do agree with you: that guy kicks ass regarding the context. Even if there is other cases of mixed race soldiers/artists during this period in France. There is parts of his life that stayed obscure to this day though.
Calling him an aristocrat is a bit complicated, seeing as his status fell a bit after his white father passed away. He was born to an aristo dad and a slave mom who had a real and caring relationship -- very unusual for that day (both the racial and the caring parts). His life was wrought with not knowing where he belonged. He's a type of hero today (I love his story and his music), but he lived a tragic life and was discarded after the French Revolution. The movie about him is pretty good, except for the cringy first scene with Mozart.
Having watched the full thing, I just kept realizing that the problem is not the method of analysis or the naming of certain musical phenomena, but the implication that fitting perfectly within their box is 'genius'. It's okay to analyze any music with these methods, as long as we forget the idea of "pieces lending themselves to this method of analysis are objectively better'. Using music theory to name what you just played is a good thing, but saying that the name itself implies greatness is not
It’s a pretty nuanced and intertwining subject. It’s mostly about how we (or at least in the US) selectively hold a very specific music theory system as the objective truth, and this shows in various ways. Our outlook on what we call “music theory,” the extreme selectiveness of what is taught at music schools here, etc.
Fitting inside the box is the opposite of genius. Inventing the box might be genius, but most other composers who are considered genius are considered so because they either expanded the box or didn't pay attention to it and STILL managed to make music that is pleasing
OGs remember when this video was titled "Music Theory is Racist" Edit: I don't want arguments about white genocide and scientific racism under a dumb and lazy comment I made in a less than a minute
@@eyx9421 It was. It was also a blatantly false statement. You might as well claim the major scales are anti-Semitic. Now the title aims at the real target at least.
We have so much to gain by expanding music theory education to include more approaches from the ground up. I wish that dancing and singing was emphasized as much as harmony when I was first learning. Luckily, I’m not dead yet, there’s still time to learn! Thanks for this illuminating video and I’m glad I could contribute in a small way!
Your contributions to this amazing video really made me more aware that the TH-cam music theory 'scene' is not only a force for good - it's a very interconnected one. Love your work
No one limits your education man, Marty Friedman (a guitar player) started exploring the Japanese music composition and found a unique sound for his music - his hard search paid off, so you can do just the same thing, it's a free world
12:12 "...and rarely performed after his death" im sorry but it took my brain a moment to realize that you meant his MUSIC was rarely performed. It sounded to me like you were saying HE rarely performed after his death, which, in fairness, is the case for most musicians,
Learning how to improvise for jazz taught me more about music theory than AP Music Theory. The way chords are identified and labeled has helped me with everything from understanding Claude Debussy to transcribing my favorite pieces from video games. Like any other form of theory, it's just a tool, and it might not work for everything. Anyway looks like I've got some music theory channels to check out. I've been looking to learn more about non-eurocentric styles of music ever since I got a taste of their structures.
This politicizing of this issue strikes me as petty cultural jealousy. European civilization found ways of making things work systematically, and though the systems that resulted were not perfect, they at least established that such systems were possible. Aristotle invented logic (with some guidance from Socratic dialogues), and established that there were structures of thought that just didn't fly and weren't valid (there are no true contradictions). Newton "invented" gravity, that is, he invented the isolation of gravitational force as a conceptually distinct entity (which it is not as it exists in the real world), so he could mathematize it, though his frequent references to gravity as a "property of matter" (and hence inherent in matter) showed some awareness that he was erecting an artificial framework for the sake of rendering something existentially ambiguous into a more intelligible form. Rene Descartes "discovered" subjectivity, at least in terms of a way of articulating subjective aspects of human experience in a way that later thinkers could sink their teeth into. (Unfortunately he opened up a can of worms that has led to today's intellectual dark age of postmodernism, with solutions yet to be found, that has led to the proliferation of anti-truth ideologies like feminist theory and critical race theory, among others). -- Mathematics is more multi-sourced, with major accomplishments coming from India, the Muslim world, and Europe. And STILL, postmodernist morons push the idea that the field needs to be "de-colonized." -- Some ideologies are just crappy ideologies that amount to intellectual infantilization. The politicization of music theory as a tool of white supremacy falls into this category.
@@grizzlygrizzle I'm afraid I don't understand what my personal experience with using jazz theory to understand music and being open to listening to all kinds of music has to do with the "politicizing of this issue."
@@papercraftcynder5430 -- TH-cam generally suppresses the comments I post, so I stick them in the replies instead. Sometimes it's hard to find a comment to reply to that is directly appropriate. I was replying to the video.
@@grizzlygrizzle Usually TH-cam comments are sorted chronologically. The number of likes might also play into it, too, so it's not TH-cam deliberately suppressing your comments. Like with your reply to my comment, you probably just find the videos long after they've been posted, so your comments end up near the bottom because they're more recent, and because most people watch a video within the first day or so after it's been posted, you also miss the surge of people who could potentially give your comments the likes that could have pushed it closer to the top.
Thank you for talking about Barry Harris Adam. He is one of the most important figures in Jazz. Not only as a Master player but also as an Educator. He talks about Harmony based on 4 scales of chords. Major sixth diminished, Minor sixth diminished, Dominant diminished and Dominant flat 5 diminished. All 8 note scales. He actually talks about Bach and Chopin knowing and using these scales . He has taught and played all over the world spreading our beautiful music. He is an American treasure . Thank you again for using your tremendous platform to bring awareness to this Master.
any book that talks about that? I learned a lot of theory at berklee and full sail and it's just meh for usefulness, I would love to learn useful theory
He is hardcore, in his teaching and rants at times, but he is also one of the best teachers. Just, I don't agree with him about modal jazz, stuff like that, but he is great otherwise at really getting to the idea of jazz.
It's not even "the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians" - it's more "the harmonic style of 18th century Western European musicians". There's a rich tradition in Greece, for instance, of Byzantine music theory which is wildly different to classical western music theory. The 8 modes of Byzantine chant (and however many sub-modes within them) express a broad and deep variability that I haven't seen mirrored in western music (though to be fair to western music, it seems to have converged on a tuning which allows for a lot of flexibility in the colour of the melodies). The Byzantine scale is one of 72 pitches (called Moria), and each mode and submode is a scale which uses a different set of 8 subdivisions of those pitches - for instance, the Plagal 2nd mode is divided among the 72 moria like this: 6-20-4-12-6-20-4. For some modes the subdivision changes depending on the directionality - you might flatten a particular note if you're going down in the scale. There are also particular runs and accents which are specific to a mode. In old Byzantine notation they would have a few symbols which indicate an entire run, though more contemporary notation tends to just write out the run explicitly. Byzantine notation is also quite cool; instead of expressing the note on an image of the entire scale, the notation tells you to move from the point you're at - so there's a symbol which means "go up 3" or "stay on the same note", etc. This has (I reckon) led to a different emphasis - Byzantine music tends to jump around the scale less than western music. Though this is likely also because it's a vocal music tradition, not an instrumental one. The influence of Byzantine (and Turkish theory on western theory can be seen in the more recent prominence of microtonal compositions - though even there, the way western composers use microtonality, in my experience, doesn't really mesh with eastern theory. Eastern microtonality still aims for that concordant feel of being within a certain scale, and we have the concepts which allow for that. The western microtonality that I've heard feels more discordant, as though the entire point is to move away from classic western tonality, and not necessarily to embrace the particular feel of a new tonality. But still, it's cool and I look forward to seeing the evolution of western microtonality. It's definitely an interesting variation on the classic western tuning which always has the same pitch subdivisions.
Very interesting and illustrative that different musical traditions are made up of different raw material. Western music is bound by the equal tempered 12 tones and the study of music theory is understanding common practice in that particular system. It has no racial component except what humans ascribe to it.
Microtonality is either: artificial, or natural, and if it's natural it's not microtones, simply mathematically correct tones The tempered western scale is nice to compose vertical brainy music and change tonalities, but that's about it.
Thank you! Years ago, my wife and I were driving in Ireland and listening to Irish National Radio. The DJ was playing some Duke Ellington and followed that up with Beethoven, and the lightbulb went on in my head - we in the U.S. have Jim Crow radio. I have been ranting about this to whoever would listen ever since. Most people think I'm crazy so thank you for putting this video together.
As a teenager my family lived on a Marine Corps base on Okinawa, and for a while I got really into traditional Okinawan folk music. My mom didn't like it so we never played it on car rides 🤣 Same kinda thing happened at church. My family is Russian Orthodox, which generally uses very westernized music. On the rare occasion we had to use the eastern, Byzantine style tones (common among the Greek and Antiochian churches, among other) my mom would get frustrated, as conducting the choir using such an unfamiliar style was really difficult for her. Edit: not a dig at my mom, she's a wonderful lady. Just pointing out how a perception of one style as "standard" can affect your enjoyment of other styles.
I enjoyed Kunkunshi, listening to Sanshin. Much of what I heard them play was in B major or C major anyway, with the occasional added half step. Their unique vibrato was also really cool too.
This is why BTS is leading the way out of the moribund pop world after the A&R teams assassinated Concept Rock in 1977. They control their PR, so aren't whipsawed by the greed of the Labels. In the west, the growth of Indie has done the same thing - it's only because the corporate channels are still associated with restrictive practices that the dinosaurs of The Voice etc survive. What will be interesting is what emerges from the wreck of acappella in the UK. It's also to be noted that John Taverner and his schoolmate John Rutter are/were both devotees of Orthodox cantoral, which has also inspired the bottom bass community in AC - the likes of Castellucci and Froud. That in turn relates to Jewish cantoral extempore.
In my swedish middle school which specialised in choir music, we were taught that we shouldn't say "classical music" but instead we should say "västerländsk konstmusik" which translates to "western musical arts" or "western art music". Our choir teacher made it very clear that what we were learning was only but the tip of the iceberg of the great wide world of music.
In france we were told to call it "musique savante occidentale", which means "Occidental intellectual music", and some teacher strongly repeated that it's only a part of what music totally is, but sadly only a few did this. Many had a very closed mind set about what music is, kinda in a Ben Shapiro way of seeing it
As a North African aspiring musician, since I started learning theory, I started with western, Indian, and Middle Eastern. Many people told me that I should stick to one but I didn't listen. I think I have a lot better understanding of theory than they do.
Yeah, I also find it really helpful. All of these musical traditions are valid, but they're also all subjective, and I think there's a lot to be learned by studying many traditions. It helps to get at what music *is*, and what things are really fundamental, vs what things are stylistic choices
Take from everything/give to everyone Things are just things until you make them something that they were not intended to be Fuck hate and fuck those that look to inject it where it does not belong I love North Africa I hope whatever music and everything you do explodes and helps color my artistic pallet God Bless
Finding therein a unique combination that "speaks" to your listeners can be a huge pathway to great music and potentially fame. Think Desert Rose by Sting as an example. There are obviously still huge untapped areas within any musical style or genre, but there are WORLDS of unimagined music that crosses those lines.
We use Music both as a form of community cohesion, such as dance, music, or music that tells a story, but also as a serious art form in which the listener is challenged and surprised, and taken on a new adventure. It is the second form that “rules“ are frequently broken, and the structure of the music is opened up into new areas. 2. There is more than just rhythm and chord, progression and tone. There is also the space that arrest can take up.; There’s consistency of style and intentional lack there of.; references to other musical styles and individual songs, etc. and I’m sure there are more elements than I can think of. 3. Western 16 -18 century music of the court (and possibly other traditions) was often a civilized rendition of folk tunes, some of which came from Hungarian or Spanish gypsies, folk music, and probably other influences, giving evidence to the idea that this music was classist at the very least.
@@sagvjc2525 your comment tells me that you didn’t read my comment. The difference between a critique and an insult is that critique provides reasoning, while the insult is a string of words that are intended to attack the emotions. Please consider rereading my comment. An open mind can grow, not enclosed mind.
I fortunately had an incredible theory prof at UIUC. We learned 'theory' through various perspectives from western to eastern to American to various folk or tribal harmony. It took my 10 years of music study and opened my mind not just to new creative musical ideas but a new way of looking at the world around me.
Hey Audrey, unfortunately he doesn't but Illinois has a great music program. It's a great public university for many fields of study. Even if they embarrased their alumni with their miserable shooting performance against Chattanooga and Houston this weekend. 😔
Spanish major, here. You hit the nail on the head. I spent a semester studying picaresque novels and hundred year old short stories. It was like walking on a combination of hot gravel and broken glass. I got a better grasp of Castilian chatting with folks in the grocery store, bakery and local cafés.
@@kainajones9393 devil’s advocate here asking a question: Why is it BS? What arguments do you have to sustain that affirmation? Not judging, just curious to hear the other side of the story.
Classical and Spanish philologist here! I loved reading and analyzing the Spaniard golden century, but man, even as a Spanish native speaker, it was tough. However when we were studying those texts, the professors helped providing a synchronic perspective of the language and how it shaped the dialects spoken in the Americas. Really interesting stuff
@@tobi1314 I procured an MA in music theory at SUNY during the 1990s. Here are some of the courses presently offered to graduate theory students at SUNY: MUS 502, Proseminar in Tonal Analysis: Analysis of Tonal Music MUS 504, Analysis of Music of the 21st Century: Analyzing Tonal Music from the 20th and 21st MUS 507 Studies in Music History: Histories of Music Theory Centuries MUS 534 Opera Studies MUS 536, Area Studies in Ethnomusicology: Music, Belief, and the Black Experience in the US MUS 539, Proseminar in Ethnomusicology: Ethnomusicology in the Colonial Frame MUS 541 Topics in the Cross-Cultural Study of Music: BlaQueer Sounds-Queer Negotiations in Mus African-American Music MUS 547 Topics in Baroque Music: The Harmonious Cosmos in Theory and Practice MUS 555 Topics in 20th-Century Music: Ecology and Its Discontents MUS 559, Topics in Analysis: The Music of Charles Mingus Some white guy stuff, but not predominantly. I think his opening comment suggesting replacing the term "music theory" with "the harmonic style of 18th century musicians." is specious and ill-informed at best, and demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the study of music theory in academic settings. Music theory begins way before this, and proceeds far past it. However, if you want to understand the synthesis of chords, scales and modes, then you're gonna, as a theory student, study the theories of "white guys." at some point. Sorry...just the way it is. Nearly all great (black) jazz masters used chords, modes and scales innovated hundreds of years prior by, yup, white European dudes. Does that mean they’re superior..NO. Does that mean "white music" is better...NO. Does that mean they’re “white supremacists”…NO! What is he actually critiquing? Music Theory in academic settings? If so he got it mostly wrong. To suggest that a "standard" music theory, is put forth as some sort of rigid white regime borders on the ridiculous. Soon we'll be discarding Calculus, Quantum physics and Relativity, as I'm sure that Newton's, Einstein's and Plank's great sin was that they were white. The above video does a great job in creating numerous strawmen, red herrings, and cherry picking, I think it more should be titled: “A Little Knowledge is Dangerous” or "Yet Another Self Deprecating White Dude with a Chip On His Shoulder and Lots of Seemingly Important Things To Say"
@@kainajones9393 I understand your points. What I think you might be missing is the point of considering “Music theory” as only the European way of understanding music. The problem with music theory, according to the video is that it narrows the explanation for different types of music. Not everything can be fully explained through music theory, just like the Spanish example he provided, therefore, what ends outside MT(music theory, because I’m lazy), which traditionally can be understood as non western music, could be taken by some people with racist views as inferior. Also, this theorists who is very famous in the USA and also was very racist, despite his jewish heritage. I mean, it’s a 30 minute video essay, quite complicated to comprise in one comment. TL:DR Music theory isn’t racist per se, what’s racist is the usage it has.
I really like the Spanish language analogy here because a lot of schools don't even teach MODERN European Spanish dialect, growing up I always learned Latin American Spanish, we were told about differences between the two (namely verb conjugation rules & such), but my teachers never stressed that we learn Spanish the way it's spoken in Spain & encouraged us to learn LatAm Spanish (ofc this could also have been a regional thing since we were closer to LatAm but this only further proves the point abour practicality)
Wow, so your local public school teachers are not Gods or geniuses who know everything about linguistics? They are not the next Noam Chomsky? Just people who get paid a middle class wage? Shocking.
im not a musician but im a dancer and this reminds me of how often ballet gets help up as this classical sophisticated style and anything else is considered alternative and other even when it comes to dance styles from other cultures that predate ballet existing
IF you live in the western world that is in fact the right way. Why would the Chinese or Arabs take to ballet as a classical art form when they have their own history. understand where you are from, why would Europeans subsidize traditional East, West, Southern or Central African dance forms. Not their culture, period.
@@loch1748 take hip-hop for example, thats a dance form of the western world. Its still gets classified as alternative or other because for some reason ballet is the norm or something
@@loch1748 Culture is shared and there are Asian Europeans that share culture with both Russia and China because they kinda between the 2, also you forget Europeans have a nasty habit of quite literally forcing others to adhere to their culture
@@loch1748 cultures don't exist in neat boxes, human cultures interact and draw influence from other cultures the have contact with and have done so throughout human history. Lots of European art draws inspiration from non European cultures.
That's because things are supposed to evolve over time. You know, progression? No one wants to see twerking in ballet. If you don't like ballet, btw, maybe try taking modern dance classes? They exist.
Will Pogue I do t know about common sense, lol. I just know that as a musician, this video hurt. I’m not saying it isn’t true. It just hurts acknowledging its truth because I’ve built my music teaching career on it. I’m wrestling and grappling with these truths. I’m glad he acknowledged that he too, is finding this a jagged little pill. It just hurts.
i love this so much man, i did a school projecy on scott joplin in 4th grade and when i heard ragtime my first thought was “this was the inspiration for foundation of the beginning of american music” but i never saw it acknowledged, this is gracious
As an indian, seeing you talk about Indian music theory shook me because I rarely hear about all this in my own country. There are so many music classes that aim to teach music through the western lens and others through the Indian lense, but never got any satisfactory understanding of either. It scares me. I should watch her.
I did take AP music theory in high school, I’m not sure if it was just our teacher but we listened to a lot of global music and even for our AP test I believe our sight writing portion was an African song.
@@daivboveri I started high school 10 years ago and I have the same experience as the guy above you. Things have already been changed long before Adam made this dumpster fire of a video
Did you write down the African song in Western notation? If so, a lot of information may have been lost. I don't know which "African song" this was (Africa is, of course, a big place), but trying to notate, say traditional Japanese shakuhachi music in Western notation, the result would be close to meaningless.
@@impish_snake3526 To be fair, though, while some nominal majority of music scholars with more advanced academic qualifications than Ben Shapiro's dad would probably be compelled to disagreee with Ben Shapiro's dad, Ben Shapiro does have a point: none of those people is also Ben Shapiro's dad.
The speaker is a radical ideologue trying to shoehorn his personal biases into the well-established structure and logic of music. This is precisely the reason this sort of nonsense is damaging to progress. Trying to artificially construct an alternate reality only results in confusion, dysfunction, and the deterioration of academia. You cannot relegate Beethoven to B- status without eroding music education.
Facts, if you know the lore behind some of his later pieces (or have even listened to them), it’s honestly just amazing that he was able to accomplish all that shit while either nearly or completely deaf.
I respect my german music theory teacher more (in Berlin). The first thing he said is that music first and foremost just represents that period and was, although an 100% classical guy, not trying to make it an universal thing.
I stumbled across this "lost in translation" issue with music when I was talking to a colleague. I learned most of my music theory through the lense of jazz so when I mentioned that I used the circle of 4ths for developing solos he had no idea what that was. When I showed him it he told me "oh, you wrote the cycle of 5ths backwards."
@@thewhiteshadow6098 The fifth is the first division of the octave. In fact it is the mean average of the base frequency and the same note an octave higher: (f+2f)/2. The third is the mean of the 5th and the base. The minor seventh is the mean of the 5th and the octave above the base, though TET tuning approximates this one poorly. These divisions were seen as fundamental because they equate to fretboard distances and such ratios sounded pleasing in harmony. From this point of view the 4th is merely derived from the fifth as an inversion. If you were dividing up a fretboard you would come upon the fifth first, and would probably consider it the next fundamental interval after the octave.
The circle of fifths is closer to the root of theory - the most fundamental division of the scale based on the mean of the octave frequencies - than is the circle of fourths. The circle of fourths is more of a tool of improvisational practice - progression patterns, resolving towards the root, shifting modes, chromatic substitutions and such - than is the circle of fifths. At least prior to George Russell.
I’d like to provide a counter argument to this video in the shape of the life of George Bridgetower. -Be a virtuoso violinist at the end of the 18th century born with African ancestry -Make a trip to Vienna to meet your family, including a brother who is a cellist - Happen upon and impress Beethoven -Dedicates 9th violin sonata to you -Get into a small, civil quarrel which enrages him into changing his dedication to a violinist (Kreutzer) who didn’t like it and couldn’t play it.
37:34 i've been scrolling through the comments for a while now, how on earth is no one talking about the fact that Adam says he didn't include a wikipedia source, yet when you go in to the source document there clearly is one, and it turns out to be a rickroll article? XD
Any competent music theorist will tell you that Western music theory is simply a way of understanding twelve tone equal temperament music, and that none of it is hard and fast rules. Often times, even in modern western music, it's the places where the "rules" of music theory are completely thrown away that truly great music happens. I like that you brought up Meshuggah, because their music is often atonal and more about the rhythm than any sort of melody. Another band I love is Opeth, and if you look at their music, they hardly ever stick to a key for more than a few measures.
So then, how about whenever today's modern media extols some big contemporary black music figure like Michael “King of Pop” Jackson or Aretha Franklin or Beyonce or Whitney Houston or Tupac Shakir or Stevie Wonder or Little Richard or Snoop Dawg or Gladys Night or Diana Ross or James Brown? .. . then are they promoting black “supremacy”.
@@cameronsarrett1606 it's not disguised in any way. the video is literally called "Music Theory and White Supremacy". how much clearer can you get than that?
But Opeth can certainly be analyzed according to traditional music theory. So can almost any American/Western music. Music theory is actually really good at analyzing modulations and modal changes, so it’s kind of perfect for understanding bands like Opeth. That’s why I don’t get Adam’s point really.
I really appreciate this, especially your inclusion of Indian music theory. That was my first exposure to non western theory structures and the ways that improved me as a musician (and human being) are things I hold with me to this day. So many problems still to address, but this helps identify patterns some people seem to be missing. Never too late to learn something new!
you do realise you can turn this around to any other country who preaches their version over western right? america isnt the be all end all where every problem stems from
@@xxjackirblackbloddxx7377 i am currently on a far off third world country and trust me, they teach wester music theory on most, almost all formal music schools
So then, how about whenever TODAY’S MODERN MEDIA extols some big contemporary BLACK music figure like Michael “King of Pop” Jackson or Aretha Franklin or Beyonce or Whitney Houston or Tupac Shakir or Stevie Wonder or Little Richard or Snoop Dawg or Gladys Night or Diana Ross or James Brown? .. . THEN are THEY promoting BLACK “supremacy”.
@@sloancostella2772 Praising something enthusiastically isn't the same thing as saying 'this is what music theory is'. The difference between those two are that one is in a sense erasing the existence of all other cultures theories, saying everything must be viewed through a specific lense. There's nothing wrong with praising bach or mozart either. The problem is that 'music theory' is actually just, as adam puts it, the western musical style from 18th century.
@@deltanize9618 i am currently on a far off third world country and trust me, they teach both western and eastern music theory on most, almost all formal music schools
My mentor DANILO PEREZ went to Senegal, Congo and other African countries. He told me something that changed my life for ever: in Africa, drummers FOLLOW the dancer's moves. That, combined with "no one who can't dance will get a music degree"... Booom
@@kuruptlive8874 Right! I think one of the main points of the video is that theory never stops changing. So why then do our educational theory books still revolve around one sect of one culture from one era of music? Awesome to hear that a lot of your theory teachers use more modern and diverse examples to teach theory btw.
@@kuruptlive8874 You still don't understand what the word theory means in this context. A Theory is just a set of organized ideas used to explain something. So, music theory explains how music works. You're are confusing the word theory with the words hypothesis or conjecture.
Theory is describing the building blocks for you to create what ever fuck you want. Like you learn about wood, nails, hammer and a simple blueprint to practice on. When you know how the tools works and what the material is for you can build what ever fuck you want. If you wanna build something ugly, you build something ugly. If you wanna build something beautiful, you build something beautiful. If you wanna build something crazy, you build something crazy. For instance, theory doesn't urge you to follow the exact layout of a structure. You are free to modify it in your unique way. But you need to have something to start practise on and theory gives some examples of some nice working structures for you to work with. Only an idiot thinks that you cannot create something outside the working frame of this theory. Like if you go to a construction school and you learn how to build a simple house. That doesn't mean that you are not allowed to build something different or something that doesn't even resemble an house. That isn't what theory is all about. You learn how to use the tools to build after a simple blueprint. Now you are free to create what ever fuck you want. That is what theory is for. Now you have to be creative. And if you find something that works which the theory didn't cover - thats great! Maybe they will add it to the theory.
Fantastic video! I remember the Schenker paper controversy happening my 1st or 2nd year at UNT, but never looked into it (i wasn't in the theory department). I never realized until watching this that Tim Jackson was the one that said all that stuff. He taught my 2nd counterpoint class just last year!
It’s not even that Wikipedia is specifically an unreliable source, the editors run a tight ship. The reason that I don’t cite it in papers even if it has accurate and valid information is because it’s essentially a brief summary of a mountain of sources that tends to gel those sources together as though they are one idea. I do like to use Wikipedia as a way to find sources, it can be useful in that way, more so for high school papers than anything.
Totally. Many teachers are just "Wikipedia bad" and "anyone can edit". Because everyone can edit, Wikipedia is reliable (to an extent). One malicious person can't possibly overrun a horde of good willed editors looking for false information, like how Blockchain is a secure system. It's an amazing resource to familiarize with a concept to do further research.
@@MR-gz9lm actually, that's not what Adam said. He didn't say that he was rediscovered, just that Mendelssohn went through a great deal of effort to perform the major works of Bach that the public hadn't heard or cared about. Musicians knew Bach because his Well-Tempered Clavier was common for pianists to learn, but Bach's mass and other great works were almost forgotten in the public eye. Please listen more carefully and be more informed about what you say. This video's title is quick to provoke a response, but the content of it is informed, factual, and applied well.
When I studied music theory in a 'regular' university we talked about what was consonant over the history of western music, voice leading, 'German sixths' etc. When I studied it at Berklee it was more about "how does this sound? Why does it sound this way? How does this scale sound over these chords?" I can see the value of interrogating where these "theories' come from and knowing more about the whole world.
This is touchy I spent some intimate time learning what we all generally call “music theory,” and I have grown to love it. But I love your new name for it (the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians). That’s accurate and helps to place it as its own individual contribution to music as a whole. Truly there has been so much development in music around the world, and sadly many of us didn’t study those contributions and styles ☹️
How is it touchy? Is there another transcription system that works better than Western Tonal Harmony for sharing ideas across time and distance for the widest range of instruments and styles?
@@masterofpuppers7963 I here that. It’s a well-developed system that clearly still influences a lot of music today. I guess really I’m just lamenting how little we learned as whole about other music development elsewhere. But you’re right, the theory we studied of how European composers handled harmony is great and super applicable
@@joshuadaviddavis Well, good news for you then. There's nothing to lament. It's just a system of measurement and recording. It doesn't influence music, how you and I use it does. It's just a toolbox. Now if you want to go learn more about raag or Tibetan polyphonic chanting or shakuhachi solos, get all the way after it.
@@masterofpuppers7963Ever consider that its that way not because it's inherently better but because it's creators have put themselves in the context of social hegemony ?
@@micayahritchie7158 No, because that would be making excuses to whine about nothing. Just like I don't make excuses to whine about Imperial Standard vs. Metric because I'm not Roman or French. I just use whatever system is appropriate for the box of wrenches I'm using. If I'm reading or writing for piano or guitar, I use the Tonal Harmony system. If I wanted to learn to play tabla, I'd use the raag system. Simple as.
I want a "-music theory- the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians" t-shirt Okay I give up on formatting this. That's supposed to be strikethrough
I teach two semesters of "Western Music Theory" at Earlham College. I have been teaching with this general orientation for 16 years. I do not teach figured bass except to point out that it was a type of Baroque lead sheet that is no longer in use unless you become a specialized Baroque keyboardist, and I never teach Schenker except to mention that he presents a profoundly limited view of what music is and that it's long past time to put him aside. I always start my course sequence by introducing Indian classical music, since I lived and taught in India for many years. By understanding Hindustani music and its system of ragas, students are then able to better view the major-minor system as a limited sub-set of all possible musical choices, albeit one that has produced amazing music because of the way that it allowed vertical harmony to develop. I bring in jazz charts a lot, as I think jazz harmony is often better for teaching basic harmonic function (e.g. predominant, dominant, tonic) than the classical models. I make sure we play Terry Riley's "in C" together at some point in the year. I have attempted to write an e-book that presents a more culturally and racially aware understanding of music theory, but it's hard to do, though I continue to work at it. I would love to teach a full sequence of cross-cultural music theories, and we still hope to do that within our department someday. I certainly find all the books that are mentioned in this video as worthy of throwing on the floor. They had their time, but, hey, it's 2020, and we need new approaches. I've never written a TH-cam comment, but a colleague at my school shared this video, and I needed to say that there ARE those of us out there, doing this work and teaching very close to the way Mr. Neely suggests, and have been doing so for a long time. While I don't go so far as to say that music theory is racist, I continually point out that music theory as presented in conventional textbooks is limited to a particular time and place, and definitely presents a white, European framework. Once that is recognized, then of course we can study and perform and celebrate that music within that cultural understanding. I play Bach every morning, and late Beethoven takes me beyond the temporal world at times. But so does Tibetan Buddhist ritual music, or a great pop song on a rainy day. Also, I try, in my teaching, to touch upon music's mystery. What Pythagoras, for example, was getting at with the Music of the Spheres lies at the foundation of Western Music Theory, but all of that gets rejected these days in favor of an ultra-rational approach. Pythagoras links to Hindustani theories of Nada Brahma, the universe as ultimately a kind vibrational, spiritual sound. The books that got thrown on the floor suck all of this right out. They treat music like a closed system, rather than as an open and constantly evolving journey. Kudos to Adam for the clarity and humor in which he presents this material. It helps me feel less lonely, as I often feel an outlier in the way I teach.
That sounds like you have read the book by Joachim-Ernst Berendt called "The World Is Sound: Nada Brahma" as well. Berendt got scorched by his fellow Jazz musicians because he tried to break out of the cage and find a more universal and encompassing way to relate to music, and how music relates to us in general. Many parts of me are very thankful in hindsight, that I didn't study music at all. I always felt that it would shackle me to rigid concepts and the older I get, the less I feel the need to learn it to improve my compositions. It's so much more fun to figure out a way to make 15/16s work in an easy-to-listen way on your own instead of looking for a solution in a book. There is no reason why an inquisitive mind should not be able to find every single chord combination on their own, and applying them as they feel instead of reading about them in a book and being slaved to their intended progression. That is another reason for writer's block that many have. Because they've already studied so much, that they can't seem to find a way to make something they haven't heard yet, in fear of plagiarism. And everything they do try to write then becomes just another building based off a blueprint they've been taught previously. I understand that the blues-schemata is an easy way for musicians to just jam along, for example. I find no joy in jamming with others by improvisation to a caged system. I find more joy in creating from the ground up with others and bouncing ideas around, or just learn songs that we all enjoy and want to play together. Music is not a past time for me like it is for the schemata-jammers, it's an outlet for a creative force. And the more time passes, the more I want to dive into microtonality and wanting to break out of the 12tone temperament system because those intervals often feel so wrong and uninspiring.
In other words, you are not teaching Western Music Theory at all, and are therefore drawing your salary under false pretences. You are a typical self-flagellating Western "liberal", falling over yourself to vilify your own culture, or to dilute it with irrelevancies.
@@Khayyam-vg9fw "In other words"-no, in your world view, which, in a single word, could be read as 'opinion', which unfortunately (oops, my opinion) you are allowed to have, he is "not" teaching Western Music Theory "at all." "Not at all" means 0%, which in this case, is irrefutably not true. You are judging, rather harshly, I feel compelled to add (darn it, my opinion again!), a person based on one passage they wrote in a TH-cam comments section-a person whom you-I'm quite confident in saying-have never met in real life.
@@TavisAllen Bullshit. In a course entitled Western Music Theory he openly admits that he does not exclusively - perhaps not even primarily - teach Western Music Theory. Spare me your specious reasoning about "your world view", "opinion", and other bits of personalised cr@p, as if it were merely a matter of personal idiosyncrasy whether or not Western Music Theory is taught in courses entitled Western Music Theory.
Really difficult. I am German and my music teacher at highschool explicitly told us, our notation and music theory ignores a huge amount of music from all over the world. She was very aware of the problem. I think of it this way: Imagine being an engineer, scientist, software developer or TH-cam content creator not born in the USA or at least some other English speaking country. You have to learn English as a foreign language and use that language very often, but no matter what you do, you'll never be at the same level as a native speaker. Try making a video about a complex topic like this one. If you make it in your native language your audience will be limited, if you make it in English it will be hard for you to make and many people will quickly switch to something made by native speakers. I don't blame anyone. This is not an act of intentional surprission. Our American friends are just lucky in that respect. Anyway, this is important and eye opening. Great video . Greetings from Berlin
Puerto Rican here: While studying the cuatro under my Abuelo, he impressed upon me just how integral learning the dances of specific styles (jibaro, salsa, bomba, etc.) is to playing within that style. The slavery of West Africans in the Caribbean brought so much evil in this world, but through our music and ancestry, we keep their vibrant spirits alive.
Bingo!!! That's the ultimate irony, the most popular music today is based on the suffering of million of people, fighting to keep that misery away while being in chains.
@@MarceloAbans Stop pissing your delusional race baiting on everything. Popular music today is not based on the suffering of millions of people, you emotional toddler. The elements expressed in popular music from non-white cultures were present in those cultures long before slavery showed up.
Luckily for me, my music theory teacher in high school prefaced the entire curriculum by saying that it is antiquated, and even then, the baroque composers that are supposed to have created these rules for "music theory" broke them all the time. He was amazing teacher.
Likewise. Ours rejected the curriculum and insisted on keyboards on every desk so we could write and perform music and "not just learn about dead Germans". Our first composition exercise was in Caribbean-inspired whole-tone scale, then 16-bar blues, then scat singing. But when he was replaced, the new teacher immediately moved these distracting instruments out of reach and literally dictated biographies of great classical composers for us to write down.
@@dananskidolf wow... Well I'm talking about an AP music theory course, so we weren't able to just do that with the curriculum without getting our asses handed to us on the big test, but we really should include more styles. Like do you know much I would have loved to learn 16 bar blues? Or Spanish flamenco? Damn...
In Harmony by Walter Piston he prefaced the book by saying that what is inside was a compendium of what was common practice at the time. Basic concepts. I really don't understand what shenkin was all about but it sounds like it was more than technical concepts or devices. Society for music theory sounds like naval gazing sounds like typical academic over think for people who don't or can't make any actual music.
Schenkerism is the wrong reason to study figured bass. Figured bass is not complicated, and it is one of the useful ways to help conceptualize vertical relationships. There are other such tools, and figured bass warrants its position among them. That said, I don't recommend Aldwell and Schachter for studying figured bass. I say this less because A&S is shamelessly pro-Schenkerian than simply because it's a brick-thick "comprehensive" tonal music primer which not even once shows students the circle of fifths. When I first notice this, I just thought it was a stupid editorial decision. Decades later, I have come to think the real point of leaving out the circle of fifths is to help theory teachers try to influence which students see the circle of fifths first. Pet students will be shown the circle outside of class. Students who pose potential threats to Schenkerism will be left to find out about the circle of fifths on their own, and pay for this slower process with lower marks.
I studied music composition/theory under Dr. Jonathan McNair & Dr. Mario Abril. They both would stress the significance of what we call theory being nothing more than what was written during the European Common Practice Era". After this video I understand their sense of urgency in making this clear and I think an even deeper respect for my mentors.
@@AdamNeelyHmm, when I studied musicology at university we learned all kinds of theories and approaches--including the Renaissance and the Middle Ages. That's why I was a bit confused with the video. I think what you meant is "the type of music theory you typically learn in high school"? Another big part of musicology is ethnomusicology/music anthropology, that studies music outside of Europe and folk music traditions within Europe. That's where we learned a bit about other music theories as well.
Swear to god this title said music theory is racist. EDIT: To all replying, he already mentioned this on his Twitter. He thought it was too clickbaity.
@@th3n3wk1dd let's see hear... if music theory, as most know and learn it in the Western world, was built around the proclaimed exceptionalism of white composers to justify a Germanic cultural supremacy I would say that means Music Theory = Racist.
@@MonsieurAuContraire and you don't see how that is a fallacy? I guess that is why you belong to the leftist religion. I can proclaim anything.. no one has to follow it. There are general rules set in place as art evolves to see what MOST like.. That isn't racist. You are using identity to reach a conclusion rather than looking at culture where culture and skin color are not the same thing. And that is why leftists don't understand the disparity fallacy.
I mean it seems like saying "music theory is racist" is kinda unconsciously buying into the same problem he's describing in this video, by centering western music theory as "music theory." Music theory isn't racist, just the way they teach it in the west. So yeah, it's a good title change
"But he was a relatively obscure composer in his day, and rarely performed after his death." I picture Bach with a portable electric keyboard playing on special occasions when important people visit his grave.
Fantastic. I have a graduate degree in music theory from Eastman and your video is absolutely on point. Keep fighting for real music and an open approach to everything all peoples have made on this planet!
Music theorist here (I actually have a degree in music theory pedagogy, if you can believe that's a thing!). This is a conflicting video for me and I want to try and lay out a sort of middleground (pun intended). I'll do this with some general observations: 1. I think the idea of diversifying the music theory canon of composers and genres is a noble pursuit. The issue mainly stems from the difficulty in teaching Western classical music theory. It is a very complicated and deep subject that contradicts itself in many instances and students have a hard time wrapping their heads around a lot of the concepts, even fundamentals. Theory is often taught from this perspective because it is referencing the kind of music that a conservatory musician is most likely to engage with throughout their careers and, contrary to a few points in this video, is actually applicable past the Western classical canon (more on that later). But we are making progress here (also more on that below). I think we also forget how diverse the classical music canon actually is... compare the music of Bach to the music of Mahler to the music of Debussy to the music of Prokofiev and I dare you to say that it is appropriate to put those composers under the same label. 2. I think this video does a huge disservice to the endeavors and work of many American music theorists who have diversified their curricula. When Adam says "the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians," this is at best reductive and at worst misleading. Any American music theory curricula worth its salt covers Western music from as early as the 1500s and as late as the present. For example, my alma mater has a 5-semester undergraduate curriculum which begins with fundamentals and ends with post tonal analysis with the last few weeks covering more modern trends! A diverse set of composers and styles are covered anywhere from the Renaissance to Jazz to 18th century Western classical to minimalism to Broadway to Rock, etc. This curriculum is filled with examples from as many relevant styles and eras as possible and MANY theorists are actively trying to diversify their rep and the topics they cover. (Example: lament bass as a harmonic/bassline concept. The examples given include its Renaissance origins, its use in Baroque music, Classical music, Romantic music, and also in songs like "Hit the Road, Jack" or "Hotel California.") 3. Music from other cultures should definitely be more represented, but this takes time to do properly. I've been adding as much as I can to my own curriculum but it isn't easy when the theories are as complex as they are and students are already struggling with the basic concept to begin with (i.e. what the difference between A major and C major is or what their parallel and relative minors are... everyone starts somewhere and even this "simple" concept takes time to internalize). I completely agree that teaching these concepts can be made even more interesting with the inclusion of comparison to Indian music, for example. Theorists just need to finish learning these things themselves PROPERLY. At the very least, citations and resources should be made available to students who are interested and wanting to learn more. More classes should be offered for student who are interested in these things and they should be taught by experts! Once a better grasp is attained by teachers, then it becomes much easier to diversify. 4. Schenkerian theory is used outside of its intended group of composers all the time. Schenker lists 12 composers, but there were far more composers who were writing in the style that he was interested in whose work can be understood better with his theory. Schenker doesn't list Wagner or Strauss for example, but their music still can be analyzed with this theory, albeit with some additional challenges/considerations. There are theorists who apply his theory to Debussy and Scriabin as well, composers who most would think have NOTHING to do with the theory. Useful information can still be gleaned from using it though. Schenker himself did an analysis of Stravinsky's piano concerto! True, he did it to explain why he though it was bad music, but we all know Schenker's own ideas about what is good and bad aren't really relevant. What matters is that he himself used it on music that it wasn't intended to explain. 5. Another Schenker point: the graphic notation itself is immensely useful outside of its intended purpose! One can use it to more effectively explain more nuanced elements of any piece of music. The ursatz and urline do NOT need to be implemented to use the graphic notation itself. It is, however, important for someone using this theory to understand its intended use so they can use it elsewhere, just like how Adam suggests using a much more modern theory to understand Chopin (something Chopin certainly never would have thought of himself). 6. As someone who studied how to teach music theory specifically, I can tell you this conversation is not new at all. We have been talking about the textbooks we use, the examples we cite, and the issues we face for years. Adam uses Aldwell/Schachter as an example, but this textbook is one of the oldest that is still used. Take a look at something like Clendenning/Marvin. This is a much more diverse (more and more) source of Western music theory knowledge. An effort is made to include women composers, American composers, and more than just the Bach to Brahms canon in the pursuit of teaching Western music theory. I myself don't use textbooks, but have studied many of them to understand useful pedagogical models. This gives the freedom to teach a more diverse rep while also having a tried and true model of teaching. 7. Figured bass has uses outside of preparing a student for Schenker. The most relevant and useful is that it helps with improvising in the Western classical style. Understanding the basis for this style and the method of thinking is obviously useful if a student wants to improvise! It's basically like having a lead sheet and, once learned, opens up a wide variety of possibilities for any student who is looking to improvise stylistically. Improv as a pursuit is becoming much more relevant in conservatory training and figured bass is really needed in order to do this! We also use it as an addition to Roman numeral analysis which is a relevant method of analysis for music spanning almost 300 years. 8. Final point. It is a little worrying that a field that is already thought of as "boring" or "a waste of time" is being labeled "racist" by such a high profile figure. I can speak from experience that the VAST majority of the students I have taught for the past 7 years have had nothing but positive things to say about their experience with music theory. Again, this sort of reductive label of "racist" is ignoring all of the progress theorists are actively trying to make in this field. This is tearing down instead of looking to the ones who are trying to rebuild. New voices in the filed are added every day, more and more we are diversifying. Yes, CALL OUT the individuals who are promoting German or classical music as superior. But please don't label the entire field this way. Don't give a voice to ignorance. I want to be clear that I have 0 desire to defend the opinions of Ben Shapiro or Schenker (and other problematic figures mentioned) regarding music. But I want to make it clear that many of us are trying and are implementing as much as we can. Let's keep up this trend and show how amazing MUSIC is! The best theory teachers teach theory because they love music. Not because they want to prove some music is better, but because they want to give more people the tools necessary to start somewhere and grow as musicians, no matter what their interests are.
Thank you for your comment. I hope more people will be able to see this. Your number 8 is the most important thing anyone should say when replying to this video. 99% of people watching this video have not and will not have any experience with music theory their entire life,however, by watching such a big TH-camr calling music theory racist, it’s doing a huge disservice for all of us musicians,theorist, teachers etc, trying to make the industry more inclusive and better everyday. Thank you again.
As a musician who has practiced and studied both Indian Classical Music and Western Music Theory, I would definitely say that you can definitely draw parallels between both types of music theory. However, from a distant viewpoint, what my experience has been is that in Indian Classical Music theory, you’re more or less required to remember different raags, taals and other such things; whereas in Western, you can use logical application of the concepts and figure out almost anything. But at the same time, Indian Music Theory focuses a lot more on ornamentation on the raags, which is distinguishes each raag from the other. You can learn a lot about musical concepts from either discipline but you need a different type of mindset to study and relate either.
Light Yagami I’m not saying you can’t. I’m just saying that different kinds of music theory focus on different areas of music which is a reflection of the culture of that specific region and how music evolved in that certain area.
Isn't "logical application of the concepts" based on memorization too? The concepts that you're logically applying are concepts of the studied western music theory, that you also have to memorize... when you study them.
@@AbhinavBorah Are you suggesting that Indian music can't have harmony? This is what I'm saying - they focus on ornamentation but that doesn't mean it's completely impossible for them to understand what a chord progression is. It goes both ways. I know what a turn or a mordent or glissandi is. So is it a cultural aspect or is it simply a large group of people who prefer to accentuate ornamentation? What is keeping me from throwing grace notes all over my melody?
Ethan Prince to a degree yes. But you also have to see as to how flexible the rules are in each form of study. For example, in Indian classical music, you have remember taals and how they are accented (yes there is a very specified way to it), because of which you have a very large repository of different taals with very specific accents to them; whereas when you learn western music theory, you can remember the concept of time signatures and then figure out the time signature of a piece, how they’re accented and where the accents are placed. This purely comes from how I was taught both types of music and what I’ve seen around me in my peers.
Teaching figured bass in a theory textbook seems similar to teaching guitar tablature..... useful for some in the right context but a flautist gains nothing
The thing I like about figured bass is that, for example, instead of writing Asus - A (as two separated chords), in figured bass, it's (A)4-3, meaning just a melodic movement in one of the voices. it also affects how you play it, the dynamics, etc.
js bach used thoroughbass asthe basis of composition, as he stated in a reccomendation letter for one of his students. you can be garunteed therefore his flute sonatas where derived from the principles of thoroughbass. Also improvisation over thoroughbass is a long standing tradition. in italy this was called partimenti and these lessons were spread through europe as they valued the italians skill. if thoroughbass isnt important why would all the major composers train within it
Adam, thanks for this video. I had my music theory and Western music history in California universities almost 50 years ago. Some things that have become apparent to me since then: 1. In the first couple of years we were taught largely from scores that could fit on 1-4 pages of an anthology book or dittoed handout. So, supremacy of the economically printable page. We studied Bach pieces, Beethoven bagatelles, Schubert songs, Brahms intermezzos, etc. They were great for studying specific harmonic and motivic procedures. But these condensed, enigmatic pieces are limited in what they can teach a young musician. What was lacking was discussion of what can make a piece of music continue in time, and, in a related matter, what can make a performance take flight as opposed to being like waiting for a drill to get through a piece of damp wood. 2. In our two-semester music history course, based mostly on Grout’s “History of Western Music,” we were appalled to find that Bach (and, as we learned, the continuo era) wouldn’t appear until the very end of the first semester. We were furious at having to listen to people we had never heard of - Perotin, Machaut, etc. However, a few people from that Grout generation took it to heart, and went on to do thoughtful recordings and performances of these “early” composers that brought new and deserved appreciation to their music. 3. On the other hand, Grout just ran off the rails when he got to the mid-20th century…bumfuzzled...nothing helpful to say. 4. I like the idea of questioning the notion that music is a universal language. Even in the West…have those monumental performances of Beethoven’s Ninth brought the world together? 5. The preface to one of our college textbooks said “the history of music is essentially the history of musical style.” Hmm. Another way to slice it might be to look at the history of musical *function* (which we hardly ever did in those days). Who plays and sings, who listens, who asked for it, when and where is the music performed? Before the era of mass international travel and mass media, did people in China, India, Persia, and Spain all want the same thing from music? The performance situation actually dictates a lot about instrumentation, rhythm, harmonic language, internal voices, and more. 6. About dancing. I am no dancer either. However, I had to do a little dancing in our college “Elizabethan madrigal dinner” holiday shows. A choreographer taught us some simple steps for some English Renaissance instrumental. I’m telling you, I perceived the structure of the music in an entirely different way. So I recommend dancing as part of musical education. 6b. The podcast “BBC In Our Time” had an episode on the history of the waltz that I recommend. Turns out there’s a lot to know about the social implications of this dance. 7. How big a deal is all this outside of academia? Thinking back on my old classmates, the ones who went on to musical careers outside academia already knew where they were going when they arrived at music school. One was from a prominent family of Afro-Cuban musicians. Another, reggae. Another, electronic and Celtic music. They were in school to get a dose of Western tradition, put it in their own context, and move on.
Im kinda hungover rn so my thoughts maybe incoherent, but as a Japanese person who was taught "music theory" I just kinda assumed that it will be Eurocentric. Like I don't know how to explain it, but this whole discussion feels extremely obvious - Western music theory will have Eurocentric bias based on the the context and the personal factors of contributors. It kinda draws parallel to how medicine and medical sciences are viewed, as everything is in English and regional forms of medicine are small scaled compared to Western medicine. Idk this feels very weird to me that all of this is being addressed in the video when I just assumed everyone knew and kept in mind the flaws of dropping the "Western" from music theory. Western music is the largest field of music rn at least in academics, so it feels normal for me to just say "music theory" because we assume that it's Western (the majority) in the context.
@@sgttomas not America's soul, United States' soul. This is not the Bolivian soul or the Mexican soul we're talking about. That's another proof of how much "United Statians" think of themselves when approaching the world
I feel like the section of this video where Ewell faced a literal symposium of backlash for pointing this out shows why your assumption, though informed and good natured, shouldn't be applied to the entire field. Because it clearly isn't. And that's kind of Neelys and Ewells point. That for theorists like Schenker, the white supremacist "undertone" WAS the point. It was explicitly acknowledged. But in modern teachings, the white supremacy either is unaddressed or tacitly endorsed at the expense of other equally valid understandings and perspectives.
I don't get everything in this video since I'm a self-taught musician, I've only learned theory from the Western musical system and a bit from the middle eastern system since I am turkish and quite familiar with makams and the middle eastern microtonal soundscape. I know nothing about western music and other parts of the world's music history so it's very unclear yet I want to thank you for teaching me the fact that music is far more greater and deeper than the western system's approach on it. I felt quite some vertigo watching this video and learning that I have far more to learn haha. Thank you a lot, keep up ! :)
25:50 even in my conservative music school we were taught about the 7 fundamentals - rhythm, dynamics, melody, harmony, tone colour, texture, form. Shapiro isn't even getting western music theory right.
It's almost like Shapiro is making a bad-faith argument from authority to make it seem as if his (and his audience's) distaste for the products of Black culture is actually an "objective" critique and thus not racist at all. Couldn't be!
fehzorz the part I don’t get about Bens argument is that most rap songs literally have melody in them, most instrumentals are led by some melodic figure, take the guitar lead in *i* by Kendrick Lamar for example. As well, there’s the melody a rapper carves out in a flow, but Ben ignores that so I guess I have to as well :(((((
I also love how Ben can’t acknowledge that Rap is poetry- he simply isn’t capable of ascribing that to black people, he has to call it “rhythmic speaking”. Its the exact same disdain 20th century classical composers had for Jazz.
OutScreamer It’s also astonishing that Ben would say “Jazz is a degradation of classical”... like lmao what? They are completely different genres of music with different skill sets required to play them. A classical musician couldn’t easily play jazz well and vice versa. He also acts as if jazz doesn’t require intense study and practice. Like has he ever heard Giant Steps... or any bebop jazz recording for that matter?
I’ve actually been interested in better understanding the structure/language of music for a while now. Having seen this, I think I’ll look beyond the usual western “music theory”. Thanks for the tip and all the insightful info. :)
Really interesting video. I'd like to share my own experience of studying music theory in Ireland as it seems to differ greatly from what you describe. I studied a BA-Mus in Music at University College Cork. Our very first class involved the head of the department asking us how many different ways we could write down a C major chord; i.e. sheet music, figured bass, note names, chart, tab, even frequencies. His point was that music theory is a tool and you use the best tool for the job. When we studied Bach we used Western music theory. When we studied North Indian classical music we studied the principles of raag (which as an aside I don't think gel well with what Westerners would define as 'music theory' given the inherently improvisatory nature of raag, and the fact that it contains outside aspects such as time of day etc as you alluded to). When we studied Afro-Cuban music we learned how to salsa (for one painfully awkward class which still haunts me...). And when we studied contemporary composition we learned a bunch of different notation methods but were immediately encouraged to start coming up with our own as long as they made sense and could be performed. Part of this approach might be because UCC has a very well-regarded ethnomusicology department which influenced curriculum and approach. I'm not sure if this is exactly the kind of approach you or Dr Ewell would find helpful for redressing the imbalance in global music analysis but I just wanted to let it be known that there are courses out there offering broader interpretations of 'music theory'.
@Tony O Connor. I studied music & ethnomusicology in the UK & had a very similar experience to yours. This was true, even while studying my A level in music, never mind music college. I simply can’t relate to the message of this video.
Master Lowkey I studied music theory and music history in the US and had a vastly different experience. Music theory was always taught as a means to an end and that the means can change as long as one gets to the end which is music that carries the intended feeling behind making it, in other words, as long as the theory translates into the intended music.
My experience in America was much like Adam's, but you guys in the UK sound like you had a way hipper experience! The thing that keep me grounded (probably Adam, too), is that I was a jazz major so I was constantly aware of great music being ignored or music theory, as it pertains to jazz, being looked over in favor of more traditional music. That said, I still love all the old, traditional music and I immensely enjoy playing in orchestras, but I also love playing jazz and playing in a prog-metal band and playing guitar on James Brown tunes in a funk band.
@@ibrahim47x I studied classical music at a conservatory for around 13 years in Canada, then transitioned to private jazz lessons. The euro centric musical theory was definitely posited as simply "music theory" (at least in my experience). It never even occurred to me that other cultures have their own model for musical theory and lowkey I feel so foolish for not even considering that so I found this video very insightful.
22:04 I love the part about music not being the universal language. Each culture has its own unique musical language, but music isn't the universal language any more than English is the universal language! Rather, LANGUAGE ITSELF IS UNIVERSAL. Music is universal: each musical culture has come up with their own musical language, just as each linguistic culture has come up with their own spoken language, and each one has a unique way to express the way we move through the world.
Yeah! I also think the comparison works when trying to learn new styles of music. English speakers use their knowledge of English to learn any other language. You can see how this applies if you watch Nahre’s videos on synthesizers and jazz music from the perspective of a classical musician. She applies everything she knows about classical music to understand other kinds of music
did not watch all of it, but sounded so dumb, how great it would be we all speak the same language, like, what took humanity out of misery was the contact with each others talents so i could have a well made shoe from a talent shoe maker, in exchange of whathever i'm good at. how great it would be if we were not separate by language, and you want to break conections cause you don't want them to be white? for real? i'm latin and had two great american teachers here, and you want them to learn wathever sistem indigenas made up before teaching me, screwing with them and mostly me. and feel ashamed of their white skin for stuf others made on the past? i don't know quechua or aymara but do speak english, how dare i, said to me Evo Morales. I want to understand a perlmans masterclas on youtube. back off.....
I think this is missing the point of what people mean by "music is a universal language." Not that all cultures use the same methods of conveying meaning through music, but that even when using a completely different "musical language" to convey feeling people from completely different cultures with no background in that musical language can often understand that feeling. Not always completely and with some exceptions where they get it completely backwards, but these kinds of snappy expressions always favor hyperbole over nuance. It's a perspective that focuses entirely on the experience of listening to music, which makes sense as most people know nothing about any tradition or theory or practice of making music. In that context, it holds some truth. There's still room to criticize it in that context, but this is why I didn't quite like it when Adam talked about it in a Q&A some months back. He used the example of performing with Mongolian musicians to say it isn't one, because of their different musical backgrounds even if they understood some common terms the two groups couldn't always understand what the other was trying to do in the moment and had some issues communicating. That isn't wrong, but I think it's less pertinent to what most people are asking about when they say "is music a universal language" to look at whether music helps musicians communicate while making something, instead of looking at whether the finished musical work can communicate an idea across cultures.
I love 18th century european classical music, but I wish people understood that classical music goes beyond [the harmonic style of 18th century european musicians], and for that matter, people should understand that music goes beyond western music in general. I am Japanese and really wanted to learn a Japanese instrument so I recently bought a gagaku instrument (ancient Japanese court music). The music theory, instruments, etc. in gagaku alone are very different. Not just the music theory, but non-western-classical instruments in general are underrepresented. Videos about instruments, articles about the hardest instruments to play, music lessons available, etc. will hardly (or not at all) bring up non-western-classical instruments. I also love that you bring up Indian Classical, one of my favorites classical genres. ❤
Studying at Juilliard in the early 1980s, music theory instruction was almost entirely based on historical European developments, harmonization, counterpoint. Much of it felt like puzzle work. I remember by the time it got to heavily chromatic harmony I lost interest. In any case, it had very little to do with contemporary music of any sort I was familiar with. As I was interested in performing with a symphony orchestra, I thought of Juilliard as a trade school (though the powers that be would have hated that description). Nowadays, the school appears to offer training in a significantly broader palette of music and dance styles. However, I really don't think that our art has to be ALL things to ALL people. Otherwise we perhaps run the risk of offering only basic general skills at the expense of high level specific training. Choose what you're interested in, and go to the right people and places for assistance and inspiration.
Well said, and perhaps an excellent argument for the expansion of specializations within. Everyone will have different attractions once they begin their studies, and just like a major in Economics will have required underlying studies to earn a degree, the same majors and minors should be offered within the world of music. Perhaps some already are, but it is obviously an area that can be improved immensely and should be to expand the abilitiies and creative understanding of future artists.
So if you wanted to learn to be a composer of popular music in the US... Where would you go to college and what program would cater to ppl who are experts in the subtleties of the most popular forms? Doesn’t exist? Academia doesn’t respect contemporary music and although they might offer a famous person an amorphous history class, they would never threaten the established orthodoxy in order to provide this type of educational opportunity despite the market and societal benefits...
@@levytator1 Perhaps Berklee College of Music in Boston. But I wouldn't be a good person to answer that question; I'm already in my 60s, and I don't follow the latest trends in popular music in general.
@@JakeKoenig So you're saying a school in a country that is overwhelmingly European can only teach things related to Europe? Sounds like you're the one with a sub-80 IQ my dear. The United States is a melting pot of cultures and traditions, and if you don't like it, that's a you problem.
Bruh. There are times and periods. Secondly , there are even days on which music is suited. There are songs for rain, for sun, for the wind. It's pretty cool tbh
This feels a lot like how we portray the seasonal cycle in popular culture: one particular kind of climate (warm summers, snowy winters, and enough moisture to support spring flowers and autumn leaves). It makes no sense if you live in a desert or a subtropical environment, and not even very good for Mediterranean climates.
Yeah but those people aren't really advanced either, zero agriculture, little engineering. I suggest you appreciate the magic that Europe has bestowed on us and reject all cope! It's petulant and obvious!
I live in a place with no rain in the summer. Because of this kind of imagery I literally did not know that rain during the summer existed until I was a teenager because our graphics for summer just show a sun. I now know that in a lot of places the summer is very green from all the rain, unlike my brown home
This is seriously one of the most impressive youtube videos ive ever watched. Your arguments and analysis are structured so well and so thoughtfully. Thank you, i learned a lot today.
I have always thought that “Music Theory” is simply the theorization of music. There are thousands of ways to analyze music and they are all very interesting. If I had the opportunity to study other forms of theory, I would have. Not because music theory is racist or whatever; I’d study them because they are incredibly interesting to study. I’m an amateur composer and love to take elements from other theory systems and cultures and incorporating them in my compositions. Leaving them out of current educational systems is doing a huge disservice to other cultures.
This is exactly what Adam argues for in the video. The way the term "music theory" is used right now is racist because it refers to one specific kind, European classical music theory, and many people think that anything you can't analyze using that kind of music theory is stupid compared to the great geniuses for whom the theory was developed. And to solve that and make "music theory" not racist, we should teach different kinds of music theory, and also make sure people understand that just because something can't be analyzed using one of them doesn't make it unsophisticated.
@@hemerythrin and at the same time Adam conveniently forgot to mention that rap is a Western kind of music, yes, the roots were African, but big rappers emerged in Europe and the US predominantly.
![เจ็บที่ยังฮัก - ม่อน วรวิทย์ [ Official Mv ] จอนนี่มิวสิค](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/KALIGSRSjFs/mqdefault.jpg)
It would be a great feature if youtube showed what percentage of the video you watched beside your comment.
**skips to last 3 seconds before commenting to trick the system*** /s
what's your favourite ice cream flavour
@@iambeepbop2452 I personally really enjoy Ben and Jerry's "Watch the full video before making dumbass comments" with almond
That or you can only leaves comments once you have finished 100% of the video. A lot of ignorant folks misrepresenting Adam’s position. But that was inevitable whenever you suggest racism is more than just bad words.
As someone who disagrees with the video, let's add the feature, I'm for it.
In high school I used to compose music heavily inspired by Japanese video games. When I showed my piano teacher, she said "it's not supposed to end on a chord like this" "there are certain rules you need to follow" this video helped me gain a new perspective on what that could have meant because she definitely didn't explain lol
That's a very dogmatic understanding of music, even with music theory. It's the THEORY of music and now the LAW of music for a reason. Also, Japanese video game OSTs aren't that compositionally different from _"`18th century European"_ compositions. She's being ridiculous. Other genres diverge in composition MUCH more.
@@urphakeandgey6308 ya she pretty much killed my passion for composition but I hope to get back into it one day. Thanks for understanding
Music theory, (Yes, the White, Eurocentric kind) helps to illuminate and explain patterns and rules of thumb. These rules can be broken in creative, musically pleasing ways, if you find a way to pull it off. It’s not “Laws” of music.
Fuck rules
I always felt composers like Yuki Kajiura and Shigeru Umebayashi had firm foundations in "classical", but they always had their own "groove" if I can say it like that. That makes them so much more approachable imo.
Hi, I am an Indian. While it's nice to see you highlighting the fact that we have our own theory and a very elaborate grammer divided into multiple scriptures. I would also like to point out that our music theory doesn't do harmony very well. It's mostly about the mood of the melody. Raag's even have their own catchy tune written inside the raag. But for an outsider trying to learn western music the traditional method did provide a good framework (credit where it's due). Also I can't fathom the fact that people actually believe that there is only one music theory.
I dont think its that people think there is only one type of music theory, but in western culture it is the most relevant to us (not to say Indian music isnt relevant) but for me as a white westerner i will mostly play white music with the exception of a few African American artists from the 40s/50s
@@jamieapeck Yeah &That DOES NOT make you a "White Supremacist" either.
There are literally older comments that are shocked by the idea. I think your comment is also misleading, because nowhere does Adam say that you shouldn't use Western Music Theory, only that you shouldn't ONLY use Western Music Theory. (And as he mentioned, it isn't even the only Western Music Theory made). But official schools and idiots like Ben Shapiro act like there is only one type of theory, made by people 300 years ago in a small part of Europe, that applies to everything.
@@nunyadambidniss And no one is saying that it does. But that's beside the point.
I am south american, our musical history is deeply culturally mixed, we've got african, middle-eastern and european styles mixed with our own indigenous styles. And even with that rich culture AND an enormous interest in music, I've never even thought about the existence of a music theory other than the european one - why's that? Think, why in all of our history is the european way of analysing music the only one widely known?
That is the supremacy part.
@@jamieapeck yeah it's western music theory for typical western instruments
i think what really grinds my gears about music theory is that they laud composers that broke the rules of the time (like Beethoven, Stravinsky) or had immense talent (Bach, Paganini), but we in the modern day under formal tutelage cannot break any of the rules ourselves because then it won't sound "correct", despite it being a more genuine expression.
None of them broke the mathematical basis underlying musical theory. Maybe that's the problem with musicians who comment on this without any knowledge of the mathematics. No matter how you try and crowbar race into the issue, the mathematics are quite clear. Black people greatly contributed certain aspects to music but the greatest examples of this fusion were mixed with western musical theory. Basically the music claimed by black people would not exist without western music theory. And once again this is based in mathematics.
Why can't we just accept the beauty is in the combination instead of trying to claim it belongs to one race or the other?
@@laughingachilles applying an objective science like math to a subjective art form like music seems like only half the battle to me personally. yes, there is a lot of math in music, i'm aware of that myself, but subjective taste and objective data are so far removed from each other-- you can call a piece "wrong" but calling it "bad" leaves a bad taste in my mouth. that's my problem, not race. assuming any particular template to be "superior", white or black, is my problem more than anything.
@@basedokadaizo
Here is the problem with your response...all of these systems involve mathematics! I would argue it is incredibly racist to suggest any system is outside of mathematics when they all follow maths in one way or another.
Or do you believe that only westerners are capable of mathematics?
@@laughingachilles i... i literally just acknowledged there's math in music? i said my problem with the modern methods of music education boil down to restriction versus true expression? brother i dropped race at the door and wanted a GENUINE discussion about the flaws in modern music education, what the fuck is wrong with you?????
@@laughingachilles for real i am NOT letting this discussion revert after dropping my actual honest opinion on the issues of music education you are NOT doing that shit to me this time this is the ONE topic i go absolutely ballistic over
"Western Classical Music theory". That's what it's called here in South Africa, there is clear line here say between, cape jazz theory, and western classical theory
That's pretty good, I think, because it doesn't simply replace "Western classical music" with "music"
Problem solved, lol.
@@billpeel4408 yeah no of course. When I started my degree (in 18th century European music theory😂) there was alot of heavy focus in the first year of our Musicology module on thinking outward about musical interpretation down to the tiniest pieces of information. And it was made perfectly evident that "music theory" is a euro-centric term, just as "World" music is a heavily Western biased ideology, amongst other topics
Its the same in Kenya.
ayooo this is literally what i used as a replacement as well, good to hear other South Africans having the same idea
I'm so glad you specified NORTH Indian music. Lot of people aren't aware of the stark difference of cultures throughout all India and Asia!
No kidding. As an example, Middle Eastern music has nothing to do with the music of Japan, which has very little to do with the music of India, which is different from Mongolian music, and it all encompasses Asia. There's a literal world of music out there that we now have access to.
He kinda generalized Africa though ':D not sure if there is a reason for that or not
Anyway, i don't wanna be a nit picker, this video is asesome and informative and i wanna go talk to my old music teacher now
@@catherine6427 Probably because it's a specific subset of west African music that made its way to the United States, and going over all of it just in that region would be a video of its own.
yep, including adam and the other guy. they really like to gush over musics and cultures they know nothing about
So then, how about whenever TODAY’S MODERN MEDIA extols some big contemporary BLACK music figure like Michael “King of Pop” Jackson or Aretha Franklin or Beyonce or Whitney Houston or Tupac Shakir or Stevie Wonder or Little Richard or Snoop Dawg or Gladys Night or Diana Ross or James Brown? .. . THEN are THEY promoting BLACK “supremacy”.
I’m constantly perplexed by how you manage to cover ...several dissertation’s worth of material in each video. So awesome!!
I love your channel Nahre! Nice to see you here😀
beautiful playing!
Adam is a Legend
You’re one to talk Nahre! Big fan of your content and the way you approach it!
Did you and Adam purposefully choose a piece for you to play that only uses white keys?
I am 77yo, played by ear most of my life, but decided to learn music theory since everyone said this was a must know for song writers like me. Jazz was my main inspiration because being able to improvise is what motivated me to play for over 60 years. Music theory is not bad, but it does limit your music to a European based music. I like all kinds of world music because music they sound nice and do not stick to western rules.
This
I disagree. It is true that most people who will teach you music theory will often use western musical ideas to communicate the information relevant to what you're learning, but music theory itself and its concepts remain what they were always meant to be. A tool to codify and communicate musical ideas. If you can learn to codify and connect the sounds of a particular musical genre or culture to the appropriate concepts and notations present in music theory, then you will be very able to effectively use music theory to compose and play any type of music. The sounds have always existed. Creating a language around them did not change that. Every person, including you, playing any type of music has their own version of music theory. Their own set of concepts and ideas which they turn to when they need to navigate with their instrument.
Note that I do not deny the fact that the way we learn music theory, as well as the way we teach it, influences the way we and others play. My point is strictly that music theory itself does not do that to you.
jazz literally uses western music theory. jazz originated from americans trying to imitate classical music, thats how we got ragtime. Also the western european music theory is very versatile, you just have to learn the rules before you break them.
may i ask how did you learn to play by ear without music theory?
@@Haubummmmmm i did the same growing up it's just a thing
I didn’t even think that there are other “musical theories” but now I don’t understand why such an obvious thought has never came in my mind
EXACTLY! Why have I never second guessed this?!
Just one more bit of evidence on how a supremacist culture actually works - by eliminating options, even from the thinking of intelligent people.
Exactly. It just happens that the most used one in music industry is european (mostly italian and german) music theory, but each ethnic group has some level of music theory, and some are very advanced like indian music theory or chinese music theory.
I honestly thought music theory was like math before this video, that being that it is constant across cultures. Now I know how wrong I was :/
@@ProvenScroll If you're talking about the sound itself, then yeah you can say it's akin to the universal consistency of math. It's just how that sound is formatted/organized which makes it unique. Just a piss in the dark guess.
In Uganda we don't really have a word equivalent to "music". Rather music is defined by how one dances to it. Studying it therefore invariably means studying the dances.
pretty cool!! i like that.
@@fast1nakus he's literally just a troll with nothing better to do with his life lmao
Supreme LC bro just shut up and change your diaper already
That is so cool that the dance aspect is so entwined in the very concept of music. Now I want to learn more about Ugandan music!
Amazing. I wish it was more like that in Europe.
The best music genre and tradition, in my opinion, is Tony Hawk's Pro Skater & Underground soundtrack.
True unity has been found
bahahahaha yessssss
Goldfinger and the Vandals forever!
@Sergeant NPC Well, it's something that white and non-white people enjoy together, and we can't have that, because then we'd all recognize our common interests and start calling for a wealth tax, the cancelation of student and medical debt, campaign finance reform, a breakup of the big media monopolies and tech companies, and then, worst of all, an end to endless wars and illegal military interventions.
Honorable mention: Jet Set Radio
I feel very lucky that in my school (Higher School for the Arts, department Music and Technology, Netherlands) we are being taught "music theory" in a different way. I started last year, about to start the second. I had a significant basis in understanding western harmony and had trained my ears passionately. When we started going to these theory classes, I was surprised to see that we were not only going over the origins of western theory (think Gregorian singing, unison, that kind of thing), but also traditional Indonesian instruments, composing with it, playing it, and even synthesizing it to make it playable with al the weird temperaments included. Furthermore Balkan music, clave rhythms, Jamaican and Caribbean rhythmic composition made the rounds and it felt new and refreshing, comparing what I already knew and understood about western music to this new thing I hadn't heard of before.
Edit: "... with all the weird temperaments..." is not the right thing to say.
Let's change it to "... with all these - in western - uncommon temperaments
Where and how to I sign up
That's so gay lol
@@StoicDivinityif god invented gay people I’d starting praising him
@@chosenone-cs9vm God created people, he didn't "invent" them. He didn't create gay people, he created people, everyone is born with their own sin, it's up to the individual to renounce their worldly (material, fleshly, base etc) desire / will, in favor of the Divine Will of God.
Crazy you don't understand nuance.
@@StoicDivinity based
Interesting. We in Korea learn three kind of music theory in a school. Classical music(old European), practical music(contemporary African American) and Korean traditional music.
Makes a lot of sense
VERY interesting
That sounds incredibly well rounded.
omg gimme your music theory class rn I neeeed more non-western music classes
don't get me wrong, European composers slap, but lemme learn some Japanese folk songs and pentatonic scales pls
That explains a lot of K-pop lol
“Works of art make rules, rules do not make works of art.” --Claude Debussy
Perfect summary imo.
@@kwyman986 I don't think you understood the comment
And he was right
Kevin i’d say many people don’t hold a degree in music...
YaassSS
Adam, I would definitely pay top dollar to see you debate Ben Shapiro’s MUSIC THEORIST father who went to music school.
It wouldn't be a debate. It would be a murder.
It would only work if Ben's Grandfather was there... "My dad said..."
mUsiC hAs 3 eLemEntS: hArmOny, RhyThm anD MelOdy Rap OnLy sAtiSfieS 2 of tHeM
To be fair rap definitely requires the least talent next to pop
@@pessim1st681 Yeah? Try to rap.
You can't
While I have been a great admirer of your channel for several years and have been inspired by your insights into music, I have not been compelled to express by admiration of your work until viewing this video. I am a black man, with a doctorate in music composition, who taught jazz theory and improvisation over twenty years ago at an "illustrious" institution that only with great trepidation indulged my passions. I say trepidation, but also great resistance to changes in music curriculum that I represented and which most of my colleagues viewed as unfortunately necessary. Viewing your video brought back some pain and anguish that I thought I had "gotten over," but it would seem had only repressed. Alas, that I didn't have the presence of mind and the calmness of spirit to express back then what you have done with such passion and aplomb. I salute you!
Jazz does suck and so does this racist video.
Don't be a an absolute d*nce. Jazz couldn't exist today without the bedrock of European harmony that it was built on. There's nothing to rebel over when it comes to teaching the foundations of our music. This video is an embarrassment. Be smarter than him at least, Mr. "I have a doctorate."
did you just have a stroke mid racist tirade?@@wearethewearethewearethhe
@@morejazzplz5746 I don’t think I had a stroke. I think you saw those two sentences and your brainwashed mind got triggered. Then, you had to come up with some sort of story; anything that would make you feel like you are superior. So I guess the story your mind generated was that I had a stroke…..Enjoy not having a working brain.
You are possibly the most ellequently spoken gentlemen I have ever seen in a youtube comment section. I just think that's kinda cool.
I'm a guitar player, and this is a great excuse for me to continue the guitar player tradition of not learning stuff
No let’s just make our own music theory of 0-3-5 and bendy notes
Im more of a metal/rock guy,made a full song in Japanese scales (Joshi Iwato) Why? Because idk its weird and cool
Basically today u have everything its not fun to just play scales and notes fast,we miss creativity and passion
Ah, so anarchists are the guitar players of leftist ideology.
I'M STRONG IN MY CONTINUATION TO LEARN NOTHING!
@@thomaswhite3059 the far left is spewing from this attempt to explain "why?". White people could read and write. We know the past, but don't blame the past on us in the presence.
@@TheeRocker You could easily just write 'I didnt watch the video'
When I suggested that Schenker was valuable but "not the be-all-end-all," as this video also suggests, I was eliminated from consideration by Carl Schachter for a position on the Queens College music faculty. That was over 25 years ago. I guess I was ahead of my time, so to speak.
Was Schenker really considered fundamental? Was it thought essential to understanding Bach-to-Brahms music in this country? In the 90's? Thought only Germans were that crazy.
@@prgxl Schenker has left a far bigger footprint in American academe than in Germany. In the US, I get the impression that Schenker has been the go-to theory for understanding and discussing classical composition until fairly recently; in Germany he has never been taken all that seriously; in Europe, the UK and Finland are really the only places where you will find much work in Schenkerian analysis being done.
@@kospandx “in Europe, the UK and Finland”
Europe is a broad group of places. Which countries or regions do you mean? Finland is one of them but where else?
@@dntskdnttll Read as: in Europe, I am only aware of major Schenkerian research centres in Finland and the UK.
this goes both ways, and ur gonna find other places where their cultures version not the be all end all will get you kicked out, welcome to humans, the west isnt special
I remember stumbling across the limitations of western theory when an Persian guy tried to commission me to write some iranian-style music for his film (that sadly never got made, couldnt get funding to move out of preproduction) and I thought "OK this is a challenge, I'll try" (Also, this was well before the current popular understanding of appropriation, it just wasnt on the radar) , and after about 3 weeks I had to call him and cancel out. Other than his fairly specfic requirement of the style of Iranian from a village in the north his famly comes from, the theory is just lightyears away from ours. The microtonal adjustments required to replicate the scales was fine, but the rest was absolutely alien to me. I found out there was a Turkish professor who specialized in "middle east music" at the conservatorium so I made an appointment with him and he just straight up said "Dont do it. *I* wouldn't attempt it and I learned my theory in the country next door to Iran." He pointed out that even within Iran, a person from one area would be learning completely different styles and rules to a guy in a village 100km away. Even more, musicologists have actually struggled to understand the persian music families in any sort of analyical framework that can be translated into english concepts. Even saying whats *different* has proved a struggle. So a 20yo amateur composer with no experience of Iranian music outside of cab driver radios had no chance. I mean I could have faked it and come up with something that sounded to ME like "Iranian music", but anyone from that region would have found it offensive, or at best embarassing, and I just dont wanna be THAT guy. My turkish contact gave me a contact for an actual Iranian composer which I forwarded onto my guy.
And I think this is all excellent ,because its a reminder that music is a language, and languages are always historically and spatially practices, filled with excesses of meaning and filled with implication, explicit and implicit. All of which is part of why music has been such a powerful expression of the human condition.
So then, how about whenever the TODAY’S MODERN MEDIA extols some big contemporary BLACK music figure like Michael “King of Pop” Jackson or Aretha Franklin or Beyonce or Whitney Houston or Tupac Shakir or Stevie Wonder or Little Richard or Snoop Dawg or Gladys Night or Diana Ross or James Brown? .. . THEN are THEY promoting BLACK “supremacy”.
@Shayne
Well, obviously you didn't study hard enough to learn about everything there is to know, and you didn't acquire wisdom beyond human comprehension.
In the meantime there shouldn't be a "music theory" book, on the basics from Europe, about "very specific persian village music from a village located beyond the giant rock shaped like a priests hat, when the wind blows 20° off towards the west".
You know you sound like nutcases, when you talk about this, right? They teach EUROPEAN music in white countries. Unbelievable, I know, but hear me out: "You go to Persia / Iran to learn about persian music".
But go figure: People can write books. Imagine that: books. Could you write one, maybe, and stop this whining?
@@sloancostella2772 This was the slippery slope that shone out from the video, at some point extolling any one music type comes to be seen as disproportionately favoring that one type, at the expense of any other. It's the same problem even a kind and empathetic parent has if they don't manage to deal out their kindness and generosity equitably among the kids. Moreover, isn't it precisely through such extolling/favoring that each type of music rose to such preeminence that it became integral to, and emblematic of, its particular culture/sub-culture in the first place?
In a similar vein, oughtn't the very good point about the limited reliability of Wikipedia, given the even more unreliable and considerably more limited sources available to anyone living centuries ago (including you and me, if we'd been there) to have been put forward as precisely the reason why these historical figures should be cut considerable slack?
We are all privileged to be granted a world view through the internet, more then a hundred years of recorded music- most of it available free online, to say nothing of the passports, visas, prosperity, plastic money, wide-bodied-jet affordability of travel etc that have better informed our views.
Irrespective of any supremacist or relativist notion, the bigger question , I suggest is, to what extent your culture and exposure to its music inadvertently either enables or constrains your capacity to appreciate music conceived in a different cultural milieu? One glance through any TH-cam comments thread confirms that, although music is often vaunted as a universal language, "It 'aint necessarily so".
@@ext274 duuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
@@sloancostella2772 Watch the video- saying that black music is popular doesn't disagree with it, it furthers its point
I was fortunate enough to be trained in acting, dancing and music and I never really got what the huge differences between those three things was. Each requires rhythm; each requires a deep understanding of emotions; each requires harmony between multiple parts, each is a form of storytelling, and each is a performance art! I'm always dumbfounded when people go, "oh wow! That's really incredible. You have so many talents!" to me, growing up, they were kind of the same. I was never good at music school because I couldn't separate them. I would sing, dance, all the time. I could not understand how other students were making music if not by living it through your body as much as possible!
"You can have the pentatonic scale without the bending."
*blues has left the chat.*
Pentatonic without bending should a crime lol.
Pianists can't bend notes xD
@@Tsharkeye just bend the piano
Thomas van der Burg Well yeah, but that’s why they do turns right?
@@Tsharkeye wanna bet?
Speaking as an Indian learning Western Classical Violin,
My teachers did use some Indian Music Theory in teaching me, and it was hugely beneficial, both in understanding different musical traditions and appreciating their similarities and differences, and in innovation!
Indian Classical Musical Traditions( Hindustani, Carnatic and various others) are wonderful and deserve some more appreciation!
Quick question: how does the application of non-western music theory concepts such as classical Indian music theory translate to instruments of western origin, such as your own violin? I known there is such a thing as an Arabic violin, adapted to Arabic music concepts, so you could probably adapt it to other theories of music.
@@maxpieters7934 Different kinds of slides and intonation/tuning temperaments can be applied to most fretless string instruments such as the violin. Also, the style in which Indian classical music is played on the violin is slightly different. In general, there are a wider variety of slides which are more frequently used, some of which would require a lot of dexterity.
@@maxpieters7934 As Ananth said, fretless instruments aren't restricted to western tuning systems. Violin is in fact pretty extensively used in Carnatic music here and it's not unlike a kind of Indian fiddling in the way that it throws conventional tuning and even intonation out the window. As a piano player, I'm sadly a bit limited here.
Dude where can i find your music? You channel has no videos :/
Shreshth Adavi this is great. India has one of the greatest music traditions around the world. Maybe one day we will have universal music theory(if it is even possible)
I took AP music theory in high school, and my awesome teacher always made it clear that "AP music theory" was one approach to music and that outside the confines of the course, the rules of 18th century baroque and classical did not apply to "all" "music" (both in quotes because each word in the term is loaded). Lead to me filling my uni's diversity credits by taking classes on American music and non-Anglo world music, and while I'm a very amateur hobbyist I noticeably write better music because of it.
Not from the US, but I was going to take our "AP music theory" course after 4 years on a music scholarship. I believe the only genre studied in the main course was classical, and for two years, at that. There was a similar course that was Jazz/Blues-focused, but my primary instrument was flute, so I was directed into the 'classical' course, instead. So glad I didn't waste my time on it and chose Biology instead. Although, the racial ideologies in music only just followed me in the form of Charles Darwin instead, and the many other "enlightened" of the 19th century.
@cyotee doge ???
I had AP Music too--what a waste! It did get me college credit however. Money well spent.
@cyotee doge the fuck are you saying lol. Just because there is one example of progress doesn't mean "ohp, the problem actually isn't real, stop making shit up video >:("
@cyotee doge Uhhhh????
The fact that Chevalier got ignored by the music loving scene (even the figure skating one!) despite him being an aristocrat from royal France and being a legit composer is....very telling. I've always loved Chevalier, and seeing people discover him and his work through a long overdue movie is gratifying af lol
Saint Georges ? he was ignored in the US ? Because he was quiet popular in France (didn't saw the movie though).
@@thomasdupont7186yeah from an American culture war perspective, the story of Joseph Bologne is almost too perfect as a mixed race Renaissance man, contemporary of Bach, kept from positions of high esteem for purportedly racist reasons. Even tangentially tied into the French Revolution I think
cuz the movie was shitty looking. also in the fricking trailer they portray mozart as some uptight aristocrat which he was the opposite of and every classical music lover knows that.
@@madtheorist1856 Well yeah he was a high ranking soldier (a colonel I think) and a revolutionary first (for French historians at least but that's their problem I guess), he was born as a slave too. As well as a high level fencer, a enlightment enthusiast, a violinist virtuoso AND a recognized composer. And I do agree with you: that guy kicks ass regarding the context. Even if there is other cases of mixed race soldiers/artists during this period in France. There is parts of his life that stayed obscure to this day though.
Calling him an aristocrat is a bit complicated, seeing as his status fell a bit after his white father passed away. He was born to an aristo dad and a slave mom who had a real and caring relationship -- very unusual for that day (both the racial and the caring parts). His life was wrought with not knowing where he belonged. He's a type of hero today (I love his story and his music), but he lived a tragic life and was discarded after the French Revolution. The movie about him is pretty good, except for the cringy first scene with Mozart.
Having watched the full thing, I just kept realizing that the problem is not the method of analysis or the naming of certain musical phenomena, but the implication that fitting perfectly within their box is 'genius'. It's okay to analyze any music with these methods, as long as we forget the idea of "pieces lending themselves to this method of analysis are objectively better'. Using music theory to name what you just played is a good thing, but saying that the name itself implies greatness is not
It’s a pretty nuanced and intertwining subject. It’s mostly about how we (or at least in the US) selectively hold a very specific music theory system as the objective truth, and this shows in various ways. Our outlook on what we call “music theory,” the extreme selectiveness of what is taught at music schools here, etc.
Fitting inside the box is the opposite of genius. Inventing the box might be genius, but most other composers who are considered genius are considered so because they either expanded the box or didn't pay attention to it and STILL managed to make music that is pleasing
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
@@PatrickGunderson that's why I put quotes around genius, because using the rules isn't really genius
except its not. he literally makes a case for guilt by association. have you even watched the video ?
Adam: You can't dance to Bach's chorales
Me: You haven't seen me drunk
adam: you can't dance to Bach's chorales
Hilary Hahn: crank up those moves old man
I was an Uber driver and I once had a very drunk backseat passenger shout at me to CRANK IT UP!!! when I had classical radio on. It was very surreal.
BWV 10 has me feeling some things let me tell you
I can and do dance to EVERYTHING. The don't much like me at the Symphony these days.
You: You haven't seen me drunk.
Me: I haven't seen you drunk...yet.
OGs remember when this video was titled "Music Theory is Racist"
Edit: I don't want arguments about white genocide and scientific racism under a dumb and lazy comment I made in a less than a minute
OG's also remember when Adam had a twitter
kek
@@Knight_Astolfo lol
When I saw the title, I thought to myself "huh, I recently saw essentially the same video with a different title - I wonder if this is a follow-up."
tbh i think the old name was catchier
@@eyx9421 It was. It was also a blatantly false statement. You might as well claim the major scales are anti-Semitic. Now the title aims at the real target at least.
Just watched it, and it's still up to date. Great job !
We have so much to gain by expanding music theory education to include more approaches from the ground up. I wish that dancing and singing was emphasized as much as harmony when I was first learning. Luckily, I’m not dead yet, there’s still time to learn! Thanks for this illuminating video and I’m glad I could contribute in a small way!
Ben Show - (Learning how to dance) when
Ben is lucky because he is still a child inside.
Your contributions to this amazing video really made me more aware that the TH-cam music theory 'scene' is not only a force for good - it's a very interconnected one. Love your work
No one limits your education man, Marty Friedman (a guitar player) started exploring the Japanese music composition and found a unique sound for his music - his hard search paid off, so you can do just the same thing, it's a free world
Ben, ethnomusicology has been doing exactly that for a long time now, dancing included. And I love that you feel the same about dancing as I do.
12:12 "...and rarely performed after his death" im sorry but it took my brain a moment to realize that you meant his MUSIC was rarely performed. It sounded to me like you were saying HE rarely performed after his death, which, in fairness, is the case for most musicians,
lol Phew I thought I was the only one who made that error
That would be one hell of a performance
A Tupac-esque hologram show with Bach would be sick
@@warnergrantham3019 Bach featuring Eddie van Halen
The only musician to play after death was Michael Jackson, of course.
Learning how to improvise for jazz taught me more about music theory than AP Music Theory. The way chords are identified and labeled has helped me with everything from understanding Claude Debussy to transcribing my favorite pieces from video games. Like any other form of theory, it's just a tool, and it might not work for everything.
Anyway looks like I've got some music theory channels to check out. I've been looking to learn more about non-eurocentric styles of music ever since I got a taste of their structures.
Jazz does suck and so does this racist video.
This politicizing of this issue strikes me as petty cultural jealousy. European civilization found ways of making things work systematically, and though the systems that resulted were not perfect, they at least established that such systems were possible. Aristotle invented logic (with some guidance from Socratic dialogues), and established that there were structures of thought that just didn't fly and weren't valid (there are no true contradictions). Newton "invented" gravity, that is, he invented the isolation of gravitational force as a conceptually distinct entity (which it is not as it exists in the real world), so he could mathematize it, though his frequent references to gravity as a "property of matter" (and hence inherent in matter) showed some awareness that he was erecting an artificial framework for the sake of rendering something existentially ambiguous into a more intelligible form. Rene Descartes "discovered" subjectivity, at least in terms of a way of articulating subjective aspects of human experience in a way that later thinkers could sink their teeth into. (Unfortunately he opened up a can of worms that has led to today's intellectual dark age of postmodernism, with solutions yet to be found, that has led to the proliferation of anti-truth ideologies like feminist theory and critical race theory, among others).
-- Mathematics is more multi-sourced, with major accomplishments coming from India, the Muslim world, and Europe. And STILL, postmodernist morons push the idea that the field needs to be "de-colonized."
-- Some ideologies are just crappy ideologies that amount to intellectual infantilization. The politicization of music theory as a tool of white supremacy falls into this category.
@@grizzlygrizzle I'm afraid I don't understand what my personal experience with using jazz theory to understand music and being open to listening to all kinds of music has to do with the "politicizing of this issue."
@@papercraftcynder5430 -- TH-cam generally suppresses the comments I post, so I stick them in the replies instead. Sometimes it's hard to find a comment to reply to that is directly appropriate. I was replying to the video.
@@grizzlygrizzle Usually TH-cam comments are sorted chronologically. The number of likes might also play into it, too, so it's not TH-cam deliberately suppressing your comments. Like with your reply to my comment, you probably just find the videos long after they've been posted, so your comments end up near the bottom because they're more recent, and because most people watch a video within the first day or so after it's been posted, you also miss the surge of people who could potentially give your comments the likes that could have pushed it closer to the top.
I have BA and MA in music education. This is a fantastic video and I can’t wait to share and discuss this with my peers.
Thank you for talking about Barry Harris Adam. He is one of the most important figures in Jazz. Not only as a Master player but also as an Educator. He talks about Harmony based on 4 scales of chords. Major sixth diminished, Minor sixth diminished, Dominant diminished and Dominant flat 5 diminished. All 8 note scales. He actually talks about Bach and Chopin knowing and using these scales . He has taught and played all over the world spreading our beautiful music. He is an American treasure .
Thank you again for using your tremendous platform to bring awareness to this Master.
any book that talks about that? I learned a lot of theory at berklee and full sail and it's just meh for usefulness, I would love to learn useful theory
There are a lot of Barry's Master classes posted on TH-cam. He has DVDs for sale on his website. Hopefully that helps.
white people made the piano. blacks need to admit they appropriated white culture. this is real racism when history isn't accurate.
@@callmemurphz pianos are percussion instruments and black people made drums. Try again.
He is hardcore, in his teaching and rants at times, but he is also one of the best teachers. Just, I don't agree with him about modal jazz, stuff like that, but he is great otherwise at really getting to the idea of jazz.
It's not even "the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians" - it's more "the harmonic style of 18th century Western European musicians". There's a rich tradition in Greece, for instance, of Byzantine music theory which is wildly different to classical western music theory. The 8 modes of Byzantine chant (and however many sub-modes within them) express a broad and deep variability that I haven't seen mirrored in western music (though to be fair to western music, it seems to have converged on a tuning which allows for a lot of flexibility in the colour of the melodies).
The Byzantine scale is one of 72 pitches (called Moria), and each mode and submode is a scale which uses a different set of 8 subdivisions of those pitches - for instance, the Plagal 2nd mode is divided among the 72 moria like this: 6-20-4-12-6-20-4. For some modes the subdivision changes depending on the directionality - you might flatten a particular note if you're going down in the scale. There are also particular runs and accents which are specific to a mode. In old Byzantine notation they would have a few symbols which indicate an entire run, though more contemporary notation tends to just write out the run explicitly. Byzantine notation is also quite cool; instead of expressing the note on an image of the entire scale, the notation tells you to move from the point you're at - so there's a symbol which means "go up 3" or "stay on the same note", etc. This has (I reckon) led to a different emphasis - Byzantine music tends to jump around the scale less than western music. Though this is likely also because it's a vocal music tradition, not an instrumental one.
The influence of Byzantine (and Turkish theory on western theory can be seen in the more recent prominence of microtonal compositions - though even there, the way western composers use microtonality, in my experience, doesn't really mesh with eastern theory. Eastern microtonality still aims for that concordant feel of being within a certain scale, and we have the concepts which allow for that. The western microtonality that I've heard feels more discordant, as though the entire point is to move away from classic western tonality, and not necessarily to embrace the particular feel of a new tonality. But still, it's cool and I look forward to seeing the evolution of western microtonality. It's definitely an interesting variation on the classic western tuning which always has the same pitch subdivisions.
they are so beautiful, that is why they influence so much the greatest composers
Very interesting and illustrative that different musical traditions are made up of different raw material. Western music is bound by the equal tempered 12 tones and the study of music theory is understanding common practice in that particular system. It has no racial component except what humans ascribe to it.
@@jaykavanaugh8975 exactly
what desesperated hipocritical millenials socialists with iphone and widely monetized by youtube ascribe to it
Microtonality is either: artificial, or natural, and if it's natural it's not microtones, simply mathematically correct tones
The tempered western scale is nice to compose vertical brainy music and change tonalities, but that's about it.
But that's just a theory, a _harmonic style of 18th century european musicians!_
bravo
Your Snoke _a harmonic style of 18th century european musicians_ sucks!
… a GAME theory! Thanks for watching
Aaaaaaaannddd,,,
FINE!!
You are obviously not academic
Thank you! Years ago, my wife and I were driving in Ireland and listening to Irish National Radio. The DJ was playing some Duke Ellington and followed that up with Beethoven, and the lightbulb went on in my head - we in the U.S. have Jim Crow radio. I have been ranting about this to whoever would listen ever since. Most people think I'm crazy so thank you for putting this video together.
As a teenager my family lived on a Marine Corps base on Okinawa, and for a while I got really into traditional Okinawan folk music. My mom didn't like it so we never played it on car rides 🤣
Same kinda thing happened at church. My family is Russian Orthodox, which generally uses very westernized music. On the rare occasion we had to use the eastern, Byzantine style tones (common among the Greek and Antiochian churches, among other) my mom would get frustrated, as conducting the choir using such an unfamiliar style was really difficult for her.
Edit: not a dig at my mom, she's a wonderful lady. Just pointing out how a perception of one style as "standard" can affect your enjoyment of other styles.
I enjoyed Kunkunshi, listening to Sanshin. Much of what I heard them play was in B major or C major anyway, with the occasional added half step. Their unique vibrato was also really cool too.
I envy you, always wanted to visit Okinawa because of the Karate Kid movies lol
This is why BTS is leading the way out of the moribund pop world after the A&R teams assassinated Concept Rock in 1977. They control their PR, so aren't whipsawed by the greed of the Labels. In the west, the growth of Indie has done the same thing - it's only because the corporate channels are still associated with restrictive practices that the dinosaurs of The Voice etc survive. What will be interesting is what emerges from the wreck of acappella in the UK.
It's also to be noted that John Taverner and his schoolmate John Rutter are/were both devotees of Orthodox cantoral, which has also inspired the bottom bass community in AC - the likes of Castellucci and Froud. That in turn relates to Jewish cantoral extempore.
Strange place to bump into a fellow Japanese Orthodox! Does your family still live in Okinawa?
@@AwesomeWholesome Nope, most of my family is in Texas. I'm on the East Coast
In my swedish middle school which specialised in choir music, we were taught that we shouldn't say "classical music" but instead we should say "västerländsk konstmusik" which translates to "western musical arts" or "western art music". Our choir teacher made it very clear that what we were learning was only but the tip of the iceberg of the great wide world of music.
do you share swedish and english as a first language?
Your choir theacher lied. You must have been disapointed when you found it was the major part of the iceberg.
Gotta love Sweden.
Helt rätt av lärarna :) var/när gick du?
In france we were told to call it "musique savante occidentale", which means "Occidental intellectual music", and some teacher strongly repeated that it's only a part of what music totally is, but sadly only a few did this. Many had a very closed mind set about what music is, kinda in a Ben Shapiro way of seeing it
As a North African aspiring musician, since I started learning theory, I started with western, Indian, and Middle Eastern. Many people told me that I should stick to one but I didn't listen. I think I have a lot better understanding of theory than they do.
Yeah, I also find it really helpful. All of these musical traditions are valid, but they're also all subjective, and I think there's a lot to be learned by studying many traditions. It helps to get at what music *is*, and what things are really fundamental, vs what things are stylistic choices
Take from everything/give to everyone
Things are just things until you make them something that they were not intended to be
Fuck hate and fuck those that look to inject it where it does not belong
I love North Africa
I hope whatever music and everything you do explodes and helps color my artistic pallet
God Bless
Studying all the elements and sides of a subject is one of the best approaches. You are absolutely correct.
What do you play? Do you do any composing? I’d love to hear you perform.
Finding therein a unique combination that "speaks" to your listeners can be a huge pathway to great music and potentially fame. Think Desert Rose by Sting as an example.
There are obviously still huge untapped areas within any musical style or genre, but there are WORLDS of unimagined music that crosses those lines.
We use Music both as a form of community cohesion, such as dance, music, or music that tells a story, but also as a serious art form in which the listener is challenged and surprised, and taken on a new adventure. It is the second form that “rules“ are frequently broken, and the structure of the music is opened up into new areas.
2. There is more than just rhythm and chord, progression and tone. There is also the space that arrest can take up.; There’s consistency of style and intentional lack there of.; references to other musical styles and individual songs, etc. and I’m sure there are more elements than I can think of.
3. Western 16 -18 century music of the court (and possibly other traditions) was often a civilized rendition of folk tunes, some of which came from Hungarian or Spanish gypsies, folk music, and probably other influences, giving evidence to the idea that this music was classist at the very least.
Let me shorten your comment
"Im fine with racist musical ideology"
@@sagvjc2525 your comment tells me that you didn’t read my comment. The difference between a critique and an insult is that critique provides reasoning, while the insult is a string of words that are intended to attack the emotions. Please consider rereading my comment. An open mind can grow, not enclosed mind.
I fortunately had an incredible theory prof at UIUC. We learned 'theory' through various perspectives from western to eastern to American to various folk or tribal harmony. It took my 10 years of music study and opened my mind not just to new creative musical ideas but a new way of looking at the world around me.
That is great to hear. And not just because I am an alumnus of UIUC!
any good resources for learning from the other musical perspectives? or any unique music learning?
what's his name? I've been debating on whether or not to go to uiuc. I'm a hs senior and I just got in but I could also go to nyu
does he still work there?
Hey Audrey, unfortunately he doesn't but Illinois has a great music program. It's a great public university for many fields of study. Even if they embarrased their alumni with their miserable shooting performance against Chattanooga and Houston this weekend. 😔
Spanish major, here. You hit the nail on the head. I spent a semester studying picaresque novels and hundred year old short stories. It was like walking on a combination of hot gravel and broken glass. I got a better grasp of Castilian chatting with folks in the grocery store, bakery and local cafés.
If you were a music theory major, as opposed to a Spanish major, you would realize that the above video is nearly all BS
@@kainajones9393 devil’s advocate here asking a question: Why is it BS? What arguments do you have to sustain that affirmation? Not judging, just curious to hear the other side of the story.
Classical and Spanish philologist here! I loved reading and analyzing the Spaniard golden century, but man, even as a Spanish native speaker, it was tough. However when we were studying those texts, the professors helped providing a synchronic perspective of the language and how it shaped the dialects spoken in the Americas. Really interesting stuff
@@tobi1314 I procured an MA in music theory at SUNY during the 1990s. Here are some of the courses presently offered to graduate theory students at SUNY:
MUS 502, Proseminar in Tonal Analysis: Analysis of Tonal Music
MUS 504, Analysis of Music of the 21st Century: Analyzing Tonal Music from the 20th and 21st
MUS 507 Studies in Music History: Histories of Music Theory Centuries
MUS 534 Opera Studies
MUS 536, Area Studies in Ethnomusicology: Music, Belief, and the Black Experience in the US
MUS 539, Proseminar in Ethnomusicology: Ethnomusicology in the Colonial Frame
MUS 541 Topics in the Cross-Cultural Study of Music: BlaQueer Sounds-Queer Negotiations in Mus African-American Music
MUS 547 Topics in Baroque Music: The Harmonious Cosmos in Theory and Practice
MUS 555 Topics in 20th-Century Music: Ecology and Its Discontents
MUS 559, Topics in Analysis: The Music of Charles Mingus
Some white guy stuff, but not predominantly.
I think his opening comment suggesting replacing the term "music theory" with "the harmonic style of 18th century musicians." is specious and ill-informed at best, and demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the study of music theory in academic settings. Music theory begins way before this, and proceeds far past it. However, if you want to understand the synthesis of chords, scales and modes, then you're gonna, as a theory student, study the theories of "white guys." at some point. Sorry...just the way it is. Nearly all great (black) jazz masters used chords, modes and scales innovated hundreds of years prior by, yup, white European dudes. Does that mean they’re superior..NO. Does that mean "white music" is better...NO. Does that mean they’re “white supremacists”…NO! What is he actually critiquing? Music Theory in academic settings? If so he got it mostly wrong. To suggest that a "standard" music theory, is put forth as some sort of rigid white regime borders on the ridiculous. Soon we'll be discarding Calculus, Quantum physics and Relativity, as I'm sure that Newton's, Einstein's and Plank's great sin was that they were white. The above video does a great job in creating numerous strawmen, red herrings, and cherry picking, I think it more should be titled: “A Little Knowledge is Dangerous” or "Yet Another Self Deprecating White Dude with a Chip On His Shoulder and Lots of Seemingly Important Things To Say"
@@kainajones9393 I understand your points. What I think you might be missing is the point of considering “Music theory” as only the European way of understanding music. The problem with music theory, according to the video is that it narrows the explanation for different types of music. Not everything can be fully explained through music theory, just like the Spanish example he provided, therefore, what ends outside MT(music theory, because I’m lazy), which traditionally can be understood as non western music, could be taken by some people with racist views as inferior. Also, this theorists who is very famous in the USA and also was very racist, despite his jewish heritage.
I mean, it’s a 30 minute video essay, quite complicated to comprise in one comment. TL:DR Music theory isn’t racist per se, what’s racist is the usage it has.
PROTIP: make sure the piano and the 18th century musician are in the same key.
Thx, bruh
Nothing isn't racist wee gay it.
major oof
John Pots exactly
Same race*
These kids keep using my portrait as clickbate...
I really like the Spanish language analogy here because a lot of schools don't even teach MODERN European Spanish dialect, growing up I always learned Latin American Spanish, we were told about differences between the two (namely verb conjugation rules & such), but my teachers never stressed that we learn Spanish the way it's spoken in Spain & encouraged us to learn LatAm Spanish (ofc this could also have been a regional thing since we were closer to LatAm but this only further proves the point abour practicality)
Wow, so your local public school teachers are not Gods or geniuses who know everything about linguistics? They are not the next Noam Chomsky? Just people who get paid a middle class wage? Shocking.
im not a musician but im a dancer and this reminds me of how often ballet gets help up as this classical sophisticated style and anything else is considered alternative and other even when it comes to dance styles from other cultures that predate ballet existing
IF you live in the western world that is in fact the right way. Why would the Chinese or Arabs take to ballet as a classical art form when they have their own history. understand where you are from, why would Europeans subsidize traditional East, West, Southern or Central African dance forms. Not their culture, period.
@@loch1748 take hip-hop for example, thats a dance form of the western world. Its still gets classified as alternative or other because for some reason ballet is the norm or something
@@loch1748 Culture is shared and there are Asian Europeans that share culture with both Russia and China because they kinda between the 2, also you forget Europeans have a nasty habit of quite literally forcing others to adhere to their culture
@@loch1748 cultures don't exist in neat boxes, human cultures interact and draw influence from other cultures the have contact with and have done so throughout human history. Lots of European art draws inspiration from non European cultures.
That's because things are supposed to evolve over time. You know, progression? No one wants to see twerking in ballet. If you don't like ballet, btw, maybe try taking modern dance classes? They exist.
Nahre Sol trying her best to calm us down
The absolute truth. This video is triggering as fuck.
Will Pogue I do t know about common sense, lol. I just know that as a musician, this video hurt. I’m not saying it isn’t true. It just hurts acknowledging its truth because I’ve built my music teaching career on it. I’m wrestling and grappling with these truths. I’m glad he acknowledged that he too, is finding this a jagged little pill. It just hurts.
Nahre just instantly calms me tbh
what song did she play
Will Pogue our experience of the material was different. It is what it is.
i love this so much man, i did a school projecy on scott joplin in 4th grade and when i heard ragtime my first thought was “this was the inspiration for foundation of the beginning of american music” but i never saw it acknowledged, this is gracious
As an indian, seeing you talk about Indian music theory shook me because I rarely hear about all this in my own country. There are so many music classes that aim to teach music through the western lens and others through the Indian lense, but never got any satisfactory understanding of either. It scares me. I should watch her.
But why? Why are they so into western music in India?
@@aniketpathak5679 Ah ok, so i take it Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Rachmaninoff.. not very popular
Sadly, white supremacy is a ideology not held exclusively *by* white people…
Incredible but credible since this commente work as an example of "systematic".
Yeah, that's because it's really a minute and small sub-culture of your people
I did take AP music theory in high school, I’m not sure if it was just our teacher but we listened to a lot of global music and even for our AP test I believe our sight writing portion was an African song.
That’s awesome! Good to know things are changing.
@@daivboveri I started high school 10 years ago and I have the same experience as the guy above you. Things have already been changed long before Adam made this dumpster fire of a video
Did you write down the African song in Western notation? If so, a lot of information may have been lost. I don't know which "African song" this was (Africa is, of course, a big place), but trying to notate, say traditional Japanese shakuhachi music in Western notation, the result would be close to meaningless.
Adam has an agenda so he's not going to mention anything like that.
@@BigBubbaTakeYoAzz Could you please explain to me why this is a "dumpster fire of a video?".
I die laughing every time I hear Ben say "my music theorist father, who went to music school."
"I'm not a charlatan, but I play one on the internet."
“Well, I understand better than anyone that music is taught by music in the music of music at music.”
@@impish_snake3526 To be fair, though, while some nominal majority of music scholars with more advanced academic qualifications than Ben Shapiro's dad would probably be compelled to disagreee with Ben Shapiro's dad, Ben Shapiro does have a point: none of those people is also Ben Shapiro's dad.
@@joshuabroyles7565 True enough.
What does that mean?
"Beethoven was an above average composer"
Understatement of the century
that's the joke
The speaker is a radical ideologue trying to shoehorn his personal biases into the well-established structure and logic of music. This is precisely the reason this sort of nonsense is damaging to progress. Trying to artificially construct an alternate reality only results in confusion, dysfunction, and the deterioration of academia. You cannot relegate Beethoven to B- status without eroding music education.
@@emo-sup-sock It's not a joke, the guy is just not very bright.
Facts, if you know the lore behind some of his later pieces (or have even listened to them), it’s honestly just amazing that he was able to accomplish all that shit while either nearly or completely deaf.
Interesting... A Shame the woke approach
I will from hereon call wikipedia citing as "archival research within my highly specialized field"
I respect my german music theory teacher more (in Berlin). The first thing he said is that music first and foremost just represents that period and was, although an 100% classical guy, not trying to make it an universal thing.
I stumbled across this "lost in translation" issue with music when I was talking to a colleague. I learned most of my music theory through the lense of jazz so when I mentioned that I used the circle of 4ths for developing solos he had no idea what that was. When I showed him it he told me "oh, you wrote the cycle of 5ths backwards."
It's always made more sense to me as a circle of 4ths.
If there's a musical element, you can turn it backwards (or however you want to) and get something else.
@@thewhiteshadow6098 The fifth is the first division of the octave. In fact it is the mean average of the base frequency and the same note an octave higher: (f+2f)/2. The third is the mean of the 5th and the base. The minor seventh is the mean of the 5th and the octave above the base, though TET tuning approximates this one poorly. These divisions were seen as fundamental because they equate to fretboard distances and such ratios sounded pleasing in harmony. From this point of view the 4th is merely derived from the fifth as an inversion. If you were dividing up a fretboard you would come upon the fifth first, and would probably consider it the next fundamental interval after the octave.
The circle of 4ths is pretty standard in Western Classical theory as well. In standard progressions the circle of fifths is more emphasized, however.
The circle of fifths is closer to the root of theory - the most fundamental division of the scale based on the mean of the octave frequencies - than is the circle of fourths. The circle of fourths is more of a tool of improvisational practice - progression patterns, resolving towards the root, shifting modes, chromatic substitutions and such - than is the circle of fifths. At least prior to George Russell.
I’d like to provide a counter argument to this video in the shape of the life of George Bridgetower.
-Be a virtuoso violinist at the end of the 18th century born with African ancestry
-Make a trip to Vienna to meet your family, including a brother who is a cellist
- Happen upon and impress Beethoven
-Dedicates 9th violin sonata to you
-Get into a small, civil quarrel which enrages him into changing his dedication to a violinist (Kreutzer) who didn’t like it and couldn’t play it.
"here's me eating Fritos....
...in the harmonic style of 18th-century European musicians"
37:34 i've been scrolling through the comments for a while now, how on earth is no one talking about the fact that Adam says he didn't include a wikipedia source, yet when you go in to the source document there clearly is one, and it turns out to be a rickroll article? XD
Because the meme stopped being funny 10 years ago.
@@Lykyk "Every party needs a pooper that's why they invited you"
Because (almost) nobody actually reads the source document.
@@axelpuff7594 lmao fuck the RRL
Any competent music theorist will tell you that Western music theory is simply a way of understanding twelve tone equal temperament music, and that none of it is hard and fast rules. Often times, even in modern western music, it's the places where the "rules" of music theory are completely thrown away that truly great music happens. I like that you brought up Meshuggah, because their music is often atonal and more about the rhythm than any sort of melody. Another band I love is Opeth, and if you look at their music, they hardly ever stick to a key for more than a few measures.
So then, how about whenever today's modern media extols some big contemporary black music figure like Michael “King of Pop” Jackson or Aretha Franklin or Beyonce or Whitney Houston or Tupac Shakir or Stevie Wonder or Little Richard or Snoop Dawg or Gladys Night or Diana Ross or James Brown? .. . then are they promoting black “supremacy”.
@@cameronsarrett1606 I'm guessing you're a white man.
@@cameronsarrett1606 it's not disguised in any way. the video is literally called "Music Theory and White Supremacy". how much clearer can you get than that?
@@cameronsarrett1606 when did he argue that? did you even watch the video?
But Opeth can certainly be analyzed according to traditional music theory. So can almost any American/Western music. Music theory is actually really good at analyzing modulations and modal changes, so it’s kind of perfect for understanding bands like Opeth. That’s why I don’t get Adam’s point really.
I must have missed this video when it was published. Absolutely LOVE IT ❤
I really appreciate this, especially your inclusion of Indian music theory. That was my first exposure to non western theory structures and the ways that improved me as a musician (and human being) are things I hold with me to this day. So many problems still to address, but this helps identify patterns some people seem to be missing. Never too late to learn something new!
you do realise you can turn this around to any other country who preaches their version over western right? america isnt the be all end all where every problem stems from
@@xxjackirblackbloddxx7377 i am currently on a far off third world country and trust me, they teach wester music theory on most, almost all formal music schools
So then, how about whenever TODAY’S MODERN MEDIA extols some big contemporary BLACK music figure like Michael “King of Pop” Jackson or Aretha Franklin or Beyonce or Whitney Houston or Tupac Shakir or Stevie Wonder or Little Richard or Snoop Dawg or Gladys Night or Diana Ross or James Brown? .. . THEN are THEY promoting BLACK “supremacy”.
@@sloancostella2772 Praising something enthusiastically isn't the same thing as saying 'this is what music theory is'. The difference between those two are that one is in a sense erasing the existence of all other cultures theories, saying everything must be viewed through a specific lense. There's nothing wrong with praising bach or mozart either. The problem is that 'music theory' is actually just, as adam puts it, the western musical style from 18th century.
@@deltanize9618 i am currently on a far off third world country and trust me, they teach both western and eastern music theory on most, almost all formal music schools
My mentor DANILO PEREZ went to Senegal, Congo and other African countries. He told me something that changed my life for ever: in Africa, drummers FOLLOW the dancer's moves.
That, combined with "no one who can't dance will get a music degree"... Booom
Danilo Perez!! 👏🙌👍
It is the same in Flamenco.
He's awesome piano player!
In James Brown's band everybody better follow the drummer, or else he'll make some changes in people's lives.
That's fair: no legs, no degree.
The most important thing I ever learned about music theory is that "if it sounds good, and theory says it is wrong, then the theory is wrong."
@@kuruptlive8874 you've misunderstood the use of the word theory
@@kuruptlive8874 Right! I think one of the main points of the video is that theory never stops changing. So why then do our educational theory books still revolve around one sect of one culture from one era of music? Awesome to hear that a lot of your theory teachers use more modern and diverse examples to teach theory btw.
@@kuruptlive8874 You still don't understand what the word theory means in this context. A Theory is just a set of organized ideas used to explain something. So, music theory explains how music works.
You're are confusing the word theory with the words hypothesis or conjecture.
Theory is describing the building blocks for you to create what ever fuck you want.
Like you learn about wood, nails, hammer and a simple blueprint to practice on. When you know how the tools works and what the material is for you can build what ever fuck you want.
If you wanna build something ugly, you build something ugly. If you wanna build something beautiful, you build something beautiful. If you wanna build something crazy, you build something crazy.
For instance, theory doesn't urge you to follow the exact layout of a structure. You are free to modify it in your unique way. But you need to have something to start practise on and theory gives some examples of some nice working structures for you to work with.
Only an idiot thinks that you cannot create something outside the working frame of this theory.
Like if you go to a construction school and you learn how to build a simple house. That doesn't mean that you are not allowed to build something different or something that doesn't even resemble an house. That isn't what theory is all about.
You learn how to use the tools to build after a simple blueprint. Now you are free to create what ever fuck you want. That is what theory is for. Now you have to be creative. And if you find something that works which the theory didn't cover - thats great! Maybe they will add it to the theory.
Once you learn the rules you learn the best ways to break them ;)
Fantastic video! I remember the Schenker paper controversy happening my 1st or 2nd year at UNT, but never looked into it (i wasn't in the theory department). I never realized until watching this that Tim Jackson was the one that said all that stuff. He taught my 2nd counterpoint class just last year!
It’s not even that Wikipedia is specifically an unreliable source, the editors run a tight ship. The reason that I don’t cite it in papers even if it has accurate and valid information is because it’s essentially a brief summary of a mountain of sources that tends to gel those sources together as though they are one idea. I do like to use Wikipedia as a way to find sources, it can be useful in that way, more so for high school papers than anything.
Totally. Many teachers are just "Wikipedia bad" and "anyone can edit". Because everyone can edit, Wikipedia is reliable (to an extent). One malicious person can't possibly overrun a horde of good willed editors looking for false information, like how Blockchain is a secure system. It's an amazing resource to familiarize with a concept to do further research.
the value and potential of Wikipedia is so much greater than its weaknesses that it's not worth criticizing any aspect of it, no matter how minute.
@@joejones9520 I disagree. Anything that is important is more important to criticize to make it as good as it can be.
@@joejones9520 that's a really dangerous line of thought. Nothing should be immune to criticism.
@@lasseheller9863 My middle name is Danger...
Bach rarely performed in the years after his death
Interesting
I think he said "was performed" or at least that's what I think I heard
His compositional style was seen as outdated.
@@Macakiux haha I figured that was the intended meaning but only after I thought about it for a minute
@@MR-gz9lm actually, that's not what Adam said. He didn't say that he was rediscovered, just that Mendelssohn went through a great deal of effort to perform the major works of Bach that the public hadn't heard or cared about. Musicians knew Bach because his Well-Tempered Clavier was common for pianists to learn, but Bach's mass and other great works were almost forgotten in the public eye. Please listen more carefully and be more informed about what you say. This video's title is quick to provoke a response, but the content of it is informed, factual, and applied well.
Bach been real quiet since his death huh
When I studied music theory in a 'regular' university we talked about what was consonant over the history of western music, voice leading, 'German sixths' etc. When I studied it at Berklee it was more about "how does this sound? Why does it sound this way? How does this scale sound over these chords?" I can see the value of interrogating where these "theories' come from and knowing more about the whole world.
I always thought of music theory as having a logic view of how music should be structured, rather than relying on instinct.
This is touchy
I spent some intimate time learning what we all generally call “music theory,” and I have grown to love it. But I love your new name for it (the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians). That’s accurate and helps to place it as its own individual contribution to music as a whole. Truly there has been so much development in music around the world, and sadly many of us didn’t study those contributions and styles ☹️
How is it touchy?
Is there another transcription system that works better than Western Tonal Harmony for sharing ideas across time and distance for the widest range of instruments and styles?
@@masterofpuppers7963 I here that. It’s a well-developed system that clearly still influences a lot of music today. I guess really I’m just lamenting how little we learned as whole about other music development elsewhere. But you’re right, the theory we studied of how European composers handled harmony is great and super applicable
@@joshuadaviddavis Well, good news for you then. There's nothing to lament. It's just a system of measurement and recording. It doesn't influence music, how you and I use it does. It's just a toolbox. Now if you want to go learn more about raag or Tibetan polyphonic chanting or shakuhachi solos, get all the way after it.
@@masterofpuppers7963Ever consider that its that way not because it's inherently better but because it's creators have put themselves in the context of social hegemony ?
@@micayahritchie7158 No, because that would be making excuses to whine about nothing. Just like I don't make excuses to whine about Imperial Standard vs. Metric because I'm not Roman or French. I just use whatever system is appropriate for the box of wrenches I'm using. If I'm reading or writing for piano or guitar, I use the Tonal Harmony system. If I wanted to learn to play tabla, I'd use the raag system. Simple as.
I want a "-music theory- the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians" t-shirt
Okay I give up on formatting this. That's supposed to be strikethrough
“ -music theory- “
I teach two semesters of "Western Music Theory" at Earlham College. I have been teaching with this general orientation for 16 years. I do not teach figured bass except to point out that it was a type of Baroque lead sheet that is no longer in use unless you become a specialized Baroque keyboardist, and I never teach Schenker except to mention that he presents a profoundly limited view of what music is and that it's long past time to put him aside. I always start my course sequence by introducing Indian classical music, since I lived and taught in India for many years. By understanding Hindustani music and its system of ragas, students are then able to better view the major-minor system as a limited sub-set of all possible musical choices, albeit one that has produced amazing music because of the way that it allowed vertical harmony to develop. I bring in jazz charts a lot, as I think jazz harmony is often better for teaching basic harmonic function (e.g. predominant, dominant, tonic) than the classical models. I make sure we play Terry Riley's "in C" together at some point in the year. I have attempted to write an e-book that presents a more culturally and racially aware understanding of music theory, but it's hard to do, though I continue to work at it. I would love to teach a full sequence of cross-cultural music theories, and we still hope to do that within our department someday. I certainly find all the books that are mentioned in this video as worthy of throwing on the floor. They had their time, but, hey, it's 2020, and we need new approaches.
I've never written a TH-cam comment, but a colleague at my school shared this video, and I needed to say that there ARE those of us out there, doing this work and teaching very close to the way Mr. Neely suggests, and have been doing so for a long time. While I don't go so far as to say that music theory is racist, I continually point out that music theory as presented in conventional textbooks is limited to a particular time and place, and definitely presents a white, European framework. Once that is recognized, then of course we can study and perform and celebrate that music within that cultural understanding. I play Bach every morning, and late Beethoven takes me beyond the temporal world at times. But so does Tibetan Buddhist ritual music, or a great pop song on a rainy day.
Also, I try, in my teaching, to touch upon music's mystery. What Pythagoras, for example, was getting at with the Music of the Spheres lies at the foundation of Western Music Theory, but all of that gets rejected these days in favor of an ultra-rational approach. Pythagoras links to Hindustani theories of Nada Brahma, the universe as ultimately a kind vibrational, spiritual sound. The books that got thrown on the floor suck all of this right out. They treat music like a closed system, rather than as an open and constantly evolving journey.
Kudos to Adam for the clarity and humor in which he presents this material. It helps me feel less lonely, as I often feel an outlier in the way I teach.
That sounds like you have read the book by Joachim-Ernst Berendt called "The World Is Sound: Nada Brahma" as well. Berendt got scorched by his fellow Jazz musicians because he tried to break out of the cage and find a more universal and encompassing way to relate to music, and how music relates to us in general. Many parts of me are very thankful in hindsight, that I didn't study music at all. I always felt that it would shackle me to rigid concepts and the older I get, the less I feel the need to learn it to improve my compositions. It's so much more fun to figure out a way to make 15/16s work in an easy-to-listen way on your own instead of looking for a solution in a book. There is no reason why an inquisitive mind should not be able to find every single chord combination on their own, and applying them as they feel instead of reading about them in a book and being slaved to their intended progression. That is another reason for writer's block that many have. Because they've already studied so much, that they can't seem to find a way to make something they haven't heard yet, in fear of plagiarism. And everything they do try to write then becomes just another building based off a blueprint they've been taught previously.
I understand that the blues-schemata is an easy way for musicians to just jam along, for example. I find no joy in jamming with others by improvisation to a caged system. I find more joy in creating from the ground up with others and bouncing ideas around, or just learn songs that we all enjoy and want to play together. Music is not a past time for me like it is for the schemata-jammers, it's an outlet for a creative force.
And the more time passes, the more I want to dive into microtonality and wanting to break out of the 12tone temperament system because those intervals often feel so wrong and uninspiring.
Khunvyel 15/16=music theory=racist
In other words, you are not teaching Western Music Theory at all, and are therefore drawing your salary under false pretences. You are a typical self-flagellating Western "liberal", falling over yourself to vilify your own culture, or to dilute it with irrelevancies.
@@Khayyam-vg9fw "In other words"-no, in your world view, which, in a single word, could be read as 'opinion', which unfortunately (oops, my opinion) you are allowed to have, he is "not" teaching Western Music Theory "at all." "Not at all" means 0%, which in this case, is irrefutably not true. You are judging, rather harshly, I feel compelled to add (darn it, my opinion again!), a person based on one passage they wrote in a TH-cam comments section-a person whom you-I'm quite confident in saying-have never met in real life.
@@TavisAllen Bullshit. In a course entitled Western Music Theory he openly admits that he does not exclusively - perhaps not even primarily - teach Western Music Theory.
Spare me your specious reasoning about "your world view", "opinion", and other bits of personalised cr@p, as if it were merely a matter of personal idiosyncrasy whether or not Western Music Theory is taught in courses entitled Western Music Theory.
Really difficult. I am German and my music teacher at highschool explicitly told us, our notation and music theory ignores a huge amount of music from all over the world. She was very aware of the problem.
I think of it this way:
Imagine being an engineer, scientist, software developer or TH-cam content creator not born in the USA or at least some other English speaking country.
You have to learn English as a foreign language and use that language very often, but no matter what you do, you'll never be at the same level as a native speaker. Try making a video about a complex topic like this one. If you make it in your native language your audience will be limited, if you make it in English it will be hard for you to make and many people will quickly switch to something made by native speakers.
I don't blame anyone. This is not an act of intentional surprission. Our American friends are just lucky in that respect.
Anyway, this is important and eye opening. Great video .
Greetings from Berlin
Very good explanation of the issue.
I agree.
When one comment makes more sense than an entire video full of woke-ism.
Puerto Rican here:
While studying the cuatro under my Abuelo, he impressed upon me just how integral learning the dances of specific styles (jibaro, salsa, bomba, etc.) is to playing within that style. The slavery of West Africans in the Caribbean brought so much evil in this world, but through our music and ancestry, we keep their vibrant spirits alive.
Bingo!!! That's the ultimate irony, the most popular music today is based on the suffering of million of people, fighting to keep that misery away while being in chains.
@@MarceloAbans Stop pissing your delusional race baiting on everything. Popular music today is not based on the suffering of millions of people, you emotional toddler. The elements expressed in popular music from non-white cultures were present in those cultures long before slavery showed up.
@@CribNotes The point of her statement was in the tenacity of the people under enslavement keeping those qualities in their music.
@@JavaoftheLava That's NOT what he said. Nice try. She said pop music today was BASED on people's suffering. That's politics for delusional babies.
@@CribNotes lmao imagine being so delusional that the words "based on suffering" to you means "politics",
Luckily for me, my music theory teacher in high school prefaced the entire curriculum by saying that it is antiquated, and even then, the baroque composers that are supposed to have created these rules for "music theory" broke them all the time. He was amazing teacher.
Likewise. Ours rejected the curriculum and insisted on keyboards on every desk so we could write and perform music and "not just learn about dead Germans". Our first composition exercise was in Caribbean-inspired whole-tone scale, then 16-bar blues, then scat singing. But when he was replaced, the new teacher immediately moved these distracting instruments out of reach and literally dictated biographies of great classical composers for us to write down.
@@dananskidolf wow... Well I'm talking about an AP music theory course, so we weren't able to just do that with the curriculum without getting our asses handed to us on the big test, but we really should include more styles. Like do you know much I would have loved to learn 16 bar blues? Or Spanish flamenco? Damn...
In Harmony by Walter Piston he prefaced the book by saying that what is inside was a compendium of what was common practice at the time. Basic concepts.
I really don't understand what shenkin was all about but it sounds like it was more than technical concepts or devices. Society for music theory sounds like naval gazing sounds like typical academic over think for people who don't or can't make any actual music.
Schenkerism is the wrong reason to study figured bass. Figured bass is not complicated, and it is one of the useful ways to help conceptualize vertical relationships. There are other such tools, and figured bass warrants its position among them. That said, I don't recommend Aldwell and Schachter for studying figured bass. I say this less because A&S is shamelessly pro-Schenkerian than simply because it's a brick-thick "comprehensive" tonal music primer which not even once shows students the circle of fifths. When I first notice this, I just thought it was a stupid editorial decision. Decades later, I have come to think the real point of leaving out the circle of fifths is to help theory teachers try to influence which students see the circle of fifths first. Pet students will be shown the circle outside of class. Students who pose potential threats to Schenkerism will be left to find out about the circle of fifths on their own, and pay for this slower process with lower marks.
If it ain't baroque don't fix it.
I studied music composition/theory under Dr. Jonathan McNair & Dr. Mario Abril. They both would stress the significance of what we call theory being nothing more than what was written during the European Common Practice Era". After this video I understand their sense of urgency in making this clear and I think an even deeper respect for my mentors.
When he says "the harmonic style of 18th century musicians" he just completely skipped all Renaissance and Baroque music 💀
Renaissance music is not taught within the umbrella of “music theory”
@@AdamNeelySome pieces by William Byrd do follow a system of tonality
@@AdamNeelyHmm, when I studied musicology at university we learned all kinds of theories and approaches--including the Renaissance and the Middle Ages. That's why I was a bit confused with the video. I think what you meant is "the type of music theory you typically learn in high school"?
Another big part of musicology is ethnomusicology/music anthropology, that studies music outside of Europe and folk music traditions within Europe. That's where we learned a bit about other music theories as well.
@@AdamNeelybaroque music is classical music, is it not? Renaissance music is western classical music, no?
Swear to god this title said music theory is racist.
EDIT: To all replying, he already mentioned this on his Twitter. He thought it was too clickbaity.
Yup.. still using fallacy to argue points, just decided to "White Supremacy" for some reason.
@@th3n3wk1dd what's the fallacy?
@@th3n3wk1dd let's see hear... if music theory, as most know and learn it in the Western world, was built around the proclaimed exceptionalism of white composers to justify a Germanic cultural supremacy I would say that means Music Theory = Racist.
@@MonsieurAuContraire and you don't see how that is a fallacy? I guess that is why you belong to the leftist religion.
I can proclaim anything.. no one has to follow it. There are general rules set in place as art evolves to see what MOST like.. That isn't racist. You are using identity to reach a conclusion rather than looking at culture where culture and skin color are not the same thing.
And that is why leftists don't understand the disparity fallacy.
I mean it seems like saying "music theory is racist" is kinda unconsciously buying into the same problem he's describing in this video, by centering western music theory as "music theory." Music theory isn't racist, just the way they teach it in the west. So yeah, it's a good title change
"But he was a relatively obscure composer in his day, and rarely performed after his death."
I picture Bach with a portable electric keyboard playing on special occasions when important people visit his grave.
He must be de-composing!
@@spyguy318 boom!
Glad I'm not the only one who was thrown by that phrasing.
He *was* a composer, and (was) rarely performed after his death. Sigh...
Even in heaven he's out of job
Fantastic. I have a graduate degree in music theory from Eastman and your video is absolutely on point. Keep fighting for real music and an open approach to everything all peoples have made on this planet!
All people’s? Ok racist!!!!!
Diversity is a destroyer of nations. A destroyer of genius. A destroyer of beauty. A destroyer of creation.
Music theorist here (I actually have a degree in music theory pedagogy, if you can believe that's a thing!). This is a conflicting video for me and I want to try and lay out a sort of middleground (pun intended). I'll do this with some general observations:
1. I think the idea of diversifying the music theory canon of composers and genres is a noble pursuit. The issue mainly stems from the difficulty in teaching Western classical music theory. It is a very complicated and deep subject that contradicts itself in many instances and students have a hard time wrapping their heads around a lot of the concepts, even fundamentals. Theory is often taught from this perspective because it is referencing the kind of music that a conservatory musician is most likely to engage with throughout their careers and, contrary to a few points in this video, is actually applicable past the Western classical canon (more on that later). But we are making progress here (also more on that below). I think we also forget how diverse the classical music canon actually is... compare the music of Bach to the music of Mahler to the music of Debussy to the music of Prokofiev and I dare you to say that it is appropriate to put those composers under the same label.
2. I think this video does a huge disservice to the endeavors and work of many American music theorists who have diversified their curricula. When Adam says "the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians," this is at best reductive and at worst misleading. Any American music theory curricula worth its salt covers Western music from as early as the 1500s and as late as the present. For example, my alma mater has a 5-semester undergraduate curriculum which begins with fundamentals and ends with post tonal analysis with the last few weeks covering more modern trends! A diverse set of composers and styles are covered anywhere from the Renaissance to Jazz to 18th century Western classical to minimalism to Broadway to Rock, etc. This curriculum is filled with examples from as many relevant styles and eras as possible and MANY theorists are actively trying to diversify their rep and the topics they cover. (Example: lament bass as a harmonic/bassline concept. The examples given include its Renaissance origins, its use in Baroque music, Classical music, Romantic music, and also in songs like "Hit the Road, Jack" or "Hotel California.")
3. Music from other cultures should definitely be more represented, but this takes time to do properly. I've been adding as much as I can to my own curriculum but it isn't easy when the theories are as complex as they are and students are already struggling with the basic concept to begin with (i.e. what the difference between A major and C major is or what their parallel and relative minors are... everyone starts somewhere and even this "simple" concept takes time to internalize). I completely agree that teaching these concepts can be made even more interesting with the inclusion of comparison to Indian music, for example. Theorists just need to finish learning these things themselves PROPERLY. At the very least, citations and resources should be made available to students who are interested and wanting to learn more. More classes should be offered for student who are interested in these things and they should be taught by experts! Once a better grasp is attained by teachers, then it becomes much easier to diversify.
4. Schenkerian theory is used outside of its intended group of composers all the time. Schenker lists 12 composers, but there were far more composers who were writing in the style that he was interested in whose work can be understood better with his theory. Schenker doesn't list Wagner or Strauss for example, but their music still can be analyzed with this theory, albeit with some additional challenges/considerations. There are theorists who apply his theory to Debussy and Scriabin as well, composers who most would think have NOTHING to do with the theory. Useful information can still be gleaned from using it though. Schenker himself did an analysis of Stravinsky's piano concerto! True, he did it to explain why he though it was bad music, but we all know Schenker's own ideas about what is good and bad aren't really relevant. What matters is that he himself used it on music that it wasn't intended to explain.
5. Another Schenker point: the graphic notation itself is immensely useful outside of its intended purpose! One can use it to more effectively explain more nuanced elements of any piece of music. The ursatz and urline do NOT need to be implemented to use the graphic notation itself. It is, however, important for someone using this theory to understand its intended use so they can use it elsewhere, just like how Adam suggests using a much more modern theory to understand Chopin (something Chopin certainly never would have thought of himself).
6. As someone who studied how to teach music theory specifically, I can tell you this conversation is not new at all. We have been talking about the textbooks we use, the examples we cite, and the issues we face for years. Adam uses Aldwell/Schachter as an example, but this textbook is one of the oldest that is still used. Take a look at something like Clendenning/Marvin. This is a much more diverse (more and more) source of Western music theory knowledge. An effort is made to include women composers, American composers, and more than just the Bach to Brahms canon in the pursuit of teaching Western music theory. I myself don't use textbooks, but have studied many of them to understand useful pedagogical models. This gives the freedom to teach a more diverse rep while also having a tried and true model of teaching.
7. Figured bass has uses outside of preparing a student for Schenker. The most relevant and useful is that it helps with improvising in the Western classical style. Understanding the basis for this style and the method of thinking is obviously useful if a student wants to improvise! It's basically like having a lead sheet and, once learned, opens up a wide variety of possibilities for any student who is looking to improvise stylistically. Improv as a pursuit is becoming much more relevant in conservatory training and figured bass is really needed in order to do this! We also use it as an addition to Roman numeral analysis which is a relevant method of analysis for music spanning almost 300 years.
8. Final point. It is a little worrying that a field that is already thought of as "boring" or "a waste of time" is being labeled "racist" by such a high profile figure. I can speak from experience that the VAST majority of the students I have taught for the past 7 years have had nothing but positive things to say about their experience with music theory. Again, this sort of reductive label of "racist" is ignoring all of the progress theorists are actively trying to make in this field. This is tearing down instead of looking to the ones who are trying to rebuild. New voices in the filed are added every day, more and more we are diversifying. Yes, CALL OUT the individuals who are promoting German or classical music as superior. But please don't label the entire field this way. Don't give a voice to ignorance. I want to be clear that I have 0 desire to defend the opinions of Ben Shapiro or Schenker (and other problematic figures mentioned) regarding music. But I want to make it clear that many of us are trying and are implementing as much as we can. Let's keep up this trend and show how amazing MUSIC is! The best theory teachers teach theory because they love music. Not because they want to prove some music is better, but because they want to give more people the tools necessary to start somewhere and grow as musicians, no matter what their interests are.
As a current classical music conservatory student, this was very cool to read about. Thanks for sharing!
+++
Adam should have invited someone like you to present your ideas. A video about music theory without a counterpoint (pun intended) is lazy
Thank you for your comment. I hope more people will be able to see this. Your number 8 is the most important thing anyone should say when replying to this video. 99% of people watching this video have not and will not have any experience with music theory their entire life,however, by watching such a big TH-camr calling music theory racist, it’s doing a huge disservice for all of us musicians,theorist, teachers etc, trying to make the industry more inclusive and better everyday. Thank you again.
This sounds exactly like the word salad an NPC would say. GJ
As a musician who has practiced and studied both Indian Classical Music and Western Music Theory, I would definitely say that you can definitely draw parallels between both types of music theory. However, from a distant viewpoint, what my experience has been is that in Indian Classical Music theory, you’re more or less required to remember different raags, taals and other such things; whereas in Western, you can use logical application of the concepts and figure out almost anything. But at the same time, Indian Music Theory focuses a lot more on ornamentation on the raags, which is distinguishes each raag from the other. You can learn a lot about musical concepts from either discipline but you need a different type of mindset to study and relate either.
So am I not able to focus on ornamentation in classical music?
Light Yagami I’m not saying you can’t. I’m just saying that different kinds of music theory focus on different areas of music which is a reflection of the culture of that specific region and how music evolved in that certain area.
Isn't "logical application of the concepts" based on memorization too? The concepts that you're logically applying are concepts of the studied western music theory, that you also have to memorize... when you study them.
@@AbhinavBorah
Are you suggesting that Indian music can't have harmony? This is what I'm saying - they focus on ornamentation but that doesn't mean it's completely impossible for them to understand what a chord progression is.
It goes both ways. I know what a turn or a mordent or glissandi is. So is it a cultural aspect or is it simply a large group of people who prefer to accentuate ornamentation? What is keeping me from throwing grace notes all over my melody?
Ethan Prince to a degree yes. But you also have to see as to how flexible the rules are in each form of study. For example, in Indian classical music, you have remember taals and how they are accented (yes there is a very specified way to it), because of which you have a very large repository of different taals with very specific accents to them; whereas when you learn western music theory, you can remember the concept of time signatures and then figure out the time signature of a piece, how they’re accented and where the accents are placed. This purely comes from how I was taught both types of music and what I’ve seen around me in my peers.
Teaching figured bass in a theory textbook seems similar to teaching guitar tablature..... useful for some in the right context but a flautist gains nothing
As a flautist, I can't agree more.
Tabs should be the default music theory and those whom dont follow it dont play music 😏
The thing I like about figured bass is that, for example, instead of writing Asus - A (as two separated chords), in figured bass, it's (A)4-3, meaning just a melodic movement in one of the voices.
it also affects how you play it, the dynamics, etc.
@@dr.guyshkolnik_composer yeah its not at all useless, just useful in very specific situations
js bach used thoroughbass asthe basis of composition, as he stated in a reccomendation letter for one of his students. you can be garunteed therefore his flute sonatas where derived from the principles of thoroughbass. Also improvisation over thoroughbass is a long standing tradition. in italy this was called partimenti and these lessons were spread through europe as they valued the italians skill. if thoroughbass isnt important why would all the major composers train within it
Adam, thanks for this video.
I had my music theory and Western music history in California universities almost 50 years ago. Some things that have become apparent to me since then:
1. In the first couple of years we were taught largely from scores that could fit on 1-4 pages of an anthology book or dittoed handout. So, supremacy of the economically printable page. We studied Bach pieces, Beethoven bagatelles, Schubert songs, Brahms intermezzos, etc. They were great for studying specific harmonic and motivic procedures. But these condensed, enigmatic pieces are limited in what they can teach a young musician. What was lacking was discussion of what can make a piece of music continue in time, and, in a related matter, what can make a performance take flight as opposed to being like waiting for a drill to get through a piece of damp wood.
2. In our two-semester music history course, based mostly on Grout’s “History of Western Music,” we were appalled to find that Bach (and, as we learned, the continuo era) wouldn’t appear until the very end of the first semester. We were furious at having to listen to people we had never heard of - Perotin, Machaut, etc. However, a few people from that Grout generation took it to heart, and went on to do thoughtful recordings and performances of these “early” composers that brought new and deserved appreciation to their music.
3. On the other hand, Grout just ran off the rails when he got to the mid-20th century…bumfuzzled...nothing helpful to say.
4. I like the idea of questioning the notion that music is a universal language. Even in the West…have those monumental performances of Beethoven’s Ninth brought the world together?
5. The preface to one of our college textbooks said “the history of music is essentially the history of musical style.” Hmm. Another way to slice it might be to look at the history of musical *function* (which we hardly ever did in those days). Who plays and sings, who listens, who asked for it, when and where is the music performed? Before the era of mass international travel and mass media, did people in China, India, Persia, and Spain all want the same thing from music? The performance situation actually dictates a lot about instrumentation, rhythm, harmonic language, internal voices, and more.
6. About dancing. I am no dancer either. However, I had to do a little dancing in our college “Elizabethan madrigal dinner” holiday shows. A choreographer taught us some simple steps for some English Renaissance instrumental. I’m telling you, I perceived the structure of the music in an entirely different way. So I recommend dancing as part of musical education.
6b. The podcast “BBC In Our Time” had an episode on the history of the waltz that I recommend. Turns out there’s a lot to know about the social implications of this dance.
7. How big a deal is all this outside of academia? Thinking back on my old classmates, the ones who went on to musical careers outside academia already knew where they were going when they arrived at music school. One was from a prominent family of Afro-Cuban musicians. Another, reggae. Another, electronic and Celtic music. They were in school to get a dose of Western tradition, put it in their own context, and move on.
Im kinda hungover rn so my thoughts maybe incoherent, but as a Japanese person who was taught "music theory" I just kinda assumed that it will be Eurocentric. Like I don't know how to explain it, but this whole discussion feels extremely obvious - Western music theory will have Eurocentric bias based on the the context and the personal factors of contributors.
It kinda draws parallel to how medicine and medical sciences are viewed, as everything is in English and regional forms of medicine are small scaled compared to Western medicine. Idk this feels very weird to me that all of this is being addressed in the video when I just assumed everyone knew and kept in mind the flaws of dropping the "Western" from music theory. Western music is the largest field of music rn at least in academics, so it feels normal for me to just say "music theory" because we assume that it's Western (the majority) in the context.
This is America's soul being bared. We can apply the same logic of this video to this video itself. The American experience of racism in music theory.
How the heck did the west get everywhere in the first place?
@@sgttomas not America's soul, United States' soul. This is not the Bolivian soul or the Mexican soul we're talking about. That's another proof of how much "United Statians" think of themselves when approaching the world
I feel like the section of this video where Ewell faced a literal symposium of backlash for pointing this out shows why your assumption, though informed and good natured, shouldn't be applied to the entire field. Because it clearly isn't. And that's kind of Neelys and Ewells point. That for theorists like Schenker, the white supremacist "undertone" WAS the point. It was explicitly acknowledged. But in modern teachings, the white supremacy either is unaddressed or tacitly endorsed at the expense of other equally valid understandings and perspectives.
@@alemutasa6189 America is just a short hand for the "United States of America" in this context. No need to be obtuse.
I don't get everything in this video since I'm a self-taught musician, I've only learned theory from the Western musical system and a bit from the middle eastern system since I am turkish and quite familiar with makams and the middle eastern microtonal soundscape. I know nothing about western music and other parts of the world's music history so it's very unclear yet I want to thank you for teaching me the fact that music is far more greater and deeper than the western system's approach on it. I felt quite some vertigo watching this video and learning that I have far more to learn haha.
Thank you a lot, keep up ! :)
25:50 even in my conservative music school we were taught about the 7 fundamentals - rhythm, dynamics, melody, harmony, tone colour, texture, form. Shapiro isn't even getting western music theory right.
It's almost like Shapiro is making a bad-faith argument from authority to make it seem as if his (and his audience's) distaste for the products of Black culture is actually an "objective" critique and thus not racist at all. Couldn't be!
It's just hilarious that Ben Shapiro's theory of music can't distinguish between an orchestra playing a symphony and its ringtone version
fehzorz the part I don’t get about Bens argument is that most rap songs literally have melody in them, most instrumentals are led by some melodic figure, take the guitar lead in *i* by Kendrick Lamar for example. As well, there’s the melody a rapper carves out in a flow, but Ben ignores that so I guess I have to as well :(((((
I also love how Ben can’t acknowledge that Rap is poetry- he simply isn’t capable of ascribing that to black people, he has to call it “rhythmic speaking”. Its the exact same disdain 20th century classical composers had for Jazz.
OutScreamer It’s also astonishing that Ben would say “Jazz is a degradation of classical”... like lmao what? They are completely different genres of music with different skill sets required to play them. A classical musician couldn’t easily play jazz well and vice versa. He also acts as if jazz doesn’t require intense study and practice. Like has he ever heard Giant Steps... or any bebop jazz recording for that matter?
I’ve actually been interested in better understanding the structure/language of music for a while now. Having seen this, I think I’ll look beyond the usual western “music theory”. Thanks for the tip and all the insightful info. :)
need a trigger warning for flashing my undergrad theory textbooks at me this early in the morning
Really interesting video. I'd like to share my own experience of studying music theory in Ireland as it seems to differ greatly from what you describe. I studied a BA-Mus in Music at University College Cork. Our very first class involved the head of the department asking us how many different ways we could write down a C major chord; i.e. sheet music, figured bass, note names, chart, tab, even frequencies. His point was that music theory is a tool and you use the best tool for the job. When we studied Bach we used Western music theory. When we studied North Indian classical music we studied the principles of raag (which as an aside I don't think gel well with what Westerners would define as 'music theory' given the inherently improvisatory nature of raag, and the fact that it contains outside aspects such as time of day etc as you alluded to). When we studied Afro-Cuban music we learned how to salsa (for one painfully awkward class which still haunts me...). And when we studied contemporary composition we learned a bunch of different notation methods but were immediately encouraged to start coming up with our own as long as they made sense and could be performed. Part of this approach might be because UCC has a very well-regarded ethnomusicology department which influenced curriculum and approach. I'm not sure if this is exactly the kind of approach you or Dr Ewell would find helpful for redressing the imbalance in global music analysis but I just wanted to let it be known that there are courses out there offering broader interpretations of 'music theory'.
@Tony O Connor. I studied music & ethnomusicology in the UK & had a very similar experience to yours. This was true, even while studying my A level in music, never mind music college. I simply can’t relate to the message of this video.
@@FlameRedCat y'all realize he litterally says at the end that this was HIS experience with music and he's referring only to America.
Master Lowkey I studied music theory and music history in the US and had a vastly different experience. Music theory was always taught as a means to an end and that the means can change as long as one gets to the end which is music that carries the intended feeling behind making it, in other words, as long as the theory translates into the intended music.
My experience in America was much like Adam's, but you guys in the UK sound like you had a way hipper experience! The thing that keep me grounded (probably Adam, too), is that I was a jazz major so I was constantly aware of great music being ignored or music theory, as it pertains to jazz, being looked over in favor of more traditional music. That said, I still love all the old, traditional music and I immensely enjoy playing in orchestras, but I also love playing jazz and playing in a prog-metal band and playing guitar on James Brown tunes in a funk band.
@@ibrahim47x I studied classical music at a conservatory for around 13 years in Canada, then transitioned to private jazz lessons. The euro centric musical theory was definitely posited as simply "music theory" (at least in my experience). It never even occurred to me that other cultures have their own model for musical theory and lowkey I feel so foolish for not even considering that so I found this video very insightful.
22:04 I love the part about music not being the universal language. Each culture has its own unique musical language, but music isn't the universal language any more than English is the universal language! Rather, LANGUAGE ITSELF IS UNIVERSAL. Music is universal: each musical culture has come up with their own musical language, just as each linguistic culture has come up with their own spoken language, and each one has a unique way to express the way we move through the world.
Yeah! I also think the comparison works when trying to learn new styles of music. English speakers use their knowledge of English to learn any other language. You can see how this applies if you watch Nahre’s videos on synthesizers and jazz music from the perspective of a classical musician. She applies everything she knows about classical music to understand other kinds of music
Language is a virus from outer space.
did not watch all of it, but sounded so dumb, how great it would be we all speak the same language, like, what took humanity out of misery was the contact with each others talents so i could have a well made shoe from a talent shoe maker, in exchange of whathever i'm good at. how great it would be if we were not separate by language, and you want to break conections cause you don't want them to be white? for real? i'm latin and had two great american teachers here, and you want them to learn wathever sistem indigenas made up before teaching me, screwing with them and mostly me. and feel ashamed of their white skin for stuf others made on the past? i don't know quechua or aymara but do speak english, how dare i, said to me Evo Morales. I want to understand a perlmans masterclas on youtube. back off.....
I think this is missing the point of what people mean by "music is a universal language." Not that all cultures use the same methods of conveying meaning through music, but that even when using a completely different "musical language" to convey feeling people from completely different cultures with no background in that musical language can often understand that feeling. Not always completely and with some exceptions where they get it completely backwards, but these kinds of snappy expressions always favor hyperbole over nuance.
It's a perspective that focuses entirely on the experience of listening to music, which makes sense as most people know nothing about any tradition or theory or practice of making music. In that context, it holds some truth. There's still room to criticize it in that context, but this is why I didn't quite like it when Adam talked about it in a Q&A some months back. He used the example of performing with Mongolian musicians to say it isn't one, because of their different musical backgrounds even if they understood some common terms the two groups couldn't always understand what the other was trying to do in the moment and had some issues communicating. That isn't wrong, but I think it's less pertinent to what most people are asking about when they say "is music a universal language" to look at whether music helps musicians communicate while making something, instead of looking at whether the finished musical work can communicate an idea across cultures.
My phrasing is “80% of music is junk, but MY 80% is different from YOUR 80%”.
I love 18th century european classical music, but I wish people understood that classical music goes beyond [the harmonic style of 18th century european musicians], and for that matter, people should understand that music goes beyond western music in general.
I am Japanese and really wanted to learn a Japanese instrument so I recently bought a gagaku instrument (ancient Japanese court music). The music theory, instruments, etc. in gagaku alone are very different.
Not just the music theory, but non-western-classical instruments in general are underrepresented.
Videos about instruments, articles about the hardest instruments to play, music lessons available, etc. will hardly (or not at all) bring up non-western-classical instruments.
I also love that you bring up Indian Classical, one of my favorites classical genres. ❤
Studying at Juilliard in the early 1980s, music theory instruction was almost entirely based on historical European developments, harmonization, counterpoint. Much of it felt like puzzle work. I remember by the time it got to heavily chromatic harmony I lost interest. In any case, it had very little to do with contemporary music of any sort I was familiar with. As I was interested in performing with a symphony orchestra, I thought of Juilliard as a trade school (though the powers that be would have hated that description). Nowadays, the school appears to offer training in a significantly broader palette of music and dance styles. However, I really don't think that our art has to be ALL things to ALL people. Otherwise we perhaps run the risk of offering only basic general skills at the expense of high level specific training. Choose what you're interested in, and go to the right people and places for assistance and inspiration.
Well said, and perhaps an excellent argument for the expansion of specializations within. Everyone will have different attractions once they begin their studies, and just like a major in Economics will have required underlying studies to earn a degree, the same majors and minors should be offered within the world of music. Perhaps some already are, but it is obviously an area that can be improved immensely and should be to expand the abilitiies and creative understanding of future artists.
So if you wanted to learn to be a composer of popular music in the US... Where would you go to college and what program would cater to ppl who are experts in the subtleties of the most popular forms? Doesn’t exist? Academia doesn’t respect contemporary music and although they might offer a famous person an amorphous history class, they would never threaten the established orthodoxy in order to provide this type of educational opportunity despite the market and societal benefits...
@@levytator1 Perhaps Berklee College of Music in Boston. But I wouldn't be a good person to answer that question; I'm already in my 60s, and I don't follow the latest trends in popular music in general.
Its almost like you live in a european-based country, and you learned about that country's music style. HOW HORRIBLE AMIRITE?
@@JakeKoenig So you're saying a school in a country that is overwhelmingly European can only teach things related to Europe? Sounds like you're the one with a sub-80 IQ my dear. The United States is a melting pot of cultures and traditions, and if you don't like it, that's a you problem.
I'm going to sonic hell but why not. "You mean Indian musicians have a whole system for Raag Time?" I'll see myself out.
I’d give you 10 upvotes if I could.
Brent Johnson make 10 channels using the same account smh
Bruh. There are times and periods. Secondly , there are even days on which music is suited. There are songs for rain, for sun, for the wind. It's pretty cool tbh
take my like and leave
Take my like and stay. Sonic hell is closer than what you think.
This feels a lot like how we portray the seasonal cycle in popular culture: one particular kind of climate (warm summers, snowy winters, and enough moisture to support spring flowers and autumn leaves). It makes no sense if you live in a desert or a subtropical environment, and not even very good for Mediterranean climates.
That's a very interesting analogy. Cool way to think about it.
I know!! I literally did not know seasons were different in other places until really recently
Yeah but those people aren't really advanced either, zero agriculture, little engineering. I suggest you appreciate the magic that Europe has bestowed on us and reject all cope! It's petulant and obvious!
I live in a place with no rain in the summer. Because of this kind of imagery I literally did not know that rain during the summer existed until I was a teenager because our graphics for summer just show a sun. I now know that in a lot of places the summer is very green from all the rain, unlike my brown home
I live where there are two seasons. 1. Hot and wet, 2. hurricane season
This is seriously one of the most impressive youtube videos ive ever watched. Your arguments and analysis are structured so well and so thoughtfully. Thank you, i learned a lot today.
You learned absolutely nothing.
"... Get a graduate in music theory... I know, there are tens of you" amazing once again. Well worth the wait.
I have always thought that “Music Theory” is simply the theorization of music. There are thousands of ways to analyze music and they are all very interesting.
If I had the opportunity to study other forms of theory, I would have. Not because music theory is racist or whatever; I’d study them because they are incredibly interesting to study. I’m an amateur composer and love to take elements from other theory systems and cultures and incorporating them in my compositions.
Leaving them out of current educational systems is doing a huge disservice to other cultures.
It's more accurately that the system by which music theory is taught is racially charged, bot that the concept of music theory itself is racist.
Mickey the Luxray exactly, a lot of people seem to be missing the point of the video
@@maitele oooh charge me baby how much a buck o five?
This is exactly what Adam argues for in the video. The way the term "music theory" is used right now is racist because it refers to one specific kind, European classical music theory, and many people think that anything you can't analyze using that kind of music theory is stupid compared to the great geniuses for whom the theory was developed.
And to solve that and make "music theory" not racist, we should teach different kinds of music theory, and also make sure people understand that just because something can't be analyzed using one of them doesn't make it unsophisticated.
@@hemerythrin and at the same time Adam conveniently forgot to mention that rap is a Western kind of music, yes, the roots were African, but big rappers emerged in Europe and the US predominantly.
I’m definitely going to share this with my harmonic style of 18th century musicians teacher.
This was surprisingly eye-opening. Thank you!
14:41 I would call it "Sponge (1) - Bob (6) - Square (5) - Pants (3)"
Absolutely
Sponge pants square bob?
Underrated comment