Music Theory
A community to discuss the technical workings of music.
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#Related communities:
- Composer
- Song-a-Week
- Musicology
- Ethnomusicology
- Historically Informed Performance Practice (HIPP)
- Piano Discussion
- Classical Music
- Jazz
- Harpsichord
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Thanks for posting that video. First, I do actually like a lot of Neely's videos. Many of them are very interesting and well-researched and entertaining. I even enjoy his method of presentation and his tone (which I know many people dislike).
That said, my specific gripe has always been that he handles classical music badly. He thinks he's an expert on it but he really isn't.
The first part of this video dealt with that and Neely's inability to really admit how wrong he was.
The second part with Adam Ragusea was something I was unfamiliar with but holy shit, Neely really dropped the ball on that by not doing the five seconds of research required to verify Ragusea's qualifications for being used in the video. I know Neely can't be held 100% responsible for the living hell Ragusea suffered through because of that video but Neely most certainly contributed to making things worse for Ragusea and really hasn't done anything to fix that situation. I'm sure Neely reads tons of shit about himself online and probably feels Ragusea should have a thicker skin, but just being a decent human being means we really should temper what we say and how we say it when criticizing other people. I'm sure the professor from the first part of the video went through some similar hell because of how badly Neely misrepresented him.
The last part of the video is trickier and I think the author of the video tried to make that clear. I think that the other music theory person would have the right to feel at least a little bothered by how amazingly similar Neely's analogy was. It's entirely possible that Neely forgot about the other person's video and thought this was something he came up with or had heard about in music schools decades ago. But when confronted with the facts, he could have handled that better. Interestingly, in the comments, Youtuber David Bennett defended Neely on this point. Have no idea if that means anything but just as some professional courtesy it's entirely ok to issue a mea culpa and take some lumps. In no way would that have hurt Neely's career.
Finally, I wish the author had done a segment on Neely's video about the cult of sheet music (or some such similar title). Once again Neely completely misrepresented how classical music works this time relative to sheet music. In fact, he and I got into a bit of a heated argument on the topic on Reddit. His knowledge of classical music is lacking but his confidence isn't.
There have been a few other times where Neely has stated an opinion on certain classical composers or works that I've found suspect but aren't worth worrying about. But they do help confirm his lack of expertise when it comes to classical music.
Unfortunately, characters like Neely exist because of a general lack of knowledge and interest on the part of the public that also props him up. He's like any of these other TED Talk infotainment guys, circulating shallow, inaccurate, harmful ideas with absolutely no accountability.
Occasionally he's on the money. There's a video about tritones that I really don't object to. From a musicology/history of theory perspective, there's nothing controversial about it and I appreciate that he's pushing back on a common myth.
Other times, he says some really dubious stuff. There's that video about some modulation in a Celine Dion song that pieces together its argument from another feel-good edutainment music theory work that nobody examines critically, Harmonic Experience by W.A. Mathieu, and some idealistic embodiment stuff (vulgar though; he doesn't cite Arnie Cox or anyone like that, not that I think that would make it any better). The experienced analyst really has to suspend their disbelief. The harmonic dualism he draws from Mathieu was called out as nonsense back in the 19th century, for fuck's sake.
Then, there's another video on that Recorder Team lady's channel where we learn that Neely has never before heard of red notation or the rhythmic craziness of Ars Subtilior/Trecento music. Do they not teach music history at Berklee?
When I watch his videos, I get the pervasive sense that he only first encounters the concept at hand a few weeks before, and his familiarity with said topic is limited to what he researched for that specific video. He basically makes undergraduate research essays with a budget. And people pay him for it and take it for gospel.
Good take. My knowledge of music theory barely runs beyond what I am interested in as a composer (have forgotten so much, of course) so I don't really have a good way to judge his other theory videos.
The tritone video was one that I was thinking of that I liked and then also his anti-432 video. After that, I am realizing that I don't really watch many of his videos. Very few, actually, so who knows what gems I'm missing out on.
That's definitely a problem. I think he does try to be accurate but when he messes up he doesn't handle it well.