Classical Music from an Ethnomusicologists Perspective: Ethnocentrism in global Classical Music Representation

There is a common claim that there are only two forms of classical music on earth: Western and Indian. I frequently hear comments (mainly from practitioners of these art forms) stating that the most heavily developed forms of music in the world are European and Indian classical music. They say the depth of these traditions and the particular subtleties involved attract a particular kind of person to these forms of music.  I’m not a fan of claims like these for many reasons. The first reason being that it pits other forms of music against each other. It judges multiple traditions of music by an ambiguous artistic criteria, imposing arbitrary musical aesthetic standards where they don’t apply. The second is that it shows a lack of knowledge in other forms of music around the globe. The third is that it shows a narrow definition of classical music that can only seemingly apply to these particular forms of music. So what is classical music?
Just through a quick google search I found Encyclopaedia Britannica’s entry on classical music: “Classical music, a broad tradition of Western music that emphasizes formal composition, technical skill, and expressive depth”. Only later on in the definition does it offer an alternative title for classical music: Western Art Music. This distinguishes itself from other non-Western forms of classical music like Hindustani or Carnatic, the two classical music genres of India. It still does not offer a more general definition of classical music. Terry E. Miller presents in his text World Music: A Global Journey the idea that terms like classical, folk, and popular exist on some sort of spectrum. Even the definition of “classical” itself is confusing and varies depending on context. In the sense of music, it generally carries two definitions, one of which creates a hierarchical relationship between genres, and another that gives us a less ethnocentric view of classical music. Generally people will conflate these two definitions and apply a hierarchical relationship to music, with classical on top, folk underneath, and popular at the bottom. The more well rounded definition is any style of music where the musicians in the society are taken care of well enough for them to solely focus on the development of their particular music. A common interpretation of this definition is also music played for the elites and royalty of a particular society.  So bringing this back to Indian and Western music being considered the only forms of highly developed classical music on earth. That doesn’t seem right, does it? I could think of two styles of music that have been practiced for hundreds of years, in royal contexts, and heavily developed upon: Indonesian gamelan and Ugandan royal court music. 
I can speak a little more in-depth about Ugandan royal music practices as I am a practitioner of the Embaire from the kingdom of Busoga, a large 21-key pentatonic xylophone modeled after the royal music ensemble of akadinda xylophones and ngoma drums played by 6 people. The music of this instrument is generally regarded as so complex that when listeners experience the suspended harmonic fields created by this instrument they don’t understand what they’re listening to. The music is performed atop a 3/2 polymeter implied with a 12/8 feel. Essentially, to translate this in a Western lens, a bell player plays dotted quarters in 12/8, and a starter part on one side of the xylophone plays a melody that implies a 6/8 feel, creating a 3/2 polymeter. Another player referred to as the mixer plays on every offbeat that the starter doesn’t play, essentially filling the gap left behind by the starter. Both parts listen to the bell intently to remain locked in the groove. The starter listens to the “1” and “3” implied by the bell, and the mixer listens to the “2” and “4”, as these beats line up directly with a hit on their parts. This music is performed at blazing speeds to create unique suspended harmonic fields, or the illusion of a chord sounding due to the rapidly struck nature of the instrument split between six different people. This music has its own set of artistic criteria that doesn’t align with Western standards, despite fitting the bill for multiple definitions of classical music: produced by musicians that were supported in a way that they could further their art form, highly developed and placed hierarchically in a society, and played for the elites and royalty of a particular society. I would consider this a form of classical music, although this music is generally referred to as specifically “royal court music”. 
So if other highly developed forms of classical music exist, why are people generally only aware of European and Indian? I have a few theories for this, with my main two being the propagation and spread of these art forms and who is involved in teaching others about these forms of music. Many people who trade claims of the superiority of one music over the other are usually both ignorant of other forms of highly developed music as well as a practitioner of the style of music they’re advocating for, thus creating a bias in their argument. It is also important to note the colonial and population-based aspects of the propagation of these art forms: it is no secret that Western art music was used as a colonizing force in Africa. Kofi Agawu writes about it extensively and gives a nice presentation on the subject, that the diatonic modal melodies sung in a foreign unfamiliar language modified for musical representation was treated and imposed onto African societies as the pure, heavenly music humans should strive for and not the communal, densely rhythmic, interlocking, complex music that was practiced by the native Africans. Through the music, European colonists were able to impose Christianity and racial hierarchy upon African societies. This certainly has something to do with the spread of European classical music.  If more people were exposed to different forms of highly developed music from around the world, I wonder if this myth of musical hierarchy would eventually dispel, and music could be thought of as a more spectral experience in its compositional level, making the definitions of the terms classical, folk, and popular not concrete but existent on that compositional spectrum. I would also argue that the claim that one musical form is more developed than another is a fallacy. The development of a form of music never stops or remains stagnant, but is always continuing and changing, developing into something new constantly. Claiming that Western classical music is much more highly developed than other forms of music is both applying arbitrary artistic criteria to music, but is somewhat ironic considering European classical music, at least in the academy, is famously stuck and reflective of 18th, 19th, and some 20th century Western art music composers. I have recently watched a presentation given by one of my colleagues (that was seemingly filled with existential dread) about what he believes the future of Western art music is, at least, in the academy. He believes the future is in a somewhat avant garde, where many highly skilled and trained performers and composers will collaborate to try and maintain careers in a field that he claimed to be dying, and incorporate something new that breaks the dominant conservatory model.
Much of this animosity comes from videos I'll watch on Youtube consisting of interviews, lectures, or narrations of Indian classical music or European classical music. Far too often practitioners of the music will claim that they have the most complex music, in the same way that racists and ethnocentrists will claim that they have the prettiest and best and most efficient language and that everyone else’s language is just somehow worse with no evidence to back it up. I will simply call out opinions like that just as they really are: worthless. No one wants to hear how much better they think their own culture is than other’s. Cherry picking culture and ethnicity is ethnocentrist and branches into xenophobia, and only truly goes to show how ignorant one is who believes it. Instead of exclaiming why one’s culture or practice is better than others, they should instead go and experience someone else’s cultural practice and expose themselves to alternative forms of thought, thereby making them a much more well-rounded person as a whole. Cultural misrepresentation can be taken in both directions: the deliberate broadcasting of the worst parts of a place, region, or particular cultural practice, or the deliberate spread of misinformation relating to cross-cultural comparisons that make one look better than others. Both of these show ignorant behavior in the practitioner, and these opinions shouldn’t be entertained, but re-educated.