[PaulDavisThe1st]

Somewhere upthread, that I replied to, said:

> The harmonic series is relevant, but you can't start from the harmonic series and find your way to Western classical music.

As big as fan as I am of being aware of non-western musical culture, I was commenting on the specific idea of moving from the harmonic series to a specific musical culture (the western classical one). This is why the chemistry analogy is (roughly) appropriate, because there are in fact a substantial number of (western) music theorists who consider there to be only a single western classic music theory.

I try to almost never use the words "music theory" without prefixing them with a temporal and/or geographic cultural qualifier (though I likely often fail here).