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There are two such neutral or unstressed vowels in English. They have the same job - they occupy the space of vowels which we can readily identify when they appear in stressed syllables. But they differ in their articulation point, which is just the place in a tlking mouth where its tongue is. When most of your tongue is high up in your mouth, there isn't much room for the air to escape and the result is a thinner, higher sound - i, e and vocalic y. When it's lower down, you make a bigger, more booming sound like a, o and u. Of course, English being what it is, there are exceptions: try saying Lily and Anna. OK? The unstressed y in Lily is made by a higher-up tongue position; the unstressed second a in Anna would be written as a schwa, as you rightly say - schwa in print is an upside-down e. So, if we're doing a phonetic transcription, we'd use a schwa for the second a in Anna, but for the second syllable in Lily we'd use an i with a line through it. And we'd use that symbol for, say, the second syllable in lettuce or carrot: even though they contain a low vowel, it's the pronunciation that counts. So if I had to transcribe Abram I'd use a schwa but for Gareth an unstressed i.

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Clear as mud? Yeah, thought so!