An AI Lawyer Is About to Defend a Human in a U.S. Courtroom

Come to think of it - it COULD have been the US company, advertising on a Buffalo NY AM radio station. We listened to WBEN and WGR etc. They aren't far away. I'm only 10 minutes' walk from where I lived 70 years ago. I'm pretty sure my mother's soap operas came from those US stations. And we got three hours of mystery on Saturday nights. Mike Shane, Bulldog Drummond, Mike Hammer, etc. I can remember being about 4 ft. 9" and wanting to be a guy like those Private Eyes... Yeah, that's probably where I heard the Nationwide commercials.

 

"Yours Truly Johnny Dollar" which I still listen to on SiriusXM

 

The Golden Age of Radio which I basically missed by about ten years.

 

It was indeed a golden age. It deserves preservation. I'm glad you're able to enjoy some of it, through sources like Sirius.

These days, my radio dial is spot-welded to this outstanding Canadian jazz station. https://jazz.fm/. I often go foraging on Youtube for other music - anything that appeals to me, from blues to flamenco, several kinds of world music. I'm currently learning to play a bit of Nigerian Highlife music. The Nigerian musicians who play it mostly keep the harmonies simple - I think that's characteristic of a lot of African music - or maybe they do it just for me - geared to ability!

 

Interesting thing about the World Music you mentioned. Fifty years ago a professor of mine drew what he called a very rough distinction.

He said that in general major music traditions throughout the world tend to emphasize melody and rhythm but the European Common Practice musicians alone emphasized complex harmonies and their close cousin counterpoint. There are no traditional African fugues is what I guess he meant.

Seems to me that modern popular music in the U.S. likewise emphasizes melody and rhythm. Certainly counterpoint does appear, especially in movie music (which he said was the best classical composition going) but it's rare.

Search Merle Hazzard for Atonal Music for a smile.

 

A lot of music professors have made similar comments - the common consensus is: Indian music - melody prominent. European music - harmony takes precedence. African music - rhythm is emphasized.

I'd generally agree - but it's not total. Plenty of Indian ragas with pretty complex rhythm treatment. That's what the tabla accompaniment is for! And African music, especially where there's an Arab influence -can get much melodic variation and some interesting harmony. I found some Malian guitarists, notably Habib Koité, show a lot of that influence in their instrumental work - sometimes it sounds quite a bit like Flamenco - which was, of course, Moorish-inspired.

Get more Habib Koité here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habib_Koité And Youtube.

I like it ALL. There was an author, deceased now, of very diverse ethnicities, whose work I enjoyed. He and I wrote back and forth, on occasion, and he once said "We are all one." I believe that - it's my favourite quote. True in everything - but especially music.

 

There are also commonalities in music, too. For example - scales. Everybody's got 'em - but not all the same ones. Years ago, I downloaded all the lectures from a Yale first-year music course. (They were free.) Nice examples in the "scales" lecture. First, Ravi Shankar playing a raga in a six-note Indian scale. Followed by Ravi's daughter, the incomparable Norah Jones, singing in a five-note African American blues scale. That was a terrific course. And didn't cost a cent - other than a blank DVD.

 

Do you still have the DVD? What was the course/series was called? I want to see if they're still available.

 

Yes - I still have the course on a DVD. It was the complete first-year Music Appreciation course. Current Open Yale Courses are all listed here and I don't see it. https://oyc.yale.edu/courses I'll keep looking and if I can't find it somewhere online for you - we'll do some kind of file transfer and you can burn your own DVD.

I'll send you a PM when I find it available - or don't. If I can't - we'll figure some way to get the files to you.

NO NEED - IT's ON YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=desktop&list=PLjnWOs5j2r1MJJ1lnvPo5aWk66Z0_DC8z

 

That'd be great, thanks. It sounds like a really interesting course.

 

FOUND IT ON YOUTUBE -whole course. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=desktop&list=PLjnWOs5j2r1MJJ1lnvPo5aWk66Z0_DC8z

@nosborne48 The instructor has great piano chops. You might like.

 

I'd be interested in any non Western counterpoint. Harmony kind of happens I think because as you say scales are scales and some note combinations sound consonant and others dissonant. But true counterpoint, while it must obey the rules of harmony, is much more "horizontal" than "vertical". There's nothing inevitable about it.

 

"Polyphonic techniques used in African music include: Melodic counterpoint – related to homophony..."

Some here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_sub-Saharan_African_harmony

 

A writeup on Bushman Counterpoint here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/942188 - very technical.
Polyphonic singing of Aka Pygmies here:

Alas, counterpoint does not seem to be a thing in Indian Classical Music.

 

Steve Reich's Electric counterpoint was written by a Westerner adept in African techniques. Performance here:

Writeup here: https://academic.oup.com/book/34984/chapter-abstract/298657601?redirectedFrom=fulltext

 

There is counterpoint in some of Ghana's music - e.g. the music of Ephraim Anu - but the composers were fully trained in Western Classical music traditions - so it's adopted, not native. I think I read that the same type of musical osmosis occurred in Nigerian Art Music.

https://issuu.com/leadershipmag/docs/ltgc_20magazine/s/11272990
https://books.openedition.org/ifra/615?lang=en

 

As for China, Google says "It is generally held that most traditional musical works of China are monophonic (featuring one single melodic line without harmonies or a second melody in counterpoint)." So, no counterpoint there for us. No counterpoint in Arab music either. Yep - it's pretty well a Western thing. I think the other Johann (J.S. Bach) would agree.

 

I wonder if any of the Portuguese seamen navigating around the Cape of Good Hope exchanged musical ideas with the locals.

 

That playlist doesn't have all of the lectures, unfortunately. But if anyone else is interested, I found the full playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNezhx8YiGIV8I22ICSuzslja