[PaulDavisThe1st]

That's a great line from the professor. Really great.

Also, other traditions focus on melody over harmony (e.g. Carnatic and Hindustani), although they have to consider harmony as a by-product of polyphonic music (i.e. more than 1 instrument).

[otabdeveloper4]

> Also, other traditions focus on melody over harmony

Like Western electronic music written after 1960, for example. :)

(And electronic music is, like, basically all we have today.)

[PaulDavisThe1st]

This is really not true.

Firstly, "western electronic music" covers an enormous range, from still, wall-of-sound ambient to four-on-the-floor EDM to music that sounds like any other but is generated using electronic/digital instruments.

Secondly, I could give you tons of examples of western electronic music that is almost entirely about harmony and not melody. The first one that springs to mind is any of Steve Roach's "immersion" series, or even more so "Mystic Chords and Sacred Spaces". But basically anything that might get played on SomaFM's "Drone Zone" channel is in the same category.

So, I suspect you have a much more specific idea of what you actually meant by "western electronic music", and you should likely lay it out more precisely.

[otabdeveloper4]

"Western electronic music" is anything that uses an instrument with a filter cutoff knob.

Filter knobs and polyphony don't play together well.

That's why they gravitate towards "leads" or "pads" over a separate bass or percussion track. Unlike normal Western polyphony you want the two to NOT form chords or counterpoint.