Has all the Good Music Been Played/Copied/Completed?

[fresh_42]

For all practical purposes it truly is infinite.

It is not. This is simply wrong. Notes, duration, and human frequencies to hear are all limited, hence you cannot have infinitely many words over this finite alphabet. Rap isn't music, it's speech. And all pieces which do not follow classical harmonics are basically not popular, e.g. Schönberg.

 

[BWV]

It is not. This is simply wrong. Notes, duration, and human frequencies to hear are all limited, hence you cannot have infinitely many words over this finite alphabet. Rap isn't music, it's speech. And all pieces which do not follow classical harmonics are basically not popular, e.g. Schönberg.

Rap is music

 

[BWV]

Two different issues here - new musical styles vs possible new pieces or songs. For example, is a Bossa Nova or hip-hop version of, say Summertime, new music?

If someone today writes a great motet in Renaissance polyphony or big band swing, nobody cares and would likely not consider this ‘new music’. Questions about the combinatorial limits within a particular style then become irrelevant. Who cares if the potential number of ‘unique’ pieces that conform to the conventions of Baroque trio sonatas is 10^6 or 10^^6?

with new styles you get all the combinatorial possibilities of existing styles - say Mongolian throat singing trip hop - as well as new ones based on subtle changes to rhythm, timbre and/or texture - like Bossa Nova vs Swing or black metal vs death metal. Supposed limitations of harmonic or melodic possibilities become irrelevant, a djent version of Garota de Ipanema (or something else with substantially the same chord progression and melody) becomes 'new music'

 

[AndreasC]

Rap isn't music, it's speech.

Sorry, but this is kind of ridiculous. It's like saying "guitarists aren't musicians, they're just scratching strings" or "drummers aren't musicians, they are simply banging on metal and membranes".

Also this isn't just about rap. Anyone who has studied classical harmony knows that most modern music breaks its rules all the time. Hell, even classical music broke the standardised rules frequently enough, but modern music barely follows the rules at all. Which is, you know, why it doesn't sound the same, and why music changes over the years. By your use of the word "harmonics" I can tell that you are probably not a musician and not educated in music theory, so please don't make statements such as "rap isn't music", they are pretty offensive to many people and akin to statements like "theoretical physics isn't REAL physics because it's all about theories".

As for it not being TECHNICALLY infinite, well, yeah, I guess if you have a million musicians working 24/7 to churn out music until we go extinct you might manage to cover every "unique" piece that could conceivably be considered music ever, idk. It doesn't matter all that much. For all practical purposes, it is infinite.

 

[hutchphd]

Perhaps Asimov's " Jokester " plot is also true for music...

 

[fresh_42]

As for it not being TECHNICALLY infinite, well, yeah, I guess if you have a million musicians working 24/7 to churn out music until we go extinct you might manage to cover every "unique" piece that could conceivably be considered music ever, idk.

This is the theoretical limitation, hence finiteness. The real possibilities are much more limited, if we restrict ourselves to reasonable constraints: Say we want to write a standard pop song. Then we have about 3 octaves, 7 scales, 5 values and all in 4/4, 20 seconds for the motive, 40 seconds for the refrain, 4 minutes total. This is what we really have for a composition. And I guess the scales don't even count as being different at court.

This is very far from infinite.

 

[symbolipoint]

Rap is music

People trying to support OR deny this are missing the meaning of "Rap".

 

[BWV]

People trying to support OR deny this are missing the meaning of "Rap".

And this shows you don’t understand the meaning of “music”

 

[fresh_42]

And this shows you don’t understand the meaning of “music”

Have fun with your music!

 

[symbolipoint]

And this shows you don’t understand the meaning of “music”

WRONG MEANING! Whether it is or is not music is not the purpose of Rap. To classify as or not as being music completely misses the point.

 

[BWV]

Have fun with your music!

yep, this is music

 

[BWV]

WRONG MEANING! Whether it is or is not music is not the purpose of Rap. To classify as or not as being music completely misses the point.

not aware that the point of hip hop was being somehow beyond any definition of music. Rap musicians from what I have seen consider themselves musicians and make music.

 

[fresh_42]

not aware that the point of hip hop was being somehow beyond any definition of music. Rap musicians from what I have seen consider themselves musicians and make music.

I cannot stop thinking that the Catholic Church is rapping since centuries.

 

[AndreasC]

This is the theoretical limitation, hence finiteness. The real possibilities are much more limited, if we restrict ourselves to reasonable constraints: Say we want to write a standard pop song. Then we have about 3 octaves, 7 scales, 5 values and all in 4/4, 20 seconds for the motive, 40 seconds for the refrain, 4 minutes total. This is what we really have for a composition. And I guess the scales don't even count as being different at court.

This is very far from infinite.

Well good thing music isn't restricted to a single genre then!

But even within that genre, let's reexamine if it really is that restrictive.

I'll (maybe) give you 3 octaves for the vocals only. But there is no such restriction for the music.

7 scales? I don't understand, in what sense are there 7 scales? I really don't know where that number comes from. You can pick one of 12 possible major scales for starters. Well, alright, they won't sound all that different because if you make a melody in C major and the same melody in D major, there won't be any significant difference, it's going to be the same thing but higher. Regardless, you can shift to a different tonality mid song, in fact many pop songs do that. You don't have to use a major scale either. Maybe you want to use the pentatonic minor (very common in blues/rock influenced stuff). Or maybe you want to use the aeolian aka natural minor mode (common choice for sadder songs). Or maybe you want to raise the 7th degree of the aeolian and get the harmonic minor to get a darker/more "eastern"/more classical colour (it was the most common minor in classical music), again a somewhat common choice even in pop, you can hear that in some Billie Eilish songs. Or maybe you want a brighter minor scale, like the dorian, I heard it in a pop song very recently, don't remember who it was from. Santana famously used it frequently. Maybe you want to use mixolydian, which sounds similar to the major scale but maybe a bit bluesier. Maybe you want something even darker and use phrygian, or maybe phrygian dominant to get that flamenco sound. At times some people go really crazy and use some more exotic scales like the double harmonic major/Arabian scale to really give it an "Eastern" sound. You can even throw in a brief whole tone scale passage in there to make it dreamy/disorienting, and you can have one of these scales for your verse and a different for your chorus, or even for the bridge.

5 values? I'm not sure what you mean by that either. Are you saying that you can only have whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes? That's not exactly true, there are also 32nds and I've even encountered 64ths. There are also triplets and quintuplets of quarters, 8ths, 16ths and even halfs sometimes. I have also seen 7-tuplets and 11-tuplets. You can also combine any value with other values any way you want. And sometimes people play things completely out of time to create a specific feel.

4/4? Why does it have to be in 4/4? I've heard many, many pop songs in 3/4, 6/8, etc. I've also heard pop songs in 9/8, or 7/8, or 5/4. I've heard many pop songs that change time signature half way through, or change tempo half way through.

20 seconds for the motive? Why? That's not necessary.

40 seconds for the refrain? Again, why? And why does there have to be a single refrain? There is even some pop songs with two or three choruses. I don't remember which song it was but I remember a My Chemical Romance (although that's not really a pop band for most people) song that had like 3 or 4 different sections that seemed like choruses, it is pretty unusual but it's not impossible to conceive of a song like that, even one that is shorter than 5 minutes (which is the only real restriction here).

You also say nothing about all the different timbres you can pick, or the different tempos, or the different ways you can combine melodies, or the ways you can add flourishes that don't belong in the scale you picked, or the drum beats, or the sound effects and loops, or spoken word passages, or rapping, or any of these things.

So as you can see there is plenty of room to play around. Sometimes stuff does sound very similar, but that is only because most music during any given time period in any given culture tries to conform to what is most popular at that time, so the same stuff gets repeated a lot. But you can only do that for so long before people get bored, and then someone comes and adds a new element that no one had thought before or had thought before people were ready for it, and music moves on in ways that can't be predicted.

If you have any doubts about any of that I can find examples of pop songs utilising any of these aspects pretty easily.

 

[AndreasC]

Have fun with your music!

This is silly. John Cage was deliberately trying to push the limits of what can be considered music. In a sense he was trolling the audience. Rap being music isn't controversial, only people who don't understand music and snobs still disagree.

 

[AndreasC]

WRONG MEANING! Whether it is or is not music is not the purpose of Rap. To classify as or not as being music completely misses the point.

I've heard of people saying rap is music. I've heard of people saying it isn't. But I've never heard anyone say it is in some sort of superposition of the two states. Certainly not rappers!

 

[fresh_42]

I've heard of people saying rap is music. I've heard of people saying it isn't. But I've never heard anyone say it is in some sort of superposition of the two states. Certainly not rappers!

They might not have said it, but Gangster's Paradise is definitely a superposition.

 

[AndreasC]

I haven't heard GZA from Wu Tang Clan's opinion on the issue though, he has an interest in physics so I imagine he might have an opinion.

 

[sysprog]

Interesting calculations! (I haven't checked your calculations). It looks like you only included possible melodies. If you add the fact that each note can be a part of different harmonies, the possibilities of variations ought to dramatically increase.

As an example, an A note (flat, e.g. 440 Hz) can be combined with various chords and harmonies, e.g. D major, D minor, A major, A minor, F# minor etc, since A is a note in these chords. There are also various further chord variations that can be made in addition to the basic chords, by adding different notes.

The pitch 'A natural' is 440Hz $-$ 'A flat' is 415.330Hz $-$one semitone below.

 

[sysprog]

They might not have said it, but Gangster's Paradise is definitely a superposition.

That song was preceded by Stevie Wonder's 'Pastime Paradise'.

Ref: https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/pastime-paradise.html

 

[sysprog]

Well, technically, this is wrong. Music has a finite alphabet and a finite set of harmonic rules. We can also limit the duration of a piece of music by, say 5 hours - if we include operas. All in all this is a finite set of possibilities, the more if we restrict time to say 4 minutes of a good song. And we cannot play arbitrary fast, so there is a given limit of possible songs.

Congratulations, @fresh_42 $-$ by your definitions that make music finite, you've just implicitly invented $\mathbb R \text {eal}$ music!

 

[Buzz Bloom]

we've seen so much that it's really difficult to do something now that is truly revolutionary.

Hi Perok:

I mostly agree with you, but there is a subtle detail that is a bit different for me.

The emphasis for contemporary creativity is to create something stylistically different. The old great stuff had an important additional goal: to also be beautiful art. My personal idiosyncratic taste is that almost nothing after 1970 is beautiful. The last of beauty was the Beatles.

Regards,
Buzz

 

[AndreasC]

My personal idiosyncratic taste is that almost nothing after 1970 is beautiful. The last of beauty was the Beatles.

Well you may have that opinion but it's not because artists no longer try to make something beautiful, it's just that you, personally, don't find what they make beautiful. Or maybe you just aren't aware of a lot of new music, that's also frequently the case with people with a blanket distaste of music after a certain period.

 

[fresh_42]

The last of beauty was the Beatles.

C'mon, Queen and ABBA were at least as innovative and easy listening.

 

[DennisN]

Congratulations, @fresh_42 by your definitions that make music finite, you've just implicitly invented Real music!

Well, we could take the Circle of fifths (see below) and assign complex numbers to the different keys.

Melodies with only the notes A and Eb could thus be considered real, while melodies with only the notes C and Gb could be considered imaginary. More complex melodies would be considered complex.

 

[atyy]

It's not so much a question quality - there must be Mozarts, Beethovens and Tschaikovskies alive today - it's a question of what they are composing. They can't do what was done in the past, so what are they finding to do?

 

[sysprog]

I think that sometimes a new collaboration can help to keep a seasoned musician's 'latest thing' from being merely a rehash of the 'same old thing' $-$ when this came out it was an 'instant classic' (cool vid, too):

 

[Jarvis323]

Recently I read a quote/statement by a younger (20's) male member of a modern band: apprx: All the good music has already been created,played,copied, completed... I do not think he was referring to classical but I am assuming just about everything else: pop, blues ,jazz, motown, country western. ( And in my opinion that was accomplished about 1960 to 1966)
Now for me and I am sure many others he is preaching to the choir. But what did surprise me was this statement made by a young person in the music world. Agree/disagree ?

Music evolves slowly, because musicians are trained to play what already exists, and tend to imitate what they've already heard. And people define good music based on what they've listened to, learned, and grown to love, and don't appreciate what they don't understand. The space of good music only seems saturated because the music you know has already been played and you don't know what you don't know.

 

[morrobay]

Music evolves slowly, because musicians are trained to play what already exists, and tend to imitate what they've already heard. And people define good music based on what they've listened to, learned, and grown to love, and don't appreciate what they don't understand. The space of good music only seems saturated because the music you know has already been played and you don't know what you don't know.

Ok I suppose there are some permutations of all the technical musical variables.
But if this is all they have got now: I can sing this bad.

And while # 20 is not bad, i wonder where he got the idea?

 

[Algr]

You can look at this question in terms of law. How similar do two songs have to be before one can accuse the other of plagiarism? Given how often this happens, it is reasonable to suspect that we are running out of new ways to assemble notes together.

 

[Helios]

it is reasonable to suspect that we are running out of new ways to assemble notes together

How many ways are there to assemble notes together to show that it is reasonable to suspect that we are running out them?

 

[AndreasC]

You can look at this question in terms of law. How similar do two songs have to be before one can accuse the other of plagiarism? Given how often this happens, it is reasonable to suspect that we are running out of new ways to assemble notes together.

No this logic is fallacious. It's like saying that students copying each other (or at least coming up with similar essays because they used the same manual provided by the teacher) is proof we are running out of new ways to assemble words.

 

[AndreasC]

I guess many people on this thread get confused because they think the same set of the combinations of notes that are easy to the ears in a given culture and on a given period of time (or even for a given individual) persists through all cultures and all time. On any given period the most popular music will always sound similar, because musicians are either actively trying to imitate what is already popular, or they do it subconsciously because this is what they too like, since this is what they grew to like through living in that society. It's only a matter of time before that sound grows unfashionable. People used to say that all pop music sounds the same in the 90s and early 2000s as well. People still say it now. But the pop music of these time periods sounded almost nothing like the pop music of today, let alone the pop music of the 80s.

I usually tell people who fail to realize how what is considered compelling in music changes throughout cultures and time to go listen to gamelan music, which was and is considered important and popular in Indonesia. It sounds absolutely nothing like the vast majority of western music and yet you can see that it was considered compelling enough to have the significance it did. So clearly you can see that nothing is set in stone.

 

[BWV]

Bollywood film songs are typically based on Hindustani ragas. Ragas, simplified, consist of a scale plus certain characteristic phrases and emphasis notes. Khamaj, one of the more popular (there are dozens of widely used ragas and hundreds more lesser used) has over 2500 Bollywood film songs associated with it (in addition to all the legit classical performances of the raga).

khamaj essentially uses the diatonic major scale but with a flattened 7th on descending phrases, so a mixolydian flavor in western jargon, and emphasizes the 3rd and 7th scale degrees. Fairly limited, but a lot of music has been generated from it.https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/ragas-reloaded/

 

[BWV]

I guess many people on this thread get confused because they think the same set of the combinations of notes that are easy to the ears in a given culture and on a given period of time (or even for a given individual) persists through all cultures and all time. On any given period the most popular music will always sound similar, because musicians are either actively trying to imitate what is already popular, or they do it subconsciously because this is what they too like, since this is what they grew to like through living in that society. It's only a matter of time before that sound grows unfashionable. People used to say that all pop music sounds the same in the 90s and early 2000s as well. People still say it now. But the pop music of these time periods sounded almost nothing like the pop music of today, let alone the pop music of the 80s.

I usually tell people who fail to realize how what is considered compelling in music changes throughout cultures and time to go listen to gamelan music, which was and is considered important and popular in Indonesia. It sounds absolutely nothing like the vast majority of western music and yet you can see that it was considered compelling enough to have the significance it did. So clearly you can see that nothing is set in stone.

And how relevant is the concept of ‘unique new music’ within this tradition?