I often wonder about this.

"It’s all been done before
But so have spring and summer
We welcome them the more
That each is not a callow newcomer.
It's all been said before
By Swift, who said it better.
Or if not Swift, then someone else
Has played with every letter of the alphabet,
It's still worth saying it yet..."

(You need to have been watching BBC TV in the 60s to be able to hear the tune to those lyrics: theme song to a short-lived satire series called BBC3. Doesn't seem to exist on YouTube, alas - it was a much better song than the series, and doesn't deserve to be forgotten).

Anyway, the point is that everything has been done before: all the words have been said and the notes have been played, and we still haven't come to the end of all possible songs and poems. Wonderful, isn't it.

PS: What a good song by David Byrne - I'm off to download that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-17 11:48 by Green Lady.

The best riffs have yet to come. We just don't know them yet.

What's finite is the artist's creative period. After they reach a certain age, it's virtually gone. Human beings have a relatively short period of musical inspiration, it seems.

From INTERVIEW MAGAZINE, 1977:

Andy Warhol: "Is it true that original melodies are running out?"

Mick Jagger: "I don't believe in original melodies. There are only so many computations of eight notes."

Catherine Guinness: "Which is rather a lot. I think it's eight to the power..."

Mick: "Eight to the power of eight."

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Brue
What's finite is the artist's creative period. After they reach a certain age, it's virtually gone. Human beings have a relatively short period of musical inspiration, it seems.

Mathematicians and composers both seem to peak in their late 20's. There are exceptions, however. Paul Simon was in his late 40's when he produced Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints, although he borrowed the musical compositions of other cultures to help him along the way. Beethoven's final symphony, the ninth, was arguably his greatest, although I have read that musical motifs for it emerged when was in his twenties. I find it interesting that Billy Joel hasn't recorded pop music since the early 90's - not even bothering to try, it seems.

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-19 20:27 by Max'sKansasCity.

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Title5Take1
From INTERVIEW MAGAZINE, 1977:

Andy Warhol: "Is it true that original melodies are running out?"

Mick Jagger: "I don't believe in original melodies. There are only so many computations of eight notes."

Catherine Guinness: "Which is rather a lot. I think it's eight to the power..."

Mick: "Eight to the power of eight."

This number does not take into account the intervals between the notes

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Send It To me

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Brue
What's finite is the artist's creative period. After they reach a certain age, it's virtually gone. Human beings have a relatively short period of musical inspiration, it seems.

Mathematicians and composers both seem to peak in their late 20's. There are exceptions, however. Paul Simon was in his late 40's when he produced Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints, although he borrowed the musical compositions of other cultures to help him along the way. Beethoven's final symphony, the ninth, was arguably his greatest, although I have read that musical motifs for it emerged when was in his twenties. I find it interesting that Billy Joel hasn't recorded pop music since the early 90's - not even bothering to try, it seems.

Here's an example - this is the first decent rock song Frampton had written in years, but his son wrote it with him. His son was 22 when they wrote this. Frampton won a grammy in 2006, but it was all instrumental stuff, and a lot of it was derivative, even though the musicianship was excellent. Watts and Wyman played on that album. Even Frampton described this song as more 'alternative' than classic rock - clearly because his son was in on it.

Blanket statements about creativity are reckless. Senescence affects different people differntly. Dostoevsky's greatest novel was his last.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-18 01:37 by Title5Take1.

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Title5Take1
Blanket statements about creativity are reckless. Senescence affects different people differntly. Dostoevsky's greatest novel was his last.

That's a novel. We're talking about music.

Leonard Cohen was almost 59 years old when The Future came out in 1993, and that's one of his very best albums, along with I'm Your Man which was released five years earlier. He doesn't have very traditional hooks in his music, however (although I find many of his songs to be quite infectious and melodic).

Sammy Hagar didn't join Van Halen until he was almost 40 years old, and then (with Eddie) created his very best songs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-18 04:17 by Send It To me.

The number of instantly recognisable and unique songs based on the standard blues changes and licks would seem to indicate that it doesn't really matter !

[Three chords and five notes would appear to be pefectly adequate for infinate variety. ]

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Send It To me

Sammy Hagar didn't join Van Halen until he was almost 40 years old, and then (with Eddie) created his very best songs.

Now THAT'S butt funny

The number of characters is finite, but new books keep popping up..

It's really not infinite, if you have 12 possible notes and 8 are played in a row that's 429,981,696 (12^8) possible melodies. That includes melodies with the same note in a row eight times; as such, if you require a note change each time you have 233,846,052 (12*11^7) possiblities. This still allows for half step variations (B - C - B etc.). So if you require whole step movements you have 120,000,000 (12*10^7) possibilities. If you want to avoid Vanilla Ice situations (all but the last couple notes are the same), you have 1,200,000 (12*10^5) possibilites.

So in short you have ~1.2 million interesting melodies possible.

This number would fall much more if you excluded things like taking the same melody down a step.

In the same vein, there are 1,452 three chord progressions possible (assuming a chord change each time and only counting the root note, 12*11*11).

josh.

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Josh2131
It's really not infinite, if you have 12 possible notes and 8 are played in a row that's 429,981,696 (12^8) possible melodies. That includes melodies with the same note in a row eight times; as such, if you require a note change each time you have 233,846,052 (12*11^7) possiblities. This still allows for half step variations (B - C - B etc.). So if you require whole step movements you have 120,000,000 (12*10^7) possibilities. If you want to avoid Vanilla Ice situations (all but the last couple notes are the same), you have 1,200,000 (12*10^5) possibilites.

So in short you have ~1.2 million interesting melodies possible.

This number would fall much more if you excluded things like taking the same melody down a step.

In the same vein, there are 1,452 three chord progressions possible (assuming a chord change each time and only counting the root note, 12*11*11).

josh.

However, the overwhelming number of melodies that you will invent will not be pleasing to the ear. In terms of melodies that anyone would want to listen to, its much harder to measure mathematically. That's why a random note generator on a computer won't out-compose a human being.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-19 04:04 by Send It To me.

We all "know" that popular music is not as good as it was (in the 60s/70s). Why?

I don't think the problem is that all good melodies have been invented already, to put it that way. Chess is an example. There the number of different games is definitely finite, and the number of sensible or good games is much more finite. But chess seems to be still alive and well.

One possible cause: The great songwriters in the 60s etc. didn't watch TV when they were kids. Perhaps TV is not good for the ability to imagine/create.

But there is still great new music around. Part of the problem is that it is not well known. Check out e.g. the Canadian Frazey Ford (The Be Good Tanyas' singer):













Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-19 06:34 by Ringo.

to me, as far as rock'n'roll and pop are concerned, we have already reached the level of best riffs.
and of course, the Stones are enormously responsible of that.
There will always be new songs and new melodies as new books and new novels but you can't avoid to have riffs and melodies that sound like each other a bit. The songwriters from the 60's and 70's brought inspiration for all musicians that came after them.
The Beatles have the sense of melody and the Stones the sense of riff.
ever since, I think it turns around that.

"every record that I make sounds like a record that I've made - JUST NOT AS GOOD" - randy newman

There are lots of note and interval combinations but only some end up sounding ok and the rest sound weird.

The note and interval combinations that have worked for the Blues and then Rock/Blues have pretty much been explored I think and now it's a lot of repetition and samey sort of sounding things.

The Stones latched onto a lot of Blues and even Jazz stuff that was old by the 60s but younger audiences in Europe and even the US had not heard it much previously.

Same thing goes for Jazz and Classical but Jazz and Classical went to weirder note and interval combinations with Free Jazz and Schoenberg, rather than keep repeating the note and interval combinations that have worked.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-19 12:01 by howled.

Send it To Me, there are as many riffs and melodies to still be played with corresponding lyrics as there is new threads you start here on IORR. peace

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Naturalust
Send it To Me, there are as many riffs and melodies to still be played with corresponding lyrics as there is new threads you start here on IORR. peace

Just doing what i can to make the board an fun & interesting place. Hopefully, I have a few hit singles along with the b sides and album cuts.

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Stones62

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Title5Take1
From INTERVIEW MAGAZINE, 1977:

Andy Warhol: "Is it true that original melodies are running out?"

Mick Jagger: "I don't believe in original melodies. There are only so many computations of eight notes."

Catherine Guinness: "Which is rather a lot. I think it's eight to the power..."

Mick: "Eight to the power of eight."

This number does not take into account the intervals between the notes

Sharps are notes too.

Not to mention combination of notes, then it really gets into the brazillions of possibilities.