The point here is not that IP's tortoise shell post is quite possibly the most inane in the history of the internet and that we're all significantly dumber for having read it, it's simply that the "piano" or "reducible notes"* version of a song can be barely recognizable from the real world extrapolation that it attempts to interpolate back from. Or that your boy from vsauce was closer with his 2^211 number than with the later he came up with from his boy who used the "single octave" calculation. And I think this can be illustrated by listening to the song "sleepyhead" and then listening to this: [video=youtube;MHl-Mlnq_VY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHl-Mlnq_VY[/video] *term I just created on the fly
I don't get this. Why can't it be different? Playing songs with different instruments normally alters the tempo and rhythm as well -- making it a drastically different song. Not to mention, simply calculating different melodies is even too simplistic. All the various layers of music behind the melody are equally drastic in diversifying music.
You can trace just about any popular song directly back to another popular song. It's inevitable and almost unavoidable. Most singers voices fall in to certain ranges, which leads them to sing in certain keys, within those keys there are only so many ways to incorporate the notes/chords in to a melody that hasn't already been created or at least distinguished to point that it's unnoticeable. Some artists straight rip other artists off, it's blatant and unapologetic. Take Katy Perry and her song "Roar" vs Sara Bareilles' song "Brave". Perry ripped Bareilles's song, it's undeniable. Then there are cases like in hip-hop where everyone and their mother has ripped Clyde Stubblefield's drum patterns. It's not nearly as blatant as the Perry vs Bareilles example because it's just a drum loop but it's a rip non the less. Hard to hold intellectual property over a drum pattern I suppose. Melodies are where you see most of these cases being made, for the record, the Gaye vs Thicke case is a crock of shit, that's infringement on intellectual property the rest of the music industry can expect to pay somebody something. "There's no ideas original, there's nothing new under the sun, it's not what you do but how it's done".
This sounds fine hypothetically, but if a band released music with the same melody but different instruments and tempos, would you or would you not say they were releasing the same song? It is like saying cover bands are releasing original songs.
I didn't say they were original songs, but they're most definitely different songs. Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" being redone into a rock rendition by Framing Hanley are examples I take in mind. They're the same lyrics and notes, but it's completely fair to say they're different songs. [video=youtube;VKQo9aYF22E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKQo9aYF22E[/video]
Yes, if we clone songs and give them different beats, accidentals, or style then we have "infinite songs." Enjoy that. But there is an absolute limit to what we can distinguish or even would distinguish as a "different" song mathematically, and thus it is not infinite in a "human experience" way, but rather only in a mathematical "keep adding notes infinitely/speed it up or slow it down infinitely" sort of way.
A metric shit ton of ways to make a song, but just like sonic drink combos, eventually the good times got to end.
Right. It's a numbers thing. The number is huge and impossible for us to imagine, but it is finite. Then cut it down to what is good, then what is to the tastes of the present culture, and the number is still huge but repetition is definitely conceivable.
I don't know why you're bringing the infinite part back in. Songs being played with different instruments were stated as not being different songs to you. I presented otherwise. It's a different song mathematically and "experiantially".
Again, I don't know why you're regurgitating the "infinite" comment. I'm not discussing the same thing you and KidB are arguing over.
As long as new people are born, there are new tummy drums coming into the world. Every tummy drum is unique. So yes.
Repetition is conceivable because not everybody making music for a living has real talent, but they all gotta eat.
Is this rhetorical? Are you arguing that one day we would all wake up and there would be no way to create a new instrument? I just rubbed dollar bills together and it kinda sounded awesome. New instrument. Boom. Oh no he dih hint. I just started flicking at a 2/3 empty smart water bottle. This beat sounds awesome. That's two.
Yes. Even still, there is a limit to what the human ear can distinguish, and what the human brain would consider distinguishing.
