This is no different than you going down to Home Depot's paint section and "inventing a new color." Congratulations, but visible colors to the human eye are finite. Designating a new point on the matrix of sound is no different than that. Cool story, but it is still within a defined matrix of possible sensing.
I did. I do not recall seeing anything that would speak to... But there is an absolute limit to what we can distinguish or even would distinguish as a "different" song mathematically, Which is why I asked the question. If your response is "yeah, that statement is (a) too vague, (b) too specific, and (c) too ridiculous to actually be supported in an even a loose form. But I should at least get partial credit for making a statement that was nonsensical via vagueness and specificity all at once, right?", you can just say it. It's cool. It happens.
And please pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top explain to me how a piano or guitar relates to music in the same way that yellow, red, and blue relate to color. I'm legitimately giddy-excited to hear your response on this.
Hold on, now you're saying that repetition exists in music because of limitations associated with the human ear? Because that's what it sounds* like you just said. *No pun intended
I play The Imperial March on my kazoo, and then a 100 piece orchestra plays it, is it a different song? I say no. It sounds different, has a different emotional feeling to it, but they are the same song. imho, of course.
Why wouldn't it place a limit on music? If you write all of your music in the 50kHz range, the only thing it might do is give people headaches, but they won't hear it. Yes? EDIT: And a question: if I take "twinkle twinkle little star", bump it up 2 octaves across the board, is that a different song?
I think you didn't speak to a mathematical limit to songs. Not in the post I responded to. Stay on topic. Don't argue like Droski. You spoke to the notion that how "different" two songs sound to the human ear can be determined by math. If you weren't speaking to that idea, what did your post with "different" and "mathematical" in it mean?
For purposes of copyright law and practically speaking, no. for purposes of the theoretical discussion on the number of possible songs, yes. This thread has taken a dual track approach and we've discussed both the copyright issue and the math stuff. Conflating the two discussions should be avoided. The # of songs discussion came from me saying it was infinite and getting called on it (and I was wrong). It did not flow directly from the copyright discussion in the sense of determining the # of songs that are copyright distinguishable or something. And I urge all to avoid said conflation as the question is pure mush. I mean, any man who says that mathematics could be used in a copyright infringement trial as an aid in determining how close the songs are should be punched in the ****. Right square. If we're talking a correlation of songs frequency to frequency, I guaran-damn-tee you I could find a cover song that correlates less closely to the original version than does some song that sounds absolutely nothing like it. Zero possible chance there aren't thousands of easy examples of the same. Hell, look back to the video I posted of Michael Angelakos doing a stripped-down version of his song, Sleepyhead. The song featured in that clip would score nowhere near the original song sleepyhead in a math similarity test. You could surely find a focking Calypso or Bluegrass or Big Band song or a hundred of each that would correlate more closely. This is why I'm anxiously awaiting on IP's actual response I requested above, and why I'm bummed that he's going full Droski on me.
Is this the same song as the one sung by Oasis? It's a judgment call, and it's one based on parameters that are unclear. What do we mean by different song? An original work? Something that passes our own internal "is this one ripping off the other one" test? I mean in most every instance a cover song is not a new song in the sense that it's just a modified original. And there's gonna be cover songs that sound nearly exactly like the original and some that are really really close to being standalone works. Anyway, the point is that when we're trying to discuss this, it's all mush and it goes nowhere unless we get on the same page as to what question we're actually trying to answer. [video=youtube;G5c3bWaMPbU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5c3bWaMPbU[/video]
Sometimes cover songs sound nothing like the original song (except for the words). [video=youtube;oA8UEWLUkd0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA8UEWLUkd0[/video]
Also, the above song is fantastic and only falls short of being considered a better song than the original because the original is an all-time great song*...imho. *Like, in my list of top 50 best songs I've ever heard.
Both the covers you posted owe almost everything to the originals. There is nothing creative about either of them.
The VSQ track is an instrumental arrangement. I agree it isn't creative, just well done. The Fugees song is arranged completely differently from the Marley song in virtual every respect save the lyrics themselves. And even those are different in a number of spots. For example: "Ooh, Ah, Ooh, Ah Ooh, Ah, I'm High" From which part of the Marley song did they derive that part? And for the record that part sounds awesome. From what part of the Marley song did they pull the guitar riff....you know, the part that totally drives the song. The Marley song has an organ as the instrument that drives it. By IP Music Theory the guitar and the organ are like the colors blue and yellow. No, hold on, I think the piano was yellow. Hey, what's the organ, IP? Magenta? Moreover, Jesus tap-dancing Christ, am I taking crazy pills? The songs sound nothing alike. Just a note: cover songs have statutory licenses associated with them, so the original recording artist gets paid automatically and the parties don't have to negotiate a license. They do this for many reasons and it would be stupid to do it any other way. It would be stupid to argue that a cover song -- even a cover song that sounded a lot different from the original -- would ever be considered non-infringing of the original recording, and that isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying that No Woman No Cry by Wyclef and by Bob Marley are distinct songs by my eardrum and I have no idea what test you all are applying in calling those two songs the same song. Hopefully it isn't the same test leads to a conclusion that "all music owes its existence to The Beatles". Because, well, don't get me started on that.
