# What will music sound like 1,000 years from now? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 8, 2003, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872 "2003-03-08T06:42:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DarrenS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/1 "2003-03-08T06:42:24Z")
Or in general, at some distant date in the future? What will our descendents be listening to? Will they have learned to appreciate the purity of sine waves…or will it be pure rhythm…perhaps incredibly complex layered music, a sort of “3D stereogram” for the ears? What would such music sound like to US ? ---
**Author:** ![jaimeshawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jaimeshawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaimeshawn)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/2 "2003-03-08T06:53:19Z")
I just bought a CD with Te Deum (written in ~900?) yesterday, so I suspect it will depend alot on whether we have a major civilization reset between now and then. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/3 "2003-03-08T07:07:09Z")
Well, about three centuries from now, it will involve [space hippies](http://www.homevideos.com/startreks/st76.htm). ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/4 "2003-03-08T07:12:54Z")
Following current trends, it would get less and less dependent on melody and harmony, while getting more and more dependent on loudness, synthesized sounds, and screaming. But then maybe there will be a rebirth of “real” music. Maybe people will collectively realize that modern music really sucks, and suddenly go back to classical music. That would be awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Wearia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@Wearia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wearia)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/5 "2003-03-08T07:51:15Z")
I think it will be really fast paced. So much so that you’ll need auditory implants just to understand it all. Heck, its a thousand years, we probably won’t be using these type of ears anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/6 "2003-03-08T08:08:02Z")
I think that not just music, but many other arts and cultural influences, will be cyclical. We have already gone through two different Beatles resurgences. Car design is going retro. Popular singers like Nora Jones are sounding more like '30’s crooners and 50’s jazz singers. I fully expect that what will happen is that new art forms will be created, but as the body of extant great works vies for our attention, newer stuff will have less and less influence unless it is truly great. But just like we still make Shakespeare plays and turn them into movies, I fully expect that 500 years from the XXIth Beatles reunion will be in full swing, complete with 3-D AI recreations of the Beatles making new movies and making new videos for “Sgt. Pepper’s”, which will be critically hailed as being better than the 2-D AI reinterpretation of 2257. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/7 "2003-03-08T08:09:43Z")
Oh, and some time in the 2500’s, whatever personal transportation vehicle people are using will come out in a version that looks exactly like a 1963 Corvette split-window coupe. ---
**Author:** ![CyberPundit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@CyberPundit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CyberPundit)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/8 "2003-03-08T08:35:46Z")
“Heck, its a thousand years, we probably won’t be using these type of ears anyway.” Yes this is an important point. 1000 years from now humans hearing will likely be a lot more sophisticated than what we have now and music will likely adapt to that. The average person will have a far better musical “ear” than a musical genius today so presumably we will be able to understand and appreciate much more complicated music. ---
**Author:** ![Hepcat421](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/34f0e0/32.png) [@Hepcat421](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hepcat421)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/9 "2003-03-08T11:11:52Z")
Sounds like teen spirit 🙂 Yes, what kind of sound does 1 trillion shitty bands make? Maybe humanity will not have survived another 1000 years. If the music plays and no one is there to hear it will it make a sound? If we could travel to the future I would guess that the music made then is likely to be different but recognizable. The commonalities that link all music together in this day and age and throughout our history will most likely be true still in the distant future. The instrumentation, composition, performance, recording, and delivery of music will change over time. The fact that musical preference/appreciation is of an emotional nature will not. Will we develop new emotions over time? If not, then a limiting factor would be our ability to develop new ways to express the same emotions through music. People will always bang on stuff to make music. Maybe we will be banging together solar systems then. Maybe the RIAA will have stamped out music ---
**Author:** ![raizok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4491bb/32.png) [@raizok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raizok)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/10 "2003-03-08T11:26:13Z")
\Kraftwerk\ !!! Hmm my vote goes to computer-generated music. I mean you have a program that can pick out likely chart-hits, why not one that can create a better Backstreet Boy? Then because of Kazaa, we’ll see a rise in not-for-profit musicians, with the major ones getting paid through Paypal and not through a record label. Am I on the ball? Or am I on the fucken ball ladies n gents? _takes a bow_ ---
**Author:** ![Moe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moe/32/2972_2.png) [@Moe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/12 "2003-03-09T07:03:34Z")
It’ll probably sound like the music 2000 years from now, but with an ironic, kitschy, retro [twist](http://www.theonion.com/onion3214/usretro.html) ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/13 "2003-03-09T13:26:13Z")
In a thousand years, I suspect music will be played by hitting two rocks together as our descendants warm themselves by their campfires in the ruins left after The Great Collapse. ---
**Author:** ![drm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@drm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/14 "2003-03-09T17:04:34Z")
I"m not really sure what music will _sound_ like, but I am sure that **The Rolling Stones** will probably be playing it. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/15 "2003-03-09T17:37:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CyberPundit \* > \*\*“Heck, its a thousand years, we probably won’t be using these type of ears anyway.” > Yes this is an important point. 1000 years from now humans hearing will likely be a lot more sophisticated than what we have now and music will likely adapt to that. The average person will have a far better musical “ear” than a musical genius today so presumably we will be able to understand and appreciate much more complicated music. \*\* I believe there is evidence that people in modern indistrialized nations have worse hearing than those in agrarian or hunter-gatherer societies, due to greater exposure to loud machine-generated or amplified noise. People in the future may have better musical education, but they might also have worse hearing. Unless we develop some way to compensate for this, music in the future may need to be simple, bold, and bass-heavy so it can be understood more easily by people with poor hearing. I once read a not-very-good science-fiction short story set in a future world where everyone was deaf by the time they reached adulthood due to overexposure to loud noises. A decent premise, but the only clever bit to this story was that a bill passed to limit noise levels was called “The Townshend Act”. ---
**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/16 "2003-03-09T17:41:28Z")
It won’t be nearly as good as the music 980 years from now. ---
**Author:** ![Ender\_Will](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Ender\_Will](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ender_Will)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/17 "2003-03-09T19:04:51Z")
Three words: Mos Eisley Cantina ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2003, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/18 "2003-03-09T23:36:52Z")
I’m not 100% sure, but music will have shaped the entire foundation of our civilization at that point, and people will be busy being excellent to each other. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/19 "2003-03-10T00:05:21Z")
How about the Krell music from Forbidden Planet. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/20 "2003-03-10T00:16:38Z")
Um, “don’t trust anything more than 1055 years old”? The critics will dismiss most artists as indulging in sterile, formalistic pastiches of previous styles. Or, as a teen might say, “that’s so 2980’s”. Of course, said critics will miss the irony that to level the charge of stylistic derivativeness and redundancy _is itself_ an utterly derivative dismissal of an artist or a work, however justified. I don’t know how artistic innovation can possibly continue apace with the 20th C.'s astonishing revolutions and innovations, although many a music fan probably assumes that in one way or another it will. I enjoy postmodern, retro, camp/punk spittakes on previous work as much as anyone, but it gives me pause to realize that 1000 years from now, postmodernism (assuming it continues to enjoy some viability as an artistic approach) will itself be over 1000 years old. :eek: At least that this [John Cage piece](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1525792.stm) would finally have been played out. (Although locating a complete boot recording will be a b\*tch.) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2003, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872/21 "2003-03-10T00:30:39Z")
Alot of it will involve or make use of drums/drumming in some way - as much of music always has - across most\* cultures \*I’d say all cultures but this being the SDMB, I’m afraid I’d be asked for a cite or someone would correct me. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-music-sound-like-1-000-years-from-now/159872.md?page=2)