# When will the music end? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 24, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916 "2005-04-24T22:43:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cadabra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@Cadabra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cadabra)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/1 "2005-04-24T22:43:01Z")
Hello all. I’ve got one of those great philosophical questions for you all. Will there, one day, be a time when no more original music can be made? Let me explain. First of all there are a finite amount of notes on a music scale. There are also a finite amount of musical instruments. Each instrument has a finite amount of notes it can play. There is also a finite amount of ways to play those notes. With all of this I ask you, will there ever be a day when humanity as a whole will have to sit back and say “well, that’s it. We’ve created all of the music we can create. What now?” Hold on a sec. Don’t believe it will happen? Than think of this. There is allready a genre of music dedicated to the taking of an older piece of music and using it as the basis of their music. In other words, we are allready copying ourselves. So is it possible that one day we will run our of music to create? ---
**Author:** ![jimpatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9e5f3/32.png) [@jimpatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimpatro)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2005, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/2 "2005-04-24T22:56:27Z")
I agree. And actually we had a debate on this very subject a few years ago. In fact your OP could almost be my post verbatim. ---
**Author:** ![Waterman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b2d939/32.png) [@Waterman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waterman)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/3 "2005-04-24T23:01:28Z")
From a mathematical point of view the number of permutations and combinations of notes and scales is mind-boggling. I don’t think it will happen anytime in this millennium. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/4 "2005-04-24T23:01:38Z")
It isn’t just the notes — i.e., the melodies. It’s also the harmonies. And the rhythms. Music is composed of all three. Even if you could argue that all three are finite (and I believe you would have a problem arguing that about rhythm), the number of combinations is still sufficiently large enough to outlast the universe, let alone humanity. ---
**Author:** ![jimpatro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9e5f3/32.png) [@jimpatro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimpatro)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2005, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/5 "2005-04-24T23:25:05Z")
But that’s like saying that Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics and by Marilyn Manson are two different songs. But they’re not. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2005, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/6 "2005-04-24T23:28:11Z")
There’s no finite number of notes to musical scales (plural). Most instruments are not limited to a finite set of notes. > [@jimpatro](#): > > But that’s like saying that Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics and by Marilyn Manson are two different songs. But they’re not. No - but they’re two different pieces of music. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/7 "2005-04-25T00:15:59Z")
> [@Cadabra](#): > > There are also a finite amount of musical instruments. I dunno about this one… we can be pretty crafty when we want to be. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/8 "2005-04-25T03:49:23Z")
There seems to be this notion that “finite” means “small”. It doesn’t. There are some [really fucking big finite numbers](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=149305) out there. ---
**Author:** ![TheBoneyKingofNowhere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@TheBoneyKingofNowhere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBoneyKingofNowhere)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/9 "2005-04-25T14:08:22Z")
Yes, but the combination of notes, instruments, rhythms, harmonies, makes the finite ‘limits’ practically endless. ---
**Author:** ![Standup\_Karmic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@Standup\_Karmic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Standup_Karmic)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/10 "2005-04-25T14:19:12Z")
I had also asked this very question a couple of years ago…I believe it was my very first Q on Straight Dope, actually. I also asked the question of a David Clampitt, assistant professor at Yale whose specialty is mathematics in music. Says Mr. Clampitt: > [@](#): > > Well, this is a perennial question for speculation. Since, as you note, the basic constraining elements are matters of definition and subjectivity, any answers would remain speculative. In the 18th century, the idea of permutation of musical elements, Ars combinatoria, was seriously entertained. C.P.E. Bach in 1757, for example, presented a method to generate 429,536,481 examples of invertible counterpoint (different registral arrangements of simultaneous melodies). Joseph Riepel, in his 1755 Grundregeln zur Tonordnung, calculated permutations of musical elements in the order of 10 to the 66th power. He also considered all the varieties of harmony that he thought musically possible (eliminating clusters of tones, but allowing many that are nonstandard). We can consider the number of harmonies possible with the 12 tones of the Western system by noting that the number of subsets of the 12 tones is 2 to the 12th power, or 4096. This includes everything, but remember that these are just the abstract notes (C, C#, D, etc.). > > When you factor in register, doubling, order, etc., this number blows up enormously. Your question has perhaps more to do with melody: obviously not all possibiliies are interesting, there are constraints on length, repetition, register, and all sorts of other things, but when you add in the aspect of rhythm, which is as important as pitch in the construction of a pleasing melodic profile, the possibilities are astronomical. > > Finally, music is a cultural practice, that changes over time. Gregorian chant was limited to single melody lines, to a restricted vocal range, and to 8 or 9 pitch classes (note names) within a given piece. Still, this is a vast repertory. Of course, originality is not prized in this repertory, so the church doesn’t worry about “running out of new chants.” In the future, it may be that musical culture will involve microtones (as some traditions already do). The possibilities will then explode again. It will still probably remain true, as Schoenberg said, that there remain good pieces to be written in C major. I still don’t know what it means really, but I’ll be it’s a great explanation! It was my thought to have a supercomputer write all possible songs (based upon some as-yet undetermined criteria), copyright them all, and become the ultimate master of all that is musical. All artists will have to come to me to license my music. And I’ll tell ya what, I won’t be licensing any of my music to Jessica Simpson, nosiree. ---
**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:** [April 25, 2005, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/11 "2005-04-25T15:01:35Z")
I think the important part of this question is not really how many precise different combinations of tones/rhythms/durations can be put together (clearly, an infinite number), but how many _qualitatively_ different ‘songs’ are there? If I go to sing Bon Jovi at karaoke, the karaoke CD is playing Dead or Alive, even though it is far from an exact replica of Bon Jovi’s recording (different vocals, for one). And, for that matter, when Bon Jovi performs Dead or Alive it’s different than the recording, but is still the same song. Likewise, I’m sure that musicians will be selling variations on the almost genre-defining I V IV rock progression for years and years to come, but I’m not sure they’ll be making new music (for non-musicians, the I V IV progression can be heard in many tunes, The Who’s Baba O’Riley being perhaps the most ‘current’ given its use in commercials lately). ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/12 "2005-04-25T15:51:12Z")
Actually, something just occurred to me that I should’ve caught last night. Yeah, any given work is of finite length, but there’s no (theoretical) maximum length. So we’re dealing with the set of all finite works of arbitrary length, and that set is infinite. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/13 "2005-04-25T16:04:15Z")
You can’t stop the music, nobody can stop the music. Take the cold from snow, tell the trees, don’t grow, tell the wind, don’t blow, 'cause it’s easier. No, you can’t stop the music, nobody can stop the music. Take the spark from love, make the rain fall up 'cause that’s easier to do. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/14 "2005-04-25T18:26:36Z")
Music’s ability to evoke emotions is a very non-linear process. Seemingly small changes can change the music very dramatically. The fountainhead of this isn’t physical, but… well, if I knew where it came from, I’d tap into it, and I’d be famous. One good example is how the pioneers of bebop (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, et al) took chord progressions from old pop songs and fashioned strikingly original works by playing their crazy solos over them. E.g., Parker’s “Donna Lee” is based on the chords to “Back Home in Indiana”. You can sometimes see the process at work, where they haven’t quite created a new song: Parker’s version of “Embraceable You” (on the “All-Star Sextet” album) is pretty much unrecognizable – they could’ve called it a new song, but opted to still call it “Embraceable You”. A much different example is Kurt Cobain, who combined the dynamics of metal and punk with better, catchier melodies. The result is clearly derivative, but very different from its roots. Parker himself said something germane in an interview, in reply to someone suggesting that bebop was “it”, the end of the creative road, the perfect music. He adamantly disagreed – IIRC, he said something about music _having_ to keep changing, permanently. (Also, based on the two examples I’ve given, the secret is to get hooked on heroin and die young). 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/15 "2005-04-25T18:32:04Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > You can’t stop the music, nobody can stop the music. > Take the cold from snow, tell the trees, don’t grow, > tell the wind, don’t blow, 'cause it’s easier. > No, you can’t stop the music, nobody can stop the music. > Take the spark from love, make the rain fall up > 'cause that’s easier to do. Well, just in case: when the music’s over, turn out the light. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/16 "2005-04-25T21:49:44Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > Yeah, any given work is of finite length, but there’s no (theoretical) maximum length. So we’re dealing with the set of all finite works of arbitrary length, and that set is infinite. Surely though there’s some upper bound in practice. A piece of music that required 150 years to play would be effectively un-hearable — completely beyond the reach of human experience. Even ones shorter than that might be disqualified. Personally, I’d reject any “song” lasting longer than, oh, say a day or two, but then I might be the impatient sort. That, and I’d fall asleep. Under any reasonable constraint, the set of possible songs would again be finite, though still impractically huge — huge enough that there might not be enough matter in the solar system to record them all, or enough shelf space on Earth to house them all. > [@F. U. Shakespeare](#): > > Music’s ability to evoke emotions is a very non-linear process. Seemingly small changes can change the music very dramatically. I’d agree, but there are still some limits, in both time and pitch and instrumentation, beyond which humans won’t be able to tell the difference. If the 12-tone western scale doesn’t have the resolution, consider a 24-tone scale. Or 48. And if 16th notes aren’t snappy enough for you, consider 32nd notes, or 128th. Sooner or later you’ll reach the limit of what humans can distinguish. However much music we have left to discover, I have to tell you that all the new stuff sounds the same to me. I think we’re already nearing the End. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/17 "2005-04-25T23:23:00Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > Surely though there’s some upper bound in practice. A piece of music that required 150 years to play would be effectively un-hearable — completely beyond the reach of human experience. So 639 years would certainly be too much? [BBC NEWS | Entertainment | First notes for 639-year composition](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2728595.stm) ---
**Author:** ![SuperNelson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@SuperNelson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperNelson)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2005, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/18 "2005-04-25T23:59:12Z")
If you define each piece of music as the sounds that can be recorded on one standard audio CD (and you may or may not agree here), there is definitely a finite limit to the permutations involved. As a series of ones and zeroes, each “Album” can be substituted with a freakishly long binary number (something like 5,872,025,600 bits long). I don’t remember how to calculate binary permutations, but there is a finite limit of permutations, most of which differ from each other by an amount indiscernable to the human ear. ---
**Author:** ![MacSpon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/19 "2005-04-26T00:11:40Z")
Spider Robinson’s short story _Melancholy Elephants_ was basically about this idea. You can find a (legit) copy [here](http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm). ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2005, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916/20 "2005-04-26T00:16:26Z")
> [@SuperNelson](#): > > If you define each piece of music as the sounds that can be recorded on one standard audio CD (and you may or may not agree here)… Wagner would disagree. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-will-the-music-end/300916.md?page=2)