Will We Ever Run Out of New Music?

Key Concepts:

• Finite vs. Infinite possibilities in music
• Digital music as bits (0s and 1s)
• Melodic combinations and permutations
• Commonalities in music despite vast possibilities
• Influence of past music and human preferences
• Common Meter (Ballad Meter) in lyrics
• Compressibility of music and its relation to enjoyment

1. The Sheer Number of Possible Songs:

• The iTunes store has 28 million songs, Last.fm has 45 million, and Gracenote has 130 million.
• Listening to all songs in the Gracenote database would take over 1,200 years.
• Digital music is made of bits, either 0 or 1.
• A 5-minute song on a CD (sampling at 44.1 kHz) requires about 211 million bits.
• The number of possible arrangements of these bits is 2 to the 211 millionth power, a number with 63 million digits.
• This number is larger than the estimated number of hydrogen atoms in the universe (80 digits).
• This number represents every possible 5-minute audio file at CD quality, including every possible conversation.
• While finite, this number is astronomically large.

2. Narrowing Down the Possibilities: Melodic Combinations:

• Ferrouslepidoptera on Everything2 calculated possible melodies within one octave, considering intervals.
• Given a single measure with whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, or thirty-second notes, the number of unique measures is smaller but still vast.
• Yerricde's calculation focused on 8-note combinations within one octave, assuming three note lengths.
• This yields about 79 billion possible combinations.
• Under this definition, 100 songwriters creating a new 8-note melody every second would exhaust all possibilities in 248 years.

3. Commonalities and Similarities in Music:

• Despite the vast number of possibilities, many songs sound similar.
• Examples: "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," "Alphabet Song," and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" share the same melody. "My Country Tis of Thee" and "God Save the Queen" are the same song. "Love Me Tender" is the same as "Aura Lea."
• Soundsjustlike.com is a resource for finding songs that sound alike.
• The Axis of Awesome's "4 Chords" demonstrates how many songs use the same four chords.

4. Influence and Remixing:

• Humans gravitate towards certain patterns and are influenced by past music.
• Kirby Ferguson's "Everything is a Remix" series explores these commonalities.

5. Common Meter (Ballad Meter) in Lyrics:

• Common Meter is a prevalent poetic meter.
• It consists of lines with eight syllables, followed by lines with six syllables, with iambic stress.
• Examples of songs in common meter: Pokemon theme song, Gilligan's Island theme, House of the Rising Sun, Amazing Grace, and much of Emily Dickinson's poetry.
• "Stairway to Gilligan's Island" is a composition that takes advantage of common meter's commonness.

6. Compressibility and Enjoyment:

• Research suggests that the compressibility of a song can predict its enjoyability.
• Too simple (easily compressible) is boring.
• Too complex (not compressible) is also not enjoyable.
• There's a "magic zone" where compressibility aligns with enjoyment.

7. Conclusion:

• Mathematically, there are enough unique melodies to ensure new music will always be possible.
• However, humans are wired to prefer certain patterns and melodies.
• The interconnectedness and similarities in music are more interesting than the sheer number of possibilities.
• New music will always remind us of familiar patterns and preferences.

Notable Quotes:

• "It's as if we have more space than we need, more space than we could ever hope to see all of, or visit all of, or know all of, but no matter what new place we go, in a general sense, new, popular music will always remind us a bit of home."

Technical Terms:

• Bits: The fundamental unit of information in computing, represented as 0 or 1.
• Sampling Rate: The number of samples of audio carried per second, measured in Hertz (Hz) or Kilohertz (kHz). (e.g., 44.1 kHz for CDs)
• Octave: The interval between one musical note and another with half or double its frequency.
• Interval: The distance between two musical notes.
• Common Meter (Ballad Meter): A poetic meter characterized by alternating lines of eight and six syllables, typically with iambic stress.
• Iambic Stress: A metrical pattern in poetry consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Logical Connections:

The video progresses from establishing the vast theoretical possibilities of music creation to explaining why, in practice, music often sounds similar. It connects the mathematical possibilities to human preferences and cognitive biases, showing how these factors limit the perceived novelty of music. The discussion of common meter provides a concrete example of how shared structures influence creative output. Finally, the video links compressibility to enjoyment, suggesting that our brains are wired to appreciate a certain level of complexity and predictability in music.