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I had thought about the limitations of modern music, is it infinite or finite? A piano has 88 keys, does that not impose an eventual limit on the number of individual songs/melodies that can be created on the piano?
Bringing it closer to home, how many different melodies can BIAB generate? Is it conceivable that we could violate someone's copyright unintentionally?
Just fodder for thoughter.
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Sooner or later micro-tones (in between our 1/2 step based "western" music theory) will make its way into the mainstream. Most of us won't like it, because it is just too different -- but it will open another infinite number of finite possibilities (ha, ha).
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This is a mathamatical question. Maths and Arithmatic are the three things I hate the most!
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I think that music can be considered effectively infinite. Given constant changes in technology and timbral differences alone, any change in an existing piece theoretically renders it a new creation. (I didn't say that it wouldn't violate copyright law.) I use Propellerhead Reason, partly as a sequencer, but partly because it is a massive software instrument. Just a casual sampling of what people have shared on their Music forum is enough to get a substantial inferiority complex. The variations and ingenuity in achieving same are impressive. Take all the existing parameters of pitch, tempo, duration, timbre, key, orchestration, and maybe vocals, and anything I haven't mentioned or thought of. I think that original music is going to be happening for a long time yet. I'm thinking in geological terms here. 
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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Quote:
I think that music can be considered effectively infinite. Given constant changes in technology and timbral differences alone, any change in an existing piece theoretically renders it a new creation. (I didn't say that it wouldn't violate copyright law.)
Take all the existing parameters of pitch, tempo, duration, timbre, key, orchestration, and maybe vocals, and anything I haven't mentioned or thought of. I think that original music is going to be happening for a long time yet. I'm thinking in geological terms here.
+1 on what Richard said.
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Hi Don. Interesting thought.
No matter how many variables there are, there is still a finite limit to the number of permutations, no matter how big the number is.
However, if we consider a repetition in a piece of music to be a variable in it's own right and we have an infinitely long sequence of repeats ...
No, just forget that, I agree with Richard!
ROG.
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Excellent observations all! Thank you, mates! (That's Brit or Ozzie)
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>>>...I think that music can be considered effectively infinite. ...>>>
I don't disagree with Ryzard's comment, but he is inventing a new meaning for the word 'infinite.' If 'infinite' is a mathematical term, then music cannot be infinite since it is constructed of a finite number of finite elements. If, by 'effectively infinite' Ryzard means 'uncountable' or 'really, really a whole freakin' lot,' I have no problem with that.
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Quote:
Hi Don. Interesting thought.
No matter how many variables there are, there is still a finite limit to the number of permutations, no matter how big the number is.
However, if we consider a repetition in a piece of music to be a variable in it's own right and we have an infinitely long sequence of repeats ...
No, just forget that, I agree with Richard!
ROG.
ROG,
Re: a finite limit to the number of permutations . . . I am gald you decided to agree with Richard because I was just going to ask you to name all of them. 
Later,
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Being a mathematician I take exception. There are only 10 digits - but using only those ten digits there are infinite sets of numbers which are themselves infinite (The Reals, Rationales, Irrationals, Integers, sets (like the Cantor set), various algebras, etc.) There are two "kinds" of infinite; one is countable like the set of all positive integers and by using proof by induction method I can show that the set of rational numbers are also countably infinite because I can essentially "map" each rational number (one-to-one - a.k.a injective) to an integer thus; the rationale set is also countable infinite (these items and methods can be found in most any first year Abstract Algebra, Topology, and some times Real Analysis (aka Advanced Calculus) text. By reapplying the logic as it where: 10 digits (88 keys), and infinitely countable positive integers (notes one after the other infinitely - and yes there can be repeats just like 10, 100, 1000, 10000, .... think of the map of 1= c and 0 = b then cb, cbb, cbbb, cbbbb, ....). Since music (and I am not arguing that it is good or bad music) is nothing more than a set of notes (disregarding, tempo and other attributes) I propose that the set of all music is countable infinite (akin to mapping integers to rationales) However, I leave as home work for the reader to show Larry
Last edited by Larry Kehl; 09/15/12 09:04 PM.
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To take a more philiosiphical approach than Larry; given that music is an expression of the human spirit, I ask the question:
Is the human spirit finite?
If it is, the so is music, if it isn't, then I propose that music is infinite too.
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya  --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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Quote:
This is a mathamatical question. Maths and Arithmatic are the three things I hate the most!
LOL LOL LOL
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In a real sense, it doesn't matter. Is the thrill of hearing a strummed chord on a guitar diminished knowing that you're not the first one to play it? Or is the blues less interesting because it's a finite form?
Music is interesting because of the feeling it evokes, not because it provides infinite variety.
But... The number of permutations is probably enough to serve us a couple lifetimes. After that, the new generation just forgets (or ignores) what came before.
-- David Cuny My virtual singer development blogVocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.
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In theory there are more time signatures than there are numbers (and this is only one varable in music).. so do I still have to show my homework? And because a piano has 88 keys does that mean that is the note limit? Why not choose flute and limit the note number even more .. (?) Always wondered why they didn't add one more octave to a piano to make it an even 100 keys. 
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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The human condition itself dictates something more to this than a mere mathematical computation of all possible combinations, though.
In other words, the things that people are able to hear and understand are indeed a finite situation.
Using the history of such things that were once not understood nor enjoyed by the majority population in Western Music alone, such as the Tritone, parallel fifths and octaves, the Sharp 9, etc. we see that it takes time for even one "new" music development to take hold and become part of what the majority uses to make the muse happen -- and what the majority are able to hear, understand AND accept as "viable".
And so it goes...
--Mac
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I appreciated all of this input. Very valid points.
Mac opened another pathway with the term "viable." It does not mean that the structure of "viable" music will necessarily follow any mathematical, predictable formula. However, perhaps the key elements of a viable melody loosely follow mathematical rules dictated by algorithms.
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Wait awhile . . . So let me get this straight, if I know how to play both a G and an A chord and I am working on D does this mean that when I master the D I still will not have mastered "all" music? Later,
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Oh no!
Does this mean that there are some other chords which I don't know about?
ROG.
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I have been writing a lot in the key of H lately..... I goes okay until I hit the subdominant K and the dominant L.... and the M minor we wont even talk about....
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Quote:
The human condition itself dictates something more to this than a mere mathematical computation of all possible combinations, though.
In other words, the things that people are able to hear and understand are indeed a finite situation.
....
--Mac
Mac I concur with your first statement but the second statement takes some analysis
While a single human being MIGHT only be finite "...able to hear and understand are indeed a finite situation" not provable (yet), but for the sake of argument I will concede that point. However, the union of all human beings, if you allow me to add just "one more", then rinse and repeat is the very definition of countably infinite; hence, what the human RACE is able to hear and understand is again countably infinite.
However this, as many have directly and indirectly pointed out, is not a pure math/logic problem. It is more esthetic and emotional it asks for the actual ART of music and I assume that to mean a collection notes/sounds that are "pleasant," "worth listening to," "has mutually agreed value AS music," … or that would be "called music by a majority of a collection of people," and that is probably finite.
Because even though lots, and lots, and LOTS of "music" has been recorded, played, published in just my life time - a large portion of recent "music" (last 20+ years) is NOT MUSIC. It's is simply collections of notes/sounds (?) at a rapid metronomic pace (evidenced by club music, trance music, etc. -that to my dismay has invaded the air waves, internet, CD's, living spaces, … as the new "pop" music)
So maybe the finite limit of music is nigh  (I hope not).
Larry
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