Why does it seems like we heard it all and make it seems like every form of note is taken but we’re still finding/creating something new?
In: Other
Well mathematically speaking you can only have a finite amount of different music (if you set a finite time limit and merge extremely similar sounds into one).
But the number of combinations is so big that you can’t really grasp it.
My goto example here is a deck of 52 cards. It can be sorted in more ways than there are atoms in the observable universe.
Or for music lets take a very simplified song of 3 minutes with just 5 different notes playing, one note each second. That already makes 5^180 different songs. Thats a number with 125 digits. More than there are atoms in the universe if every atom in our universe contained another universe.
Think about the amount of variables we can manipulate and how much we can manipulate them.
We obviously have melody and rhythm, but there is also pitch and most importantly: sound design. With the help of computers, we manipulate a sound to the point where it sounds completely different.
Now, we can manipulate all those things a LOT. A melody is a complex string of sounds that form a nice pattern. Eventually, we will struggle to stay original while steering clear of incoherent noise. Still, we have rhythm to play with. A change in rhythm can completely alter the emotion a song conveys. The same goes for key changes. Lastly, sound design again. The possibilities are pretty much endless with this one.
Put all of that together and you have a huge variability range.
Latest Answers