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Is great music dead?


skonopa

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On 6/10/2004 12:30:56 PM Colin wrote:

Perhaps what we need a new instruments or drugs!

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I believe Huey Lewis said that about 20 years ago.

Actually there is 'new' music out there. Are there any minimalist fans out there? Steve Riech is one of my favorites. Check out 'Music for Eighteen Musicians'. BTW, even though it may sound like it at times, there are no 'electronic' instruments or voices in this piece. I've seen it performed live. It's quite amazing.

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Point To Ponder:

Won't the vast archives of recorded music eventually become so huge that it will be impossible for anyone to come up with anything that has not been done before? Or at least very nearly?

For example, a piano has eighty-eight keys. So is there not a mathematical limit to the number of variations that they can be played?

Of course, this was not a conceivable problem before audio recording became a reality. Different composers may have come up with the same melodies in dozens of different times and places. just a thought

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On 6/11/2004 11:38:18 PM jdm56 wrote:

Point To Ponder:

Won't the vast archives of recorded music eventually become so huge that it will be impossible for anyone to come up with anything that has not been done before? Or at least very nearly?

For example, a piano has eighty-eight keys. So is there not a mathematical limit to the number of variations that they can be played?

Of course, this was not a conceivable problem before audio recording became a reality. Different composers may have come up with the same melodies in dozens of different times and places. just a thought

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I used to think that untill I really listened to David Gilmour, and Angus Young just examples. But you can take one note on a guitar and bend and trill it to no end like no one else. It's so much in the feeling of that person. I am starting to think that it is infinate. Tube amps are so more expressive than a solid state guitar. With an ss you get pretty much the same dynamics wether you pluck easy or hard. Tube is so much more touch sensitive and really ads to the whole creativity. I know you were talking about pianos, but i know more about guitars. The point being it's all in the feeling and emotion the person has. You can play the same thing note for note if the emotion isn't there it doesn't sound anything like the original. Thus it's different.

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For us babyboomers I'd have to say yes it's dead! I'm trying my best educate my sons, 14 & 15, about music. They're really not into music all that much, not like I was at that age. By the time I was 14 I had worked during the summer and bought a decent Realistic receiver , speakers, BSR Turntable and Pioneer Cassette Deck. I believe the receiver was an STA-77 but not sure. They're more interested in Video and Computer Games. The other day I picked one of them up at school and "Imagine" was playing on the radio and I explained to him what the song was about and who the man was that was singing it. Anything to steer them away from the Rap crap some of the other students listen to. Maybe I can make enough of a mark on them that they will carry on the my generations music for another generation.

Grateful

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I don't think it is....tkae a listen to Damien Rice "O" or Zero7 "When It Falls" or Bob Schneider "I'm Good Now" there are many others I'm leaving out, but there is quite a bit of terrific music being made and released now....is it as good or as prolific as previous generations? maybe, maybe not....but I think it is far from dead...

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personnally i love a lot of new music coming out mostly on the rock side of the house. what i think is dead though, is the day of a good recording. Most of the new stuff coming out is garbage as far as that it is recoded to be loud and clear, but there is no dynamics to it. i've been listening to a lot of of older stuff latley and i noticed there is somthing lacking in the way they record it.

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The simplest melody might be four recognizable notes: dun, dun da duun (Beethoven). So lets double that, to a 8-note melody.

With 88 keys, the piano is capable of 1.627E, with 170 zeros behind it, of possible melodies; most of which would be gibberish.

There are 14 classic orchestra instruments (which can play about half the range of the piano), meaning 1.1389E, with 171 zeros, of possible melodies!

There are 4 modern instruments in the typical rock n roll band, with similar range, to create these simple melodies. That is a potential for 3.254E, with 170 zeros, possible simple rock melodies.

This does NOT include new or other world instruments. Yet, allowing pianos, classic orchestras and rock n roll bands to play together, creates possible 1.627E+171 variations of 8-note melodies!

Somewhere in that universe of 19 instruments playing gibberish is intelligent life. Somewhere in there is new, great melodies. We have NOT heard the last of great music. In fact, World music is a new and growing category. It blends rhythms from different cultures around the world.

12.gif

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Hell, music isn't dead...just our music. Our parents thought the same too when we were kids. Any new music I buy is from bands of my generation, ie: the latest from Fleetwood Mac, etc. These new bands I know absolutely nothing about, or care to. Norah Jones is the only NEW music I like today.

Just my opinion...

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On 6/13/2004 4:18:34 AM Colin wrote:

With 88 keys, the piano is capable of 1.627E, with 170 zeros behind it, of possible.

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What kind of exponential format is that? I assume the BB software just screwed up your notation; possibly you meant 1.627e170 aka 1.627*10^170? I'm in a probability/statistics class right now so I decided to throw around a few numbers. I don't know how you came up with your figure, but it's in the ballpark. Assuming a piece of music, a song if you like, is a collection of 100 keystrokes (repetitions of keys allowed of course), a piano with 88 keys is capable of about 3e194 unique "songs." I tried to compare this to some really big numbers (well numbers I thought are really big), number of pages in the Library of Congress, the world's population, stars in the universe...all futile. This is also assuming like only 1 in 1 trillion of those combinations of notes actually resembles a melody. Suffice to say there are a lot of combinations out there, the limiting factor of course is simply man's ability to exploit such an instrument. Please correct me if I am wrong; I have a test on Wednesday 3.gif.

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On 6/13/2004 12:40:48 AM arthurs wrote:

I don't think it is....tkae a listen to Damien Rice "O" or Zero7 "When It Falls" (snip)

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Hey good call on the Zero7 arthurs. I've been trying to get the word out on them to everyone I know for a while now. Every time I listen to that cd I like it more and more. I assume you've heard their first offering "Simple Things"? I like it even better than "When It Falls."

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