I thought of this "theory" about an hour ago. I doubt it's very original or profound, but I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks. It seems logical to me.

It's been a couple of years since I studied permutations and combinations in math so I forget the nuances between the two, but if one applies these permuation/combination rules from math to music...

1. Wouldn't it be possible to compute every single melody/harmony/song possible?
2. Music is finite and it would eventually 'run out'?

You're forgetting the P-Diddy variable, which effectively renders the finite music theory irrevelent.

Zero said:

I thought of this "theory" about an hour ago. I doubt it's very original or profound, but I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks. It seems logical to me.

It's been a couple of years since I studied permutations and combinations in math so I forget the nuances between the two, but if one applies these permuation/combination rules from math to music...

1. Wouldn't it be possible to compute every single melody/harmony/song possible?
2. Music is finite and it would eventually 'run out'?

Click to expand...

There was a system of composition that German composer Arnold Schoenberg developed in the '20s which is like this. It's based on writing out a sequence of all 12 pitches on a piano, without repeating them, then making a set of 48 permutations by setting it in a grid. Then you take the rows and build music out of them. It's called tone-row, or sometimes serial music. The effect is weird, because there's no central key. It's not in C major or D minor, every note just relates to the harmonies that the row creates.

1) How do you define a "note?"

2) Assuming that there are a finite number of "notes," then the number of permutations for a finite set of notes is also finite...but is probably VERY large and no practical limit for creativity. The calculation gets MUCH larger when you start considering time signatures, note durations, and the possibility of simultaneous notes aka "chords," but is still finite. However, the set of all possible sets of notes is infinite, since you can imagine a piece of music of arbitrary length.

3) However, it is generally considered that there is a difference between "music" and "an arbitrary sequence of notes" because "music" somehow appeals to our aesthetic sense. There are "rules" -- either arbitrarily imposed during composition, or deduced from psychological results -- which limit the set of possible note combinations within the realm of "music."

Someone like sonarrat would be able to speak more eloquently about how "music" is defined, as distinguished from random sets/orders of auditory frequencies.

Interesting question, though...

-jinx- said:

Someone like sonarrat would be able to speak more eloquently about how "music" is defined, as distinguished from random sets/orders of auditory frequencies.

Click to expand...

So now you're throwing it back in my court, eh? The fact is, every culture in every time period has had a unique conception of what music is. We might think Indonesian gamelan instruments sound bizarre and creepy, and in turn, the Indonesians might think electric guitars sound like something they'd hear at a slaughterhouse. Even if you were to define what music is, you'd only be defining what it was in your own system, and if you suddenly had to acknowledge the existence of Mongolian throat singing, your head would explode...