7 ms·

Sure, but that’s not accounting for rhythm, different instruments, etc.

• symplee 7y ago
  Isn't this just increasing the branching factor? How hard will it be to find new melodies a million years from now? Easier than today, the same, or harder?
  • mettamage 7y ago
    It is, but it is increasing the branching factor by much more than finding all the "good" melodies in 400 years. Here's a good example of music that stands on it own right despite using the melody of despacito: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydqReeTV_vk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydqReeTV_vk - I'm pretty sure that most people at HN will appreciate this one whether they like despacito or not :)
  • cjohnson318 7y ago
    I think the relevant thing about the pigeon hole principle is that it deals with fundamentally discrete things. Sure, there is a finite number of scores using twelve notes in a finite period of time, but that's just not how we judge or compare music. I would say that there's so many branching factors in music that quantifying one piece is akin to measuring a coastline; the smaller your scale, the longer the coastline. Beyond timbre, there's other cultural factors like, who wrote the music. In a million years we might have umpteen songs with the same score, but they'll still occupy different pigeon holes in the collective consciousness.