The end of music?

[Myst and rain]

Originally Posted by AxeHappy

I've heard that thrown around a bit. It's one of those things that sounds smart if you don't think about it.

It is completely and utterly false.

To be true it would have to be said something like this:
There are only so many pitches that most people's ears can hear under the sun.

Doesn't that come down to the same thing? What use is a note that you can't hear?

Originally Posted by AxeHappy

A note is a combination of pitch and rhythm. And there are an infinite amount of rhythms limited only by the players ability. Also with extended range instruments starting to exist(7 string violins, 10+ string guitars) more instruments are having more pitches available on them.

I suppose that if musical technology was to stop innovated that maybe in a couple million centruies we want have exhasuted all possibilites within music. But that would only happen if the musicians stopped pushing the technology. Which will never happen.

More strings on a guitar or violin doesn't mean more frequencies in existence that are perceptible to the human ear. And if you mean that through technological innovation, you can hear, for instance, a guitar solo using notes that before weren't playable on a guitar, then that just means different sounding instruments but it would ultimately be the same piece of music.

And isn't a note a combination of pitch and time? The time bit dictated by rhythm, to an extent? And what makes you think that there's literally an infinite amount of rhythms?

Kind regards,
Myst

[AxeHappy]

Time, rhythm same thing.

The point is the pitch not the ability to hear.


How are there not an infinite number of rhythms. You can just keep subdividing away. Not to mention note groupings. And when you get into non 4/4 time signatures stuff changes so you have so many more rhythms.

But notes aren't the be all end all anyways. You can have 2 songs with the exact same notes that will sound different. Timbre, the flow of the song, tempo, and all that other jazz that makes music.

[Myst and rain]

Originally Posted by AxeHappy

Time, rhythm same thing.

I think we mean the same thing, yeah. I'm not going to split hairs.

Originally Posted by AxeHappy

The point is the pitch not the ability to hear.

I see what you mean. But that's kind of beside the point, I think.

Originally Posted by AxeHappy

How are there not an infinite number of rhythms. You can just keep subdividing away. Not to mention note groupings. And when you get into non 4/4 time signatures stuff changes so you have so many more rhythms.

I see what you mean but I think there are limits regarding this. There are things that sound like a song and there are things that sound like something rediculous. I mean, if you go fast enough you'd get something few people would describe as a song. Same for going slow enough.

Originally Posted by AxeHappy

But notes aren't the be all end all anyways. You can have 2 songs with the exact same notes that will sound different. Timbre, the flow of the song, tempo, and all that other jazz that makes music.

Yeah, but wouldn't you basically be talking about different takes on essentially the same piece?

[AxeHappy]

No not really. Do you know how many punk songs are musically essentially exactly the same. But they sound little to nothing a like.

Just how the music is layered will change the sound a whole bunch.

[kotornut]

I think the end of musical and artistic exploration will end when humans find out to use all of their potential mentally and spiritually. Then at that point the mastery over the expression will be so amazing that no one will get bored of it.

So in other words. We ain't gonna run out of stuff to play for a very long time.


I agree with those who said music is copying other sounds. Who was the first guy trying to sound like? Maybe it was nature or a human voice, but I know that ever since music began it was at least two things: Expression of feelings and thoughts and the mimicing of sounds that help to express those thoughts and feelings.

[Hikey Mikey]

Originally Posted by andy7jem

It's ok.....i'm going to invent some new secret notes

Isn't that basically what happened when the blues were invented?

[Markice9]

Something always new will come along that will change everything it inevitable but ther will always be a niche for guitar playing in some form for a few hundred years yet and the there will be a lul and the inevitable resurgance lol .