[extropy-chat] infinite fun but finite tunes?

[Emlyn]

There's a good chance you are listening to the wrong stations, Spike.
The great majority of stations, certainly commercial stations, seem to
have a date cutoff past which they don't play music - you know, 80s,
70s, 60s, some are bold enough to play 90s (not late 90s...). There's
plenty going on, especially plenty of hooky pop cringemusic, but you
might need to talk to a different demographic to find out about that.

--
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com   * blogs * music * software *
Music downloads are online again!

On 17/04/06, Martin Striz <mstriz at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4/14/06, spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Here is the disturbing part: Stevie called to say he loves us somewhere
> > around 1984-ish.  But I cannot think of a single viral tune that was written
> > after that one.  Did we really run out of them over twenty years ago?
>
> I can't find anything on the Internet about it now, but I remember
> reading once that John Stuart Mill calculated the number of possible
> musical compositions based on the  average length of a composition,
> the number of musical notes and the combinatorial rhythms that they
> can produce.  I don't remember the exact number that he derived, but
> I'm pretty sure that I remember he was worried that we would soon run
> out of new music.
>
> That was before the invention of big band, jazz, blues, rock, reggae,
> rap, techno, country, etc. etc. etc.
>
> Combinatorial systems have a way of running away from you.  Pinker has
> a nice discussion about this in The Language Instinct.
>
> As to why there aren't any more "viral tunes," how old are you?  Maybe
> you just don't find modern music catchy. :)
>
> Martin
>
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