Are there a finite number of possible songs, or could humanity continue writing new songs forever (without repeats)?

Here is a song I wrote (below) so there does seem to be more room still for different lyrics but the music itself does seem to be getting hard to find new tuens that are not similar to other songs. Sometimes when I hear the start of a song it sounds like one thing then it’s something else.

Can you see the light of day?
Do the tears run down your face?
As you suffer without embrace
Can you see the light of day
Without your love, how can you say?

Have you thought of how you live?
Alone in heart, nought to give,
Can you see the light of day
Without your love, how can you say?

Your mind a mess, you dream in fear
Your thoughts of love are never clear
Can you see the light of day
Without your love, how can you say?

(Chorus)
Without your love, Without your love
Without your love, Without your love
How can you say? How can you say?
How can you see the light of day?
(End Chorus)

You hide youself in shame and ire
Your body slumps cause you do tire
Can you see the light of day
Without your love, how can you say?

I hear your words but they are worn
Because your love is shred and torn
Can you see the light of day
Without your love, how can you say?

Your days are dark with gloom and doom
There is no light inside your room
Can you see the light of day
Without your love, how can you say?

(Chorus)
Without your love, Without your love
Without your love, Without your love
How can you say? How can you say?
How can you see the light of day?
(End Chorus)

(Chorus)
Without your love, Without your love
Without your love, Without your love
How can you say? How can you say?
How can you see the light of day?
(End Chorus)

Copyright – 20 August 2009
Composer, Song Writer, Poet

Search inside this book using the search term ‘music’ and select the passage on page 88.

Assuming the length is fixed and the song was in binary format (red book). I actually calculated this a long time ago. I Figured the number of possible combination’s of ones and zeros for a three minute song was fucking insane.

With using compression like mp3 it would make the number much lower. But it would still be incredibly high.

I once wrote a short story about this called “The Last Song” in which I explored the idea that one day every permutation of every note would finally be exhausted. Or so it was believed until a brand new tune was discovered to have been written by a child. My answer to you is the same as I determined for myself when I wrote the story: there can never be a last song as long as their are new people to write them.

I have wondered the same thing myself. I also wonder how people come up with tunes, but that is a separate question. Suppose we limited ourselves to the first 5 notes. That makes for a large but not inexhaustible number of possibilities. One would think that all the workable combinations would eventually get used.

@LostInParadise, melodies have occasionally just “appeared” in my head and started me humming, but because I can’t write music and never took the trouble to record my humming, I’ve never saved any of them. I love music and listen to it constantly, so most likely those tunes weren’t original, only what I heard at one time or another that took residence in my subconscious.

Technically, rhythm alone is all you need to generate an infinite amount of combinations. Consider a song of a finite length composed of a single tone, repeated in equally spaced intervals. Since time is continuous, you could divide this length into an infinite number of intervals.

E.g., a song where “C” is repeated in quarter notes. Then another where C is repeated in eighth notes. Then 16th, 32nd, 64th, 128th, 256th, 1024th, etc.

Then there is pitch. We’re used to hearing a musical scale where each octave is divided into 12 equal spaces or semi-tones, but many forms of music incorporate pitch changes even smaller than a semi-tone, like quarter tones. Again, since the frequency spectrum is continuous, there are an infinite number of tones you could produce.

then there is tempo and timbre!

for instance:

http://fliiby.com/file/893976/6cadefml6w.html

I think that humans are nearly infinitely creative, and the advancement of technology will only open new musical techniques and ideas up to us in the future, and music is getting more creative with each passing year (as long as you ignore the top 40 crap).

That said, you can still sing just about any song over a single chord progression

While it’s extremely unlikely to be reached in any foreseeable century, there is a definite limit as to how many combinations there could be. But so long as a person hasn’t heard a particular variation, there will always be a new song for them.