Don’t you sometimes think we’re going to “run out” of music? Maybe we won’t run out of sounds, but we’ll surely run out of songs. Think about it. Let’s adopt a fairly rigid definition of music—basically anything melodic. A child mashing the keys randomly doesn’t count as music; one note held for three minutes doesn’t count as music (at least for our purposes). There’s got to be a limit to what we can create, right?

Here’s the deal: there are 88 keys on a piano. These keys are combined to form melodies. But with only 88 different notes, there’s got to be a finite number of combinations. Likewise with drums—there are only so many arrangements of bass/kick/snare/cymbal. Someday we’ll exhaust every combination and music will be declared over. There won’t be any new songs. Depressing to think about, right? We’re all in a race to complete the discography of the universe. Luckily, it’s not going to happen. Here’s why.

First off, the 88 keys on a piano represent a fraction of all the possible sound combinations. In between, say, the E and F keys are other pitches and harmonics. Anyone who’s ever played a string instrument knows this to be true. (For further proof, pay close attention to that THX sound at the beginning of a movie. It captures the entire spectrum of frequencies; it doesn’t play a scale like a pianist might.) The piano is rigidly built around specific frequencies, but an infinite number of undefined notes exist in between those 88 notes. Our ears have been “westernized” to certain frequencies and note combinations, but other cultures don’t take as narrow an approach to musical composition.

What’s more, the entire spectrum can be shifted. Imagine taking all the keys of the piano and tuning them down the same amount. They keys would still be in tune with each other, but they wouldn’t be in tune with your neighbor’s piano. That’s actually the reason why many classic rock songs are difficult to play on guitar. Band members would tune their instruments to each other; but they wouldn’t use any standard tuning.

So we’ve established that there are frequencies in between piano keys that most musicians don’t use very often. There’s more to the story. The human ear can only hear a part of the sonic spectrum, typically between 12Hz and 20Hz (much less if you’ve been to a lot of loud concerts or work heavy construction all day). We’re making music at frequencies humans can hear, but we could just as easily make music that “exists” but our ears don’t detect. The frequencies would have to be detected with machinery. If I make a song that nobody can hear, is it still music? (Whoa, that was deep!) In fact, that’s exactly how a lot of those anti-mosquito contraptions work, by pumping high frequencies that drive bugs crazy but don’t affect us. (Sidenote: wouldn’t it be cool if someone invented a hearing aid that let us hear higher frequencies? Does this already exist? Is it even possible?)

So there are a lot of frequencies we don’t usually listen to; they exist in between our piano keys and at the high/low ends of the spectrum. But there’s more. Frequency isn’t the whole story. After all, a C played on a piano sounds different than the C from a trombone. They’re both resonating at the same frequency but they sound different. Lil Wayne and I can both rap the same lyrics over the same beat, but only one of us will go triple platinum. Add another layer to the mix.

It’s still getting more complicated: new sounds are created all the time. Two hundred years ago, there wasn’t a synthesizer. There was no electric guitar and no DJ-scratching noise. New equipment is created; that means new sounds are created, too. (Or maybe they’re discovered? That’s another debate…) Imagine what Mozart would’ve done with a synthesizer. How about Bach behind two CDJs or Brahms in the studio using Ableton? It’s fun to think that we’re hearing sounds today that people couldn’t conceive of fifty years ago. Even if we ran out of combinations on the piano, we have a lot other instruments to use.

Oh, and let’s not forget that anything can sampled these days. Remember when Timbaland sampled that baby voice on Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody? Or when he reversed Missy Elliot’s vocals to sample on “Work It?” Sounds around us can be used melodically is sampled properly. Major Lazer used a horse’s neighing on their first album. Horses certainly aren’t making music by themselves (or are they?), but their sounds can be used in a song.

There are a lot more things I can say about this topic. Sound is affected by air pressure. The same song on MP3 and CD and cassette and vinyl sounds a little bit different. The state of the listener affects perception of music (doesn’t Journey always sound awesome when you’re drunk?). Time signature matters, too. Sound waves are more complicated than I understand. But I think I’ve made my point. Are we running out of songs? Nope. And we never will. Get back in the studio.

Botnek

My @uhohdisco.com inbox is always full. There’s just too much music and not enough time. Here’s the first problem: I listen to everything sent my way. So I’m always behind. And here’s my second problem: I always listen to music with headphones on. It lets me get a better feel for the production value. But the other day my headphones were out of batteries (err, battery, it takes one AAA) so I fell even further behind my listening schedule. I thought about clearing my inbox by plugging my laptop into my speakers but, well, that’s just not how I roll. Come on, a high-quality 320 kbps MP3 file deserves high-quality headphones.

I’m glad I bought batteries before I listened to this LA Riots remix that was sent over by a duo from Canada named BOTNEK. Otherwise, I probably would’ve missed it. This song is a good example of how to effectively combine different frequencies in a song. The bass track is low and loud; it sounds like the beginning of an earthquake. (The remix is aptly titled “Big Bass Remix.”) At the same time, the melody is littered with high-pitched beeps and bloops. Some horns in the middle complete the sound. It all works together quite nicely. Listen to this one as loud as you can. It’s worth the hearing loss.

LA Riots – The Drop (BOTNEK Big Bass Remix)

(Right-click the above to download. Sorry we couldn’t get a direct link on this one. We’re having some server issues right now. I promise we’ll be back online soon.)

If any of the tunes contained in this post happen to suit your taste, the artist would probably be thrilled if you considered buying them on iTunes, Beatport, or Amazon. Share
by Nick DiLallo

This entry was posted on Monday, March 29th, 2010 at 5:26 am and is filed under Disco Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.