WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.570 --> 00:00:08.670 Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. And the iTunes store contains 28 million different songs. 00:00:08.840 --> 00:00:15.740 Last.fm carries 45 million songs and the Gracenote database of artists, titles, and 00:00:15.740 --> 00:00:24.240 labels contains 130 million different songs. That's a lot. If you were to listen to all 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:28.650 of the songs in the Gracenote database one after the other in a giant playlist, it would 00:00:28.650 --> 00:00:32.570 take you more than 1,200 years to complete. 00:00:33.760 --> 00:00:40.579 But since there are a finite number of tones our ears can distinguish and because it only 00:00:40.579 --> 00:00:48.699 takes a few notes in common for two musical ideas to sound similar, will we ever run out 00:00:48.700 --> 00:00:50.940 of new music? 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:56.940 Will there ever be a day where every possible brief little melody has been written and recorded 00:00:56.940 --> 00:01:00.940 and we are left with nothing new to make? 00:01:01.180 --> 00:01:05.600 A good rule of thumb might be to say that if modern recording technology can't distinguish 00:01:05.600 --> 00:01:12.060 the difference between two songs, well, neither could we. So, let's begin there, with digital 00:01:12.060 --> 00:01:18.220 downloads, MP3's, CD's, and a calculation made by Covered in Bees. 00:01:19.060 --> 00:01:25.439 Digital music is made out of "bits." Lots and lots of bits. But each individual bit 00:01:25.439 --> 00:01:29.720 exists in one of two states: a "0" or a "1." 00:01:29.720 --> 00:01:35.439 Now, what this means in that for any given, say, 5-minute-long audio file, the number 00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:42.759 of possibilities, mathematically speaking, is enormous, but mind-blowingly finite. 00:01:43.299 --> 00:01:51.419 A compact disk, which samples music at 44.1 kHz, is going to need about 211 million bits 00:01:51.430 --> 00:01:57.259 to store one 5-minute song. And because a bit can exist in two states, either a "0" 00:01:57.259 --> 00:02:03.610 or a "1," the number of possible different ways to arrange those 211,000,000 bits is 00:02:03.610 --> 00:02:07.930 2 to the 211th million power. 00:02:07.930 --> 00:02:14.180 That value represents every single possible different 5-minute-long audio file. But how 00:02:14.180 --> 00:02:18.390 big is that number? Well, let's put this in perspective. 00:02:18.390 --> 00:02:29.920 A single drop of water contains 6 sextillion atoms. 6 sextillion is 22 digits long. That's 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:35.080 a long number. But the total number of atoms that make up the entire earth is a number 00:02:35.090 --> 00:02:41.950 that is about 50 digits long. And estimations of the total number of hydrogen atoms in our 00:02:41.950 --> 00:02:47.070 universe is a number that is 80 digits long. 00:02:48.570 --> 00:02:55.480 But "2 to the 211 millionth power," the number of possible, different 5-minute audio files, is a number 00:02:55.480 --> 00:03:07.900 that is 63 million digits long. It is a number larger than we can even pretend to understand. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:14.620 It contains every possible CD quality 5-minute audio file. Inside that amount is everything 00:03:14.630 --> 00:03:20.320 from Beethoven's "5th" to Beck's "Loser" - it even contains a 5 minute conversation you 00:03:20.320 --> 00:03:25.970 had with your parents when you were 3 years old. In fact, every one of them. It even contains 00:03:25.970 --> 00:03:30.570 every possible conversation you didn't have with your parents when you were 3 years old. 00:03:31.420 --> 00:03:38.500 But, it is finite, not infinite. It's cool to think about, but it doesn't come very close 00:03:38.510 --> 00:03:44.350 to answering the question of this video, which is "how many possible different songs can 00:03:44.350 --> 00:03:47.230 we create and hear the difference between?" 00:03:47.230 --> 00:03:51.510 So, for that, we're going to need to narrow down our hunt. 00:03:51.510 --> 00:03:57.100 On Everything2, Ferrouslepidoptera made a calculation that involved some assumptions 00:03:57.100 --> 00:04:01.020 that I think helped narrow the field down in a really nice way. 00:04:01.020 --> 00:04:06.300 She took a look at the total number of possible different melodies you could create within 00:04:06.310 --> 00:04:15.010 one octave, containing any or all of the intervals we divide octaves into. Of course, sound frequencies 00:04:15.010 --> 00:04:20.570 can be divided much more granularly than that, but giving ourselves more notes might mean 00:04:20.570 --> 00:04:25.520 we could make more technically different melodies, but they wouldn't necessarily sound any different 00:04:25.520 --> 00:04:26.730 to our ears. 00:04:27.260 --> 00:04:32.540 Now, given a single measure containing any combination of whole, half, quarter, eighth, 00:04:32.540 --> 00:04:39.740 sixteenth or thirty-second notes, she calculated that there would be this many possible unique 00:04:39.760 --> 00:04:46.690 measures, which is a smaller number than we had before, but, to put it in perspective, 00:04:46.690 --> 00:04:52.190 this is how many seconds old the universe is. 00:04:52.730 --> 00:04:59.040 Yerricde's calculation is even more specific. He stayed within one octave, but instead of 00:04:59.040 --> 00:05:06.040 looking at a complete measure, he only considered the number of unique combinations of 8 notes. 00:05:06.190 --> 00:05:11.210 He also assumed that typical melodies, as we know them today, only contain about three 00:05:11.210 --> 00:05:17.770 different types of note length. For instance, quarter, eighth and sixteenth or whole, 00:05:17.770 --> 00:05:19.140 half and quarter. 00:05:19.180 --> 00:05:25.500 To be sure, that will most likely not always be true. Musical tastes hundreds, thousands 00:05:25.500 --> 00:05:32.360 of years from now will most assuredly be different, but given melodies as we know them today, 00:05:32.360 --> 00:05:41.140 across 8 notes, over 12 intervals, there are about 79 billion possible combinations. 00:05:41.900 --> 00:05:48.080 We're getting relatively small here. I mean, under this definition of melody, 100 songwriters 00:05:48.080 --> 00:05:54.090 creating a brand new 8-note melody every second would exhaust every possible melody within 00:05:54.090 --> 00:05:56.290 only 248 years. 00:05:56.920 --> 00:06:01.980 But it's still a huge number, way bigger than the total number of songs that have been written 00:06:01.980 --> 00:06:08.940 that we know about. So, you can quite safely say that, no, we will never run out of new 00:06:08.940 --> 00:06:18.480 music. But here's the rub. If that's the case, why are there so many commonalities between 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:24.480 songs? Even across hundreds of years, how come so many songs kind of sound the same? 00:06:24.880 --> 00:06:29.900 I mean, if we have more possibilities than we could ever exhaust, why is "Twinkle Twinkle 00:06:29.910 --> 00:06:35.170 Little Star," the "Alphabet Song," and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep," all the same melody? 00:06:35.170 --> 00:06:40.170 "My Country Tis of Thee," and "God Save the Queen," interestingly enough, are the same 00:06:40.170 --> 00:06:40.860 song. 00:06:41.160 --> 00:06:46.800 "Love Me Tender," is exactly the same as the old American Civil War song "Aura Lea." 00:06:57.440 --> 00:07:02.920 And a seemingly uncountable number of songs merely sound like other songs. The Spongebob 00:07:02.930 --> 00:07:07.490 Squarepants theme has a very similar cadence to "Blow the Man Down." 00:07:07.490 --> 00:07:13.190 Soundsjustlike.com is a great resource for exploring this further. It'll show you two 00:07:13.190 --> 00:07:15.870 songs and how they sort of sound alike. 00:07:26.380 --> 00:07:31.440 And when it comes to musical chords, it's almost as if there's no variety at all, as 00:07:31.450 --> 00:07:36.830 was famously shown by The Axis of Awesome's "4 Chords." I've linked it in the description, 00:07:36.830 --> 00:07:40.669 it's worth a watch if you haven't seen it already. These guys sing more than 40 different 00:07:40.669 --> 00:07:45.409 songs using the same four chords... 00:07:45.520 --> 00:07:52.800 Even though the number of possible different melodies is gigantic, us humans tend to gravitate 00:07:52.910 --> 00:07:57.400 towards certain patterns that we like more than others and we are influenced by what 00:07:57.400 --> 00:08:04.230 came before us. Kirby Ferguson has a fantastic series looking into this called "Everything 00:08:04.230 --> 00:08:08.770 is a Remix." I've also linked that down in the description. The commonalities he shows 00:08:08.770 --> 00:08:10.360 are pretty crazy. 00:08:10.360 --> 00:08:16.350 Well, even when it comes to lyrics, to writing, even though, mathematically, there are more 00:08:16.350 --> 00:08:22.670 possibilities than we could ever exhaust, we have gravitated towards a few. In fact, 00:08:22.670 --> 00:08:29.740 there's a form of poetic meter that is so common it's called "Common Meter." 00:08:29.750 --> 00:08:33.820 I've composed a verse using it to explain what it is. 00:08:33.820 --> 00:08:41.880 Line one contains eight syllables. The next contains just six. For emphasis: iambic stress. 00:08:41.880 --> 00:08:44.300 That's it, no other tricks. 00:08:44.880 --> 00:08:52.560 Here is a list of songs that are written in common meter, also known as "Balad Meter." The commonness 00:08:52.570 --> 00:08:58.550 of common meter is the reason you can sing the Pokemon theme song to the tune of Gilligan's 00:08:58.550 --> 00:09:06.380 Island. Or House of the Rising Sun. Or Amazing Grace. You could also use almost any of Emily 00:09:06.380 --> 00:09:10.860 Dickinson's poetry. Sure, they're different melodies, but their lyrics are written in 00:09:10.860 --> 00:09:12.720 the same meter. 00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:16.580 There's a great video on YouTube that I've linked below in the description that uses 00:09:16.580 --> 00:09:20.050 captions to let you see just how these all fit together. 00:09:20.760 --> 00:09:27.040 Oh, and don't forget one of the greatest compositions taking advantage of common meter's commonness: 00:09:27.040 --> 00:09:29.060 Stairway to Gilligan's Island. 00:09:29.800 --> 00:09:35.280 And you know what? Our brains may also be keeping us from enjoying the entire mathematical 00:09:35.290 --> 00:09:42.290 space of available songs. For instance, research has shown that the way a song compresses, 00:09:42.600 --> 00:09:50.660 using software, can help us predict how enjoyable it will be. Too simple, too easy to compress, 00:09:50.660 --> 00:09:57.820 like, say, a rising scale, and the song doesn't challenge us - it's boring. But too complicated, 00:09:57.820 --> 00:10:03.240 say, white noise, and the file won't compress very much at all, and, likewise, we don't 00:10:03.240 --> 00:10:09.170 seem to enjoy it. There's a magic zone where a file is compressible by a computer, and 00:10:09.170 --> 00:10:12.750 also happens to be enjoyable by us. 00:10:12.750 --> 00:10:19.080 So, interestingly, even though mathematically speaking, there are so many possible unique 00:10:19.080 --> 00:10:25.240 melodies that we can safely say, there will always be room for new music, we don't seem 00:10:25.240 --> 00:10:32.460 to be wired to care. We enjoy certain patterns and melodies and calculating how many there 00:10:32.470 --> 00:10:37.930 could be is a lot less interesting than how connected and similar all the ones that we 00:10:37.930 --> 00:10:44.760 enjoy are. It's as if we have more space than we need, more space than we could ever hope 00:10:44.760 --> 00:10:51.029 to see all of, or visit all of, or know all of, but no matter what new place we go, in 00:10:51.029 --> 00:10:57.370 a general sense, new, popular music will always remind us a bit of home. 00:10:57.820 --> 00:10:58.700 And as always, 00:10:58.700 --> 00:10:59.680 thanks for watching. 00:11:10.460 --> 00:11:16.140 Fantastic, you're still here. If you want to hear music from people like you, from Vsaucers, 00:11:16.140 --> 00:11:21.500 go check out WeSauce. You can submit music, animation, short films, anything that you're 00:11:21.500 --> 00:11:26.940 making and putting on YouTube to us and we'll feature it on WeSauce. It's like a trailer 00:11:26.940 --> 00:11:29.649 for what Vsaucers are doing. 00:11:29.649 --> 00:11:34.529 Speaking of which, Jake Chudnow, who does all of the music in these videos, has a brand 00:11:34.529 --> 00:11:39.220 new song out over on his channel, which I highly suggest you go give a listen.