Is Music Infinite? - Milton Mermikides

This lecture explores the very limits of music: investigating historical efforts to catalogue musical materials including the melacarta of Carnatic music, the wazn of Arabic maqam, Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns, Schillinger’s Encyclopedia of Rhythms, Forte numbers, and contemporary attempts to ‘pre-copyright’ every possible melody yet to be written. It also tackles the bigger questions: how much music might exist, whether it ever will be exhausted, and if there are any boundaries of our musical perception and imagination. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 02:47 Tempos getting simpler (James Brown to 70s disco) 03:12 Lyrics getting simpler (From Pink Floyd to Justin Bieber) 04:29 Pop songs using the same four chords 08:25 Pitch/timbre getting simpler 08:43 Classic songs that were covers/sampled other songs 10:19 From rock'n'roll to death metal 13:46 The shortest note 15:26 Infinite music 17:32 Shepard tone 19:08 Bach's 'The Musical Offering' 22:00 Schubert's 'Sonata in B-flat Major' 25:25 The Andalusian Muwashahat 27:16 Morgenstern & Barlow's Dictionary 28:09 Forte numbers 29:31 Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns 33:20 John Coltrane's 'Giant Steps', 'A Love Supreme' 37:00 Morphospace 38:07 How Jimmy Smith played the blues organ 40:08 Damien Riehl copyrighting all melodies to protect artists 42:38 The Musical Library of Babel + Conclusion 50:50 Q&A Session This lecture was recorded by Milton Mermikides on 16th May 2024 at LSO, St Luke's Church, London Milton is Gresham Professor of Music He is Associate Professor in Music at the University of Surrey, Professor of Guitar at the Royal College of Music and Deputy Director of the International Guitar Research Centre. The transcript of the lecture is available from the Gresham College website: https://www.gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/m... Gresham College has offered free public lectures for over 400 years, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. There are currently over 2,500 lectures free to access. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to learn from some of the greatest minds. To support Gresham's mission, please consider making a donation: https://gresham.ac.uk/support/ Website: https://gresham.ac.uk Twitter:   / greshamcollege   Facebook:   / greshamcollege   Instagram:   / greshamcollege