Is Creativity a farce?

Question

This is a serious question.
Have you ever thought about the process of "picking" one of those 4 digit bicycle locks? You would start with 1-1-1-1 then 1-1-1-2 then 1-1-1-3 etc...until you hit the right combinations and open the lock.
Well hypothetically couldn't we do the same for music?
What if we started a computer program that generated a sequence of tones a flat-a flat-a flat-a flat THEN a flat-a flat-a flat-b flat THEN a flat-a flat-a flat-c flat etc....
Using this approach wouldn't we inevitably generate every composition of music possible? If this is the case then is Creativity real? or is it merely a random act of "discovery"?

BTW - I am aware that music consists of more than just tones (tempo, duration etc..) but nonetheless there are just additional components that can still be added and/or removed in a controlled fashion.
Basically the same process could be applied to Literature. To take every word in the English language and arrange them into sequences of 10 Million words or less, would pretty much duplicate every Novel ever written....

Answer 1

this is a decent theory, but at what point do you wrap up your formula. you started with a four 'beat' theory. their are 22 notes in the common musical scale. (i think)

if you make this loop very large to try to create a song with a reasonably complex pattern, your math is going to get very large very quick.

also...you are not even considering the different styles of notes and different times of musical note placement and rests etc. it would take a very large, powerful computer, a very long time to compute this very complex math problem.

i dont think it is a farce necessarily, but i think that some of the perception of what is and is not creative is a farce in and of itself.

Answer 2

With a combination lock, trying each individual combination can consume a significant amount of time. If you were to create music using the same method it would take an even longer amount of time. There is virtually no limit to the combinations of notes that make up a song.

Here's a thought. Would you (or anyone for that matter) want to listen to the billions of unsuccessful combinations? I wouldn't. Artists are like locksmiths they find the combination for you.

No, creativity is not a farce. The music industry may be overpopulated by the untalented and the uncreative (opinion), but creativity is still out there.

Answer 3

No, It is not a farce. The illustration that you gave about the bike lock and the combination is one of deduction and logic, where you have the needed variables to solve a problem.

Musical Composition is not scientific in nature although parts of it can be done in a scientific way. Compositions are comprised of musical elements, elements which vary widely from person to person and culture to culture.

Music is not just about the notes, they simply are one piece of it. Timing, emphasis and speed play a huge role as well.

Music is a form of human expression in the medium of time using the structures of sounds or tones and silence. It is expressed in terms of pitch, rhythm, harmony, and timbre. Music involves complex generative forms in time through the construction of patterns and combinations of natural stimuli, principally sound. As a human activity, music may be used for artistic or aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, or ceremonial purposes.

Answer 4

no, the computer still needs to be given parameters that it adheres to, where as the human brain has no limits. a composition is not just a bunch of notes, you also need to take in the fact that there are going to be different instruments chose to play the piece. yes you can tell the computer the different instruments that are to be used in the composition, but does it have the capacity to create a new instrument with out human instruction to do so? you didn't think far enough into the question of creativity, I'm a fine artist, painting and drawing, so when the computer can get up and create a painting with out being given parameters, making aesthetic decisions to benefit the whole of the painting, then maybe i will sit down and accept that we as a humans have gone to far, giving away the one gift that makes us amazing as a species.

Answer 5

Not really. What you are describing sounds more like practicing to improve musical mechanics, such as repeating scales or chord sequences.

There are other aspects of music that require creativity such as when to increase or slow down the tempo; whether increase (crescendo) or decrease (diminuendo) the volume of the music so that it is not predictable.

Then there are other things such as musical quotation where in a motiff, you sneak in references from already composed music (Mahler used to embed musical references in his symphonies to indicate a particular period of time he was reflecting on in his music);

Because of myriad possibilities, the room for creativity in music is endless.

Answer 6

Music is all down to creativity...some things just can't be explained through logic...Yes, I suppose you have a point, but that kind of music would suck. This sounds like that idiot who told me that you could be a world famous rapper if you just tore up pieces of paper, wrote down some ghetto words that rhymed, picked them out at random and put them together to get a platinum record. Can we really insult people's intelligence like that? They border each other...creativity is just a better way of doing it is all.

Answer 7

i dont think that creativity is a total farce. i use to wonder a little about this concept myself because if you listen to a variety of music you will discover that everything seems very familiar i figure that after you have manipulated every possible variation you after eventually start over again.

Answer 8

You make an excellent point, creativity isn't exactly random... but it is real. Creativity, is comming from a persons head but, what you're talking about is, just generating something... there's nothing random about it... it's all completely planned.

Answer 9

well......my finite mind tells me that the mountain I see outside my window was out there long before I ever noticed it or I wouldn't have noticed it

Answer 10

You're better at probability than you are at statistics or is it the other way around???????????????.