Old story about what happens when all possible combinations of musical notes have been used and there are no more songs to compose.
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4Are you sure you've told us absolutely everything you can remember about the story? Do you happen to recall if it was a novel or a short story or a movie or a comic book or a cartoon? Is it in English? Does "old" mean "before 1950"? And what does happen when there are no more songs to compose, do you happen to remember that? (Don't worry about spoilers.) Is it set in the near or far future? On earth? In the U.S., Belgium, Patagonia? Is the viewpoint character a man, a woman, a child, a robot, an alien? Does he/she/it have a dog?– user14111Commented Nov 1, 2020 at 3:59
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2What I'm trying to tell you is that we are not super-sleuths, we are not very good at this (something like 20% of all the story-identification questions asked here never get answered), so we need all the help we can get.– user14111Commented Nov 1, 2020 at 4:39
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4Likely a dupe of scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/205339/…– ValorumCommented Nov 1, 2020 at 8:25
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2I feel like we’re already there in real life.......– MissouriSpartanCommented Nov 1, 2020 at 12:48
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And maybe a dupe of this: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/211597/copyrighting-music– Invisible TrihedronCommented Nov 1, 2020 at 13:10
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2 Answers
Possibly "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson
From Wikipedia: The story examines the interaction of copyright and longevity, and the possible effects of the extension of copyright to perpetuity. Its title is a reference to claims that elephants "never forget".
I recall there's a discussion about there being a finite number of possible combinations of notes, so we need to be able to forget so that "new" compositions can be discovered
Edit: Just noticed valorum already suggested this in his possible dupe comment
answered Nov 1, 2020 at 12:40
A famous composer and a friend were walking on a beach. The friend made a comment about how every possible tune had already been written. The composer looked out to sea for a moment, then said "Oh, look! here comes the last ever wave."
When I heard the story, it was attributed to Franz Schubert.
Or if you mean a science fiction story, there was a short story in the anthology comic 2000AD. In the far future people are virtually immortal, and have infinite memory. Every conceivable story, tune or other art has already been written, and everybody has seen it all and remembers it with perfect clarity. So they decide to end the Universe, as the only original thing left to do.
I don't recall the title. It was published around 1991, I think. Give or take a couple of years.
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Thanks, sadly that's all I remember for now, Yes, it's a science fiction story, I assumed all the questions would relate to those. And yes, it could have from the 50s like the one I mention below. The plot of the short story does seem like that could be it although I thought that these dimly remembered tales were from my teens which would have been far earlier. I did have the feeling that it was an apocalyptic ending, much like The 9 Billion Names of God. Interestingly, there is a project underway to document every possible musical melody. I wonder what will happen if they succeed.– DanSCommented Nov 1, 2020 at 14:37
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