Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/29/name-that-tune-in-four-notes.html
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LOL Taylor Dayne was my first guess
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Most of those songs use the same exact intervals up to the 5th note, and if you invert the last two notes you get the first notes from Losing my Religion by REM.
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I guessed Tell It To My Heart, but that just says more about my age than anything else…
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Huh, I don’t know any of those songs, nor most of the musicians…
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I’ve heard the song, have no idea who the artist is.
“California Dreamin’” by The Mamas and The Papas obviously.
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Same! (I’m 38)
London Bridge is falling down.
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Behold! This is what the 80’s did to you!
I used to be able to do this. My wife would turn the radio dial and I could name the first song to come on with just one or two notes. Now all that knowledge is gone. Some of the songs don’t even sound familiar at first. Funny how that stuff fades.
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The Camptown Ladies?
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I thought of a story where far off in the future, they were celebrating the last “new” song. I am not sure how many billions or trillions etc of variables you can come up with in a 3 min song, and you can remove a good portion of those because they fail to be melodic or ear pleasing. You also have to draw a limit at how much you want to fraction up notes - doing a limit at maybe a 16th note? As well as make 4-4 time the standard register…
ANYWAY. The fact is at some point - millions - billions of years in the future, there will be a point where all the variables will be explored. And we will celebrate the last song.
Of course it won’t really be the last - no one can remember all the variables and there will be “new to me” songs. And songs that last longer than 3 min. And experiments into other time registers etc.
I had “I hope I die before I go bald”.
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Never Gonna Give You Up.
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I’m still pretty good at it. My wife will pull up some random live performance on youtube and if I know the artist I can usually figure out who it is and what the song is pretty quickly. As I listen less and less to the radio, though, I’m less likely to know newer songs.
What drives me crazy, though, is recognizing the song and not being able to remember the name of the artist.
…until a week later when I’m lying awake staring at the ceiling at 3 AM…
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There’s some songs I can identify with just one note. Only works if it’s the original recording, with that note played in the distinctive way that recording has though.
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