HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

> Are there actually any popular melodies that span more than one octave?

Star Spangled Banner's melody spans 3 octaves IIRC.

But more importantly, any melody with an accidental would require the 13-notes that include the 5 "sharps" or "flats" per octave.

Every country song is pretty much played in the 5th, meaning the 4th note is USUALLY played sharp. So your standard country tunes are pretty much guaranteed not to be in this set.

Jazz and Blues music has a LOT of accidentals, and they also are syncopated up the wazzoo. Even IF Jazz and Blues music were all in C-Major, I doubt they tried out their strange rhythms.

At best, 8-note, single-octave, 12-note rhythms, cover a very, very small subset of simplified classical music (Simplified Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and not the original Mozart version either: https://youtu.be/KKCsujeeu8o?t=50) and maybe some simple folk songs like "Mary had a little lamb". But for goodness sake, even "Happy Birthday to you" spans more than one octave...

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I just counted it. "Simplified Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" is 14-notes. Even this beginner song is too long to be covered by the 12-notes auto-generated by this algorithm.

So we're talking "Hot Cross Buns" level rhythms... I guess? But "Hot Cross Buns" is 17 notes long.

"Row Row Row your boat" is syncopated. I doubt its rhythm is covered. Its also 26 notes long.

Here's a better question: what song is actually covered by 8-note, single octave, 12-notes combinatorics? I'm having difficulty figuring one out. I'm picking the simplest songs I know of and they still don't seem to be covered.

⬐ rtkwe

The whole song or even a majority doesn't have to be covered. The Katy Perry Dark Horse lawsuit was over 8 notes repeated twice. Suits have been lost over seconds long samples.

⬐ bluGill

Many songs have A and B parts. If we allow combining many different "melodies" to create the larger whole that covers some music in that now you only need to find 8 note, single octave combinations. I don't see why we should allow that, but if you allow it.

8 notes in a single octave pretty much limits you to melodies of someone who has been studying music only a few months. Even my penny whistles are capable of more than that after a couple months of study. (a few days if you already know music or are interested in one specific song)