Now even though I'm not the biggest fan of Ed Sheeran, I'm glad that he won the lawsuit; I also think that the lawsuit does say a lot about the nature of music and that's what I want to talk about. Ed is correct when he says that they're only 12 notes used, not just in pop music but, in western music generally; he's referring to the tuning system 12 TET( or 12-Tone Equal Temperament). Now a counter argument can be made that more notes are available when experimenting with microtonal music and I do somethings experiment with 24 TET in private. However, microtonal music wasn't apart of the lawsuit he was involved in and it isn't very popular anyway. Someone could also argue that, despite being very limited, the 12 TET system is still filled with possibilities that haven't been explored and that might be true mathematically. However, musical freedom is still limited by culture. Most people develop their musical taste at an early age and anything that sounds way too different to them will just sound like pure noise. Since musical taste is subject, it does feel pointless to the boundaries of the art form as there is no objective criteria for what constitutes progression outside the advances in science and technology. It seems that acknowledging the subjectivity in musical taste, doesn't actually lead to more musical freedom for the artist. Instead, it leads to a more accurate understanding of what is limiting that freedom. With all that said, what is your opinion on the whole lawsuit and music in general? Also, what are your thoughts on microtonal music?
