The same old pieces of colored glass.

1. First Verse [sung by a musically ignorant child]

One year at summer camp, we broke into teams for a high-stakes game of “Name That Tune.”

I was a musical ignoramus, with nothing to contribute. Songs flew past me, unknown. But then, finally, in a late round, the pianist began to play one of the approximately seven songs I actually knew. My hand shot up.

“Twist and Shout!” I yelled.

Immediately, I felt disgust radiating from my teammates. Somehow I had blown it. Everyone knew the answer, and that wasn’t it. Shame swept my soul.

“Huh!” said the pianist. “We were looking for La Bamba… but that’s not wrong!”

My teammates shrugged, mystified but grateful, and I collapsed in relief.

It’s no secret that music repeats itself. Every melody combines the same handful of notes; every pop song draws on the same handful of chord progressions; every musician ingests the same handful of drugs.

Twist and Shout. La Bamba. Same chords.

It’s only natural to find some repetition.

2. Chorus [sung by Mark Twain]

There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.

3. Second Verse [sung by a seller of sheet music]

A popular 1792 parlor game, called “Mozart’s Dice,” allowed you to compose your own piece of music by combining preexisting fragments.

You roll a pair of dice sixteen times. Each roll determines the next bar of the composition from a menu of choices.

The process allows for 760 trillion combinations.

The full title: Instructions for the composition of as many waltzes as one desires with two dice, without understanding anything about music or composition. This presumes no one “desires” more than three-quarters of a quadrillion waltzes. Fair enough.

But here’s my question. Who composed the pieces in Mozart’s Dice?

The game’s title treats you as the composer. But that seems grandiose, right? You’re just rolling dice. Then again, I’m not inclined to credit the dice as composers. So I guess we have to credit Mozart (or whoever slapped his name on their sheet music). But then again, the game’s designer didn’t actually try every combination.

So ask yourself, as you listen to the music: Who wrote this?

4. Chorus [sung by Mark Twain]

There is no such thing as a new idea…. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope… We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass…

5. Third Verse [sung by a chorus of British comedians]

The BBC radio show “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue,” a long-running parody of panel quiz shows, has some fabulous Name That Tune variants built around meaningless sounds.

“Name That Barcode.”

“Name That Motorway.”

“Name That Silence.”

Moral: just because every song is a combination of sounds doesn’t mean that every combination of sounds is a song.

There is something in the process of selection, of curation.

6. Chorus [sung by Mark Twain]

There is no such thing as a new idea…. they are the same old pieces of colored glass…

7. Final Verse [sung by a lawyer]

The year 2020, for all its shortcomings, delivered one of my all-time favorite pranks.

In February of that year, two musicians (Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin) programmed a computer to generate every possible twelve-note melody—all nine trillion of them. Might not sound like a great prank, until you learn what came next:

They claimed copyright over the whole bundle, and released them for public use.

The idea is that, in the future, musicians sued for plagiarism will have a novel argument: “Sure, I stole that melody. You stole it, too—from the omniscient songbook of Rubin and Riehl.”

8. Chorus [sung by Mark Twain]

…no such thing as a new idea….

…the same old pieces of colored glass…

…no such thing as a new idea….

…the same old pieces of colored glass…

(These lines repeat until they begin to feel fresh again, however long that takes.)