Marla got me an early Christmas present a couple days ago, a Casion CDP-100 electric piano/keyboard. I have wanted a piano in the house for a long time, and now, I have one! I am very excited! So, I have been re-learning some songs, and practicing some new ones... and Marla is re-learning to play too! I was then thinking to myself that learning to read music is like learning to play DDR. How after a while, you don't look at just one note, or step, but just gaze at all of the upcoming notes, or steps. So I thought to myself, "ok, well then learning a piano shouldn't take too much longer than learning to play DDR," so I decided to do some calculations, as I seem to have the genetic disposition to do so. So I calculated that there are only 16 possible combinations of DDR dance mat inputs. (4 possible arrows multiplied to the power of 2, being that the button is either 'on' or 'off')
Ok, so 16, yeah, that's a lot. (I note that in the game you will never press all four or even three buttons at a time, so in reality there are 11 combinations)
So, why the calculator? I wanted to see mathematically how many times more complex a piano is. Now, just as note, I realize that the average human only has two arms and ten fingers (where as I have 4 arms and 24 fingers... is that weird? :)
Any way, I calculated that on an 88 key keyboard, there are 17,592,186,044,000 possible keying combinations. That is assuming that you have the ability to press all 88 keys at once, and any combination there in. And if you where able to press any combination of all 88 keys, and could 'play' one "Gigantic Cord" every 1 second, it would take 571,947 years to press them all! YIKES! That doesn't sound right, but my math doesn't lie. If you have a nice calculator, test it out... 2 (being the key either pressed, or not pressed) to the power of 88 (number of keys) will give you the total combinations. Then to figure 'time' take the total divided by 60 seconds divided by 60 minutes divided by 24 hours divided by 356 days. and all I can say is, you better get to work if you think you'll ever be able to hit every key combo there is... this doesn't seem like it's right... but it is, so don't argue!
So in the end, I just have to say, I have a lot more respect of Uncle Richard.
By the way, if any one here would know how to calculate with the restraints that only ten keys could be pressed at a time, and with two hands that only have a one octave reach, each pressing up to 5 notes, I would love to see how. I am just too tired to think of how to do it now, especially after haven typed this all up!
Rob
