# How much music is there out there?



## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

*How much music is out there?*

If you can count music as either published on paper and/or performed on CD/MP3. Has any person sat down and tried to work out how much music of all genres there is available? This could be measured in terabytes or pages or hours. I have access to the Naxos collection through IMSLP and it is mindbogglingly huge and that is but one mere producer.

And then you stop and think that a massive majority of this music is written using simple major or minor scales. It is quite breathtaking. I only ask this because I never know what to listen to half the time!


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

This is why it makes sense to me to listen to pieces you enjoy again (whether the same or different interpretation) instead of only listening to new music. What difference does it make if I listen to 0.000000000001% or 0.000000000002% of the music out there? I'll never get to it all, so I will choose the music that feels right for the moment, whether old or new.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I try to familiarize myself with every genre in music, and there is a heck of a lot of music. Some works are more representative of the genre than others.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

There is probably more music out there, even just in the classical genre, than anyone can listen to in a lifetime.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I never tried, can't imagine even. Think about all those pieces who played just once and destroyed. 
A.K.A middle ages .


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Far, far more than one person can listen during an entire lifetime. Even if your listening preferences involve only opera, or only German/Austrian Romantics, or only the pipe organ - it will still be more than enough for you. That is why I do not place much value on the idea "you must explore _everything_ there is out there in music". Find what eras/genres/styles you really, really love, stick to them, and you will find enough to keep you happy for life.


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## beetzart (Dec 30, 2009)

Some people love stats, some spend their leisure time collating cricket or football stats. Music must have its own stattos who have a burning need to know what this vast amount of music amounts to. Just so they can say that on such particular date to the best of their knowledge there is at least 1765 Tb of recorded music and 174 millions pages of printed music, for example.


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## IamTim (Dec 27, 2017)

beetzart said:


> If you can count music as either published on paper and/or performed on CD/MP3. Has any person sat down and tried to work out how much music of all genres there is available? This could be measured in terabytes or pages or hours. I have access to the Naxos collection through IMSLP and it is mindbogglingly huge and that is but one mere producer.
> 
> And then you stop and think that a massive majority of this music is written using simple major or minor scales. It is quite breathtaking. I only ask this because I never know what to listen to half the time!


If it helps a friend of my wife filled a 3 terabyte drive with music.... no repeats and it was mostly classical with some classic rock. And he did not come close to getting it all.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

ArkivMusic says it has over 120,000 CDs/DVDs etc. There's undoubtedly plenty of duplicate performances in there, but conversely it certainly doesn't amount to all the music ever recorded. And then there's all the unrecorded music to think of.


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## aceroa (Apr 3, 2015)

According to Wikipedia "As of 2017, iTunes Store offers more than 43 million songs". Obviously iTunes doesn't carry every song ever recorded, but I think that gives an idea as to how much music there truly is out there. The real number obviously being much greater than that.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

So much, yet not enough


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