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Can it be scientifically proven that music used to be better?
🇳🇱 Netherlands /Culture & Society

Can it be scientifically proven that music used to be better?

From NRC Handelsblad · () Dutch

Translated from Dutch, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • Recent studies suggest music has become less complex in terms of melody and harmony, using mathematical tools to analyze thousands of songs.
  • Researchers like Niccolò Di Marco and Julian Schaap use data science to identify patterns in music, but caution against quantifying art to prove superiority.
  • The analysis involves converting music into tonal networks to measure complexity, comparing pieces like Eminem's "Superman" with classical compositions.

NRC Handelsblad delves into a fascinating question that has long sparked debate: is music today truly worse than the music of the past? Recent scientific endeavors, employing sophisticated data analysis, suggest a trend towards reduced complexity in melody and harmony. This research, published in journals like Scientific Reports, attempts to quantify musical quality using mathematical models and computational tools.

I don't think music is getting worse, I think it's changing.

— Niccolò Di MarcoData scientist and art researcher at Tuscia University, commenting on the evolution of music complexity.

Data scientist Niccolò Di Marco, from Tuscia University, emphasizes that their findings indicate a change rather than a decline in musical quality. His research group analyzes vast datasets of music, converting them into 'tonal networks' to measure complexity. This approach allows for the identification of broad patterns, moving beyond subjective interpretations of individual songs.

The criticism is: music cannot be captured in numbers, and you shouldn't want to quantify art. I don't entirely agree with that. As long as you don't claim that you can prove that music has gotten better or worse.

— Julian SchaapMusic sociologist at Erasmus University, discussing the quantification of music.

Sociologist Julian Schaap of Erasmus University offers a complementary perspective, focusing on audience reception rather than the music itself. While acknowledging the criticism that art cannot be reduced to numbers, Schaap agrees that such analyses are valuable for identifying patterns, as long as they do not claim to definitively prove that music has become 'better' or 'worse.' The comparison between the tonal networks of a hip-hop track like Eminem's "Superman" and a classical piece illustrates the method's potential to reveal structural differences.

You can reveal interesting patterns this way.

— Julian SchaapMusic sociologist at Erasmus University, explaining the benefits of large-scale data analysis in music research.

This scientific approach to music analysis, while potentially controversial for purists, offers a unique lens through which to understand evolving musical structures. It highlights how technological advancements in data science can be applied to cultural phenomena, providing objective insights into trends that might otherwise remain purely subjective.

We build up a description of the music that is easy to analyze. We ask the computer: how easily could information spread across this network? The answer, a number between zero and one, we use as a measure of complexity.

— Niccolò Di MarcoData scientist at Tuscia University, explaining the methodology of tonal network analysis.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by NRC Handelsblad in Dutch. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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