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Science says: pop music is simplistic

Started by Rococo Modem Basilisk, April 20, 2010, 08:50:30 PM

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Rococo Modem Basilisk

As some of you may or may not know, I spent last weekend away at a conference. The upshot was probably getting into the top eight in the competitive programming contest, but grading the poster conference was also fun. Anyway, one poster in particular was pretty awesome. I didn't have the foresight to photograph it, but I will retype the blurb from the booklet and list off the conclusions that I remember.

Quote
ENTROPIC MODELS OF MUSIC: USING INFORMATION THEORY TO ANALYSIS[sic] MUSIC
Author: Ian Jones, SUNY Plattsburgh
Advisor: Delbert Hart, SUNY Plattsburgh

A piece of music has many different characteristics that make that piece unique and recognizable. The fundamental building blocks of music are melody, harmony, and rhythm (Simon 2007). Being able to break down a song into its piece is often an arduous task. Previous work by Watts (1974, 1979), Kerns (2001), and Simon (2006, 2007) have developed adaptations of Entropy equations into forms suitable for music. There are four main equations, Melodic Entropy, Harmonic Entropy, Rhythmic Entropy, and Composite Musical Entropy.[sic]

Claude Shannon developed techniques to describe the limits of compressison and reliability of data whilst being transmitted. The main measure in Information Theory is entropy. Entropy H, is defined as a discrete random variable X and the measure of the amount of uncertainty associated with the value of X.[sic]

Music is clearly a form of information. It can be as complicated a message as a Beethoven Symphony or as simple as a lone vocalist. The question exists is what is the information content of these different composition and aside from their musical complexities, is there greater entropy in a Beethoven piece versus that lone vocalist.[sic]

This study will look at the entropy values of various pieces of music in the form of guitar tablature from modern pop to classical pieces, calculate entropy values for the fundamental pieces of the musics and be able to quantify the music by its entropy values.[sic] If assuming music as a language, and a base line entropy value is established, then an analysis of a particular song ccan be achieved.[sic] Based upon entropy and other factors such as sales and chart positions, it can be determined if popularity correlates to a divergence from the average entropy values. Concisely, can the entropy of a song point to how well a song will be received.[sic]

Aside from Mr Jones' problems with the English language, the poster looked promising. He graphed the entropy of every piece in the data set, and graphed a line at the average entropy position. His results were that classical music had the highest entropy and pop music the lowest. Of the pieces in the data set, Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' had the lowest entropy -- meaning it was the most predictable.


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Jasper

Who the hell would enjoy entropic, unpredictable music?

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Rococo Modem Basilisk

Quote from: Sigmatic on April 20, 2010, 09:12:20 PM
Who the hell would enjoy entropic, unpredictable music?

If I recall correctly, the piece with the greatest entropy was by Bach.

I might not be recalling correctly, though. I don't think Bach wrote for the guitar.


I am not "full of hate" as if I were some passive container. I am a generator of hate, and my rage is a renewable resource, like sunshine.

Jasper


NotPublished

Though I think he had some compositions for the lute?

Bach's music was very mathematical
In Soviet Russia, sins died for Jesus.

Rococo Modem Basilisk

Well... Music isn't going to be any good on either extreme end of the spectrum. The minimum entropy would be a pure square-wave tone that doesn't change (I don't know what the minimum in guitar tab form is). The max would be white noise (again, I dunno what the guitar tab equivalent is). Everything worth listening to is in a very small segment quite near the middle.

I mostly found it amusing that a grad student was using information theory to take a dig at Michael Jackson.


I am not "full of hate" as if I were some passive container. I am a generator of hate, and my rage is a renewable resource, like sunshine.

NotPublished

#7
It depends purely on taste also Mr Enki :) Some enjoy the disoragnised sounds, others can only handle 4 notes for 3 minutes.

It is why my favourite style is Classical, it is always different to listen to (Of course sometimes if you hear one from the same composer [Or sometimes the peformer who doesn't change their technique], you've heard them all) ~ Of course most Classical I listen to isn't Disorganised it does follow an intricate pattern
In Soviet Russia, sins died for Jesus.

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Quote from: Sigmatic on April 20, 2010, 09:12:20 PM
Who the hell would enjoy entropic, unpredictable music?

The word "entropy" is jargon in information theory.  Context clues, son.

Low entropy would be singing "this is the song that never ends [...]" forever.  The lowest possible would be silence or singing "la" every second, forever, always at the same pitch.  Or silence.  Idk, really.

Do you want to listen to "99 bottles of beer on the wall", all the way to zero?

It's kinda a question of aneristic vs eristic delusions--neither is particularly healthy or fun for very long.

Jasper

Alright, my bad.  But please refrain from calling me "son", unless you happen to be at least twice my age.

So what's the point of studying entropy levels in music?  Is it going to make better music, or is it just an exercise in measuring entropy?

NotPublished

It is probably going to somehow relate to human psychology by my guess... I am hoping it is just an exercise in measuring the Entropy however.

How would the focus of Entropy on music help people produce better results?

"Make it sound a bit more Disorganised, just turn the knob there"
In Soviet Russia, sins died for Jesus.

Triple Zero

Quote from: Sigmatic on April 20, 2010, 09:12:20 PM
Who the hell would enjoy entropic, unpredictable music?

WHY DO YOU HATE SQUAREPUSHER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBgn8QxYB6U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxEb2FrQUbE [track starts at 3:12 in]

also "Beat It" is a pretty swote track too, IMO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow-JyZ9xezk

btw I would think Squarepusher or Venetian Snares (FUCK HIM!!! :argh!:) would probably beat Bach in entropy hands down. In fact, so would any freestyle modern improv jazz wanking, since it's basically tonal whitenoise anyway :-P
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e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Triple Zero

BTW this is actually a very interesting topic, on the subject of order vs disorder.

Cause on the one hand, you have the lowest entropy, which is hitting the same note over and over. This always sounds pretty much the same.

And on the other end, there is highest entropy, which would be like throwing a d12 for every note and picking a random halfnote from an octave, or something. If you ever listened to purely randomly selected notes, you will have noticed that this ALSO always sounds the same! Well, you know that of course technically it never is exactly the same, but to your brain it's "that jumbled mess of 12 notes" every time. The chances of getting any melodic structure are very very slim.

If you look at my thread in Bring & Brag "Data Driven Design Doodles", one of my posts there talks about a similar problem, except not for sound, but for drawing shapes.

The idea is the same. Draw shapes that are too simple and they always look pretty much the same. Draw shapes that are too complicated and they always look like a big jumbled mess of lines.

I've tried a stab at random music generation myself, unfortunately I'm not even very good in making non-random music, so it turned out a bit simplistic (and I had a lot of help from a friend about harmony and chord progressions and shit). The end result is pretty funny, the melodies are random, but they always carry the same sort of "feel" or "emotion" because it selects from a limited set of chord progressions.
What happened to me was that while programming it, I would hear the melodies over and over again, and they would stick in my head! Except, there was no fixed melody to be stuck in my head, so I found myself humming, trying to hum something that I just couldn't put my finger on. It was an odd sensation.
I have to say, I did manage to program a pretty kickass randomized drum/percussion rhythm. I suppose I just have more feeling for that then, I just wrote a bunch of rules that seemed "right" to me, and out came some surprisingly funky shit, especially with some tweaking. For the notes I just had the advice my friend was giving me.

for anyone interested, the random music generator is here BTW: http://ritz.no.sapo.pt/TUTE0.EXE yeah it's an EXE file so run it at your own risk. I wrote it, so it's not a virus. Unless those bitches at no.sapo.pt switched it for one, depending on how paranoid you are (it's a random free portuguese webhoster I signed up for using an online translator many years ago, I have no idea who they are).
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

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Quote from: Sigmatic on April 20, 2010, 11:08:40 PM
Alright, my bad.  But please refrain from calling me "son", unless you happen to be at least twice my age.

So what's the point of studying entropy levels in music?  Is it going to make better music, or is it just an exercise in measuring entropy?

Will do.  Don't know quite why I did that bit anyways.

Template

Quote from: Triple Zero on April 20, 2010, 11:35:23 PM
I've tried a stab at random music generation myself, unfortunately I'm not even very good in making non-random music, so it turned out a bit simplistic (and I had a lot of help from a friend about harmony and chord progressions and shit). The end result is pretty funny, the melodies are random, but they always carry the same sort of "feel" or "emotion" because it selects from a limited set of chord progressions.
What happened to me was that while programming it, I would hear the melodies over and over again, and they would stick in my head! Except, there was no fixed melody to be stuck in my head, so I found myself humming, trying to hum something that I just couldn't put my finger on. It was an odd sensation.
I have to say, I did manage to program a pretty kickass randomized drum/percussion rhythm. I suppose I just have more feeling for that then, I just wrote a bunch of rules that seemed "right" to me, and out came some surprisingly funky shit, especially with some tweaking. For the notes I just had the advice my friend was giving me.

Oooh, generated music!

Ever checked out http://tones.wolfram.com/ ?