A study that uses network science to measure the complexity of 20,000 pieces of music produced for four centuries claims that music has become less complex, that is, simpler. Music is an important part of human life in every society we know. Therefore, it is a very interesting research area to examine how this form of art changes over time and especially how it becomes more accessible with technology.

In the study, which has not yet passed the referee audit, the team argued that the content circulating in fast, interdependent and algorithmically arranged environments is subject to simplify processes, as seen in lyrics and social media interpretations, and adding: “This is an important question. It brings up: Is there a similar trend in the contemporary music environment? ”

Of course, measuring the complexity of music is not a simple task. Rome Sapienza University and Padova University researchers have used network science tools to analyze various types of music for centuries. “We analyzed a data set consisting of approximately 20,000 MIDI files categorized to six macro species and chose to represent music compositions as predominantly directed networks where notes are knots and transitions, and continues:“ This approach systematically investigates the structural differences between the species And it offers a potential method to measure musical complexity and tendencies over time. ”

Simply put it, the team, which represented the notes as “nodes ve and represented any transition between the notes as connection lines or“ edges ,, then began to analyze how complex a piece of music was. Where a note repeatedly switched to another note, the connection line was thickened, which facilitated the analysis.

Simplified Music

The team found some amazing results that did not match the previous research using this network analysis. In general, they found that classical music was much more complex than modern music, and that musical complexity has decreased for centuries. However, the classical music itself seems to have become less complex over time.

Jazz, on the other hand, was an exception to this tendency, albeit for a short time. “Especially, while classical music tends to decline, jazz shows an increase in the complexity in the early days, a decrease and eventually stability. In contrast, other species protect relatively flat patterns and productivity values ​​can be compared with classical and jazzinks in recent years. ”

Responsible disco and New Wave?

Previous research, melodies have recently become simpler, and this tendency first emerged from the beginning of Disco and New Wave around 1975, and then the rise of hip-hop, electronic music and MTV. However, since the complexity has decreased in all types of new studies, it is not right to hold these new types responsible for the decline in the complexity of music.

While the team says that the cause of this decline in complexity is not clear, it suggests that technological developments, more people can compose music and many other factors may play a role. He also adds to the explanations that this tendency to simplify in music, increasing global connections, rapid spread of content, algorithmically regulated and reflects the wider social changes, and the emergence of new technologies and platforms encouraging the development of species with lower complexity compared to previous periods He says he’s.

In addition, although music is simplified in terms of melody, it should be noted that it has much more layers in some other angles, such as the increase in music instruments.

The new study can be reached via Arxiv.