music simplifies – A mathematical study finds melodic and harmonic patterns in jazz and Western classical have grown simpler over time, possibly aided by digital tools.
A striking shift in the way some Western music is built may be happening quietly in the background of everyday listening: melodies and harmonies can become simpler over time, according to a new mathematical analysis.
In a study published April 23 in Scientific Reports. Niccolò Di Marco. a computational social scientist at the University of Tuscia in Viterbo. Italy. and colleagues report evidence that jazz and Western classical music have become more like pop and rock when viewed through one particular lens of musical structure.. The work does not judge whether the music sounds better or worse; instead. it examines how musical building blocks are arranged.
The researchers analyzed 21,480 musical pieces spanning six Western music genres: classical, electronic, hip hop, jazz, pop and rock.. To compare them consistently. the team used MIDI. an audio file format that encodes notes played along with their timing. duration and loudness as numerical values.. From these encoded recordings. the study extracted information about melodies and harmonies and then translated the results into “networks” that capture how notes relate—such as the order in which notes are played and which notes tend to follow others.
When the patterns are considered across genres. the study reports that newer genres—especially pop. electronic and rock—show a more uniform distribution of these melodic and harmonic relationships.. Older genres, including jazz and classical, exhibit more varied patterns in how musical elements connect.
But the most notable finding emerges when the same relationships are tracked across time within jazz and classical.. The early 20th century is described as featuring notably complex musical structures in these genres.. In later decades. the analysis finds a trend toward greater repetitiveness in harmonies. intervals and other structural features—patterns that more closely resemble those seen in pop and rock.
Di Marco frames the shift as a change in how a piece “explores the possible musical space” while still operating under the rules of music.. In other words. the study’s measure of musical structure suggests that. over time. the range of options expressed within the rules governing melody and harmony may be narrowing. even if the end result remains recognizably artistic.
One possible driver highlighted by Di Marco is the rise of digital technologies that make recorded music easier to access and provide ready-made inspiration.. In addition, he points to the growing availability of digital composition tools for musicians.. Such tools and workflows can shape the habits of creation—what gets tried. what gets repeated. and what becomes a default starting point for composing.
The study also connects musical structure to broader visual trends in popular culture by examining shifts in album cover art.. Di Marco’s work on that subject found a broad move toward minimalism. which he suggests reflects. in parallel. the way cultural and technological evolution can influence not just sound. but presentation and creative choices.
Still. the researchers are careful to prevent a common misinterpretation: the findings do not mean jazz or classical music is getting bland or losing quality.. The paper focuses on a mathematical framework for describing structural patterns. not on the listening experience—an important distinction emphasized both by Di Marco and colleagues.. Making music involves far more than melody and harmony, including lyrics, production techniques, sound design and cultural context.
Cultural musicologist Friedlind Riedel. from the University of Salzburg in Austria. agrees that the results could be misconstrued if readers focus only on certain aspects of music.. She notes that looking at a limited set of features can make it seem like there has been a loss of diversity. echoing an old debate in the arts about simplification.
Riedel points to a long history of cultural pessimism—the idea that artistic life can “gray out” as forms become simpler.. Yet she also argues that today’s listening landscape may be more diverse than ever.. Access to different styles and niche traditions is broader. she says. even if certain structural patterns appear to shift in particular genres when measured in this specific way.
For listeners. the practical meaning of the research is less about declaring a winner between eras and more about clarifying what can change when music is produced and distributed in new technological conditions.. By turning music into analyzable networks. the study offers a way to track structural evolution across decades—and it raises questions about how future tools might influence not just what music sounds like. but how its internal rules are navigated. one note at a time.
jazz simplification classical music analysis MIDI networks musical structure digital composition tools Scientific Reports
So basically music got dumber? lol. I miss when songs took more work to understand.
I don’t know, this sounds like one of those math papers where the conclusion was already kind of expected. If people are listening more through playlists and digital tools, of course the patterns are gonna get more uniform.
Wait… they used MIDI and math networks? That’s not really the same thing as hearing it. Jazz can be super complicated even if the notes repeat a lot.
This is honestly interesting though. If you translate music into networks of note relationships, you can see the “simplifying” trend pretty clearly. Kinda makes you wonder how much production and streaming changed what artists aimed for.