Decoding Beethoven's music style using data science

What makes Beethoven sound like Beethoven? EPFL researchers have completed a first analysis of Beethoven's writing style, applying statistical techniques to unlock recurring patterns. EPFL researchers are investigating Beethoven's composition style and they are using statistical techniques to quantify and explore the patterns that characterize musical structures in the Western classical tradition. They confirm what is expected against the backdrop of music theory for the classical music era, but go beyond a music theoretical approach by statistically characterizing the musical language of Beethoven for the very first time. Their study is based on the set of compositions known as the Beethoven String Quartets and the results are published in PLOS ONE on June 6^th, 2019. "New state-of-the-art methods in statistics and data science make it possible for us to analyze music in ways that were out of reach for traditional musicology. The young field of Digital Musicology is currently advancing a whole new range of methods and perspectives," says Martin Rohrmeier who leads EPFL's Digital and Cognitive Musicology Lab ( DCML ) in the College of Humanities' Digital Humanities Institute. "The aim of our lab is to understand how music works." The Beethoven String Quartets refer to 16 quartets encompassing 70 single movements that Beethoven composed throughout his lifetime. He completed his first String Quartet composition at the turn of the 19^th century when he was almost 30 years old, and the last in 1826 shortly before his death. A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four musicians playing string instruments: two violins, the viola, and the cello. From music analysis to big data