News release

From: Springer Nature

Music: Scaling back the complexity of classical and jazz

Classical and jazz music have become simpler and more uniform from the mid-20th century and are now closer in complexity to genres such as pop and rock, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. The authors suggest that music digitization may be influencing the composition of different genres by making it easier for artists to access and draw inspiration from recorded music.

Previous research suggests that popular song lyrics and melodies have become simpler in recent years, but it is unclear whether historically ‘complex’ genres such as classical and jazz have been similarly affected.

Niccolò Di Marco, Walter Quattrociocchi, and colleagues analysed the melodies and harmonies of 21,480 songs and compositions written between 1600 and 2021. They found that the complexity of classical music increased and decreased at various points prior to 1900, but notably declined in complexity throughout the 20th century. Similarly, the complexity of jazz pieces peaked in the 1950s and 1960s but declined afterwards. Overall, classical and jazz pieces from the early 20th century were more complex than pop, rock, electronic, or hip-hop songs from the entire century. However, after the mid-20th century, the complexity of classical and jazz pieces more greatly resembled songs from these other genres, with their structures and harmonies becoming more similar.

The authors state that their findings may not imply a decline in musical creativity and note that they did not assess other elements of musical complexity, such as lyrics, production, sound design, and cultural context. They speculate that musical characteristics beyond harmony may increasingly be used to express complexity in songwriting and composition. They add that future research could investigate this by analysing multiple aspects of song structure, including melody, lyrical content, and time signature.