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This is a a scientific American 60 second science. I'm Christopher Intagata.

Beethoven is a giant of classical music and the most influential too, at least when it comes to piano

compositions.

That's according to a study in the journal EPJ Data Science.

If you're wondering how data analysis could determine something as intangible as cultural influence,

it's worth remembering this.

The great thing about music is that it is the most mathematical of the art forms we actually can deal with because a lot of it is symbolic.

It's temporal so we have like symbols.

The music is divided using symbols that are connected in time.

Ju Yonge Park is a theoretical physicist by training,

an associate professor of culture technology

at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Park and his colleagues collected 900 piano compositions by 19 composers spanning the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic

periods from 1700 to 1910. The Then they use that mathematical quality to their advantage by dividing each composition into what they called code words,

a group of simultaneously played notes,

in other words, a chord.

They then compared each chord to the chord or note that came after it,

which allowed them to determine how creative

composers were at coming up with novel transitions.

...