Mozart's melodies were less predictable, teen finds

Pic courtesy: Society for Science/Chris Ayers Photography Mozart’s versatility is unparalleled, even today. Ever wondered what made him the ultimate musical architect, with every phrase perfectly placed and every note seemingly inevitable? Well, an 18-year-old from Philadelphia may have found the answer! Linus Chen-Plotkin analysed more than 600 classical compositions and discovered something that musicologists have debated for centuries but never quite quantified. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s melodies are actually harder to predict than those of any other musician, including Beethoven and Schubert.Teen proves Mozart’s music is unpredictableFor his Regeneron Science Talent Search project, Linus built three statistical tests to measure something he calls a melody's ‘memory’. His project, ‘Predictability and Statistical Memory in Classical Sonatas and Quartets’, was to find out how much earlier notes influence the ones that come after. The ‘memory’ tracks how much one note depends on the notes before it. High memory means earlier phrases keep influencing what comes next, making it more predictable. Low memory means the composer pivots quickly, keeping listeners slightly off-balance.The ...