A pop culture "formula" to tailor a piece of art to suit the tastes of a particular audience is not really an example of actual scientific reductionism though.

A pop culture "formula" to tailor a piece of art to suit the tastes of a particular audience is not really an example of actual scientific reductionism though. It could potentially be "scientism" if anyone actually believed it was scientific, but I don't think most would. A better example of a reduction that relates to music, would be about how you can predict which combinations of notes will sound dissonant by looking at intervals between the frequencies of notes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonance_and_dissonance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonance_and_dissonance ). Yes, it means a lot properties of music can be defined in relatively simple mathematical terms (timing and chord theory being other ways) - but that doesn't mean the interaction between those properties isn't still complex and beautiful. It just gives us more ways to explore that beauty.