3 ms·
Melodies in chart-topping music have become less complex, study finds
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoStudy: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-64571-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-64571-x
- brudgers 2y agoMelody is less important in many contemporary musical forms (as is the case with many traditional forms). Popular music reflects this. In general, melody is less important because electronic instruments (including effects) provide a broader range and more control of timber and contemporary recordings deliver a wider spectrum (FM radio was good to about 15k Hz and vinyl record cutting could not deliver low frequencies well (particularly not in stereo, particularly not as sine waves) due to mechanical limitations. Or to put it another way, melody is important in some genres. Music is bigger than those genres and given opportunity people often enjoy and/or find meaning in those generes. The world we live in gives people better access to such genres and better opportunity to create and distribute their own music. There's nothing wrong with a preference for melodic music, however, treating non-melodic music as objectively inferior is wrong. Not for me, doesn't mean bad.