# 602 composers need your help (or hindrance)



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

As most people are probably aware, for the last several months I've been conducting a series of composer polls, asking voters simply to pick which of the listed composers they like. The purpose of the polls was just to get an approximate idea of the general musical taste on TC.

I posted the last poll a few weeks ago and have just finished looking at _every single vote_ - the polls are public, which means anyone can click on the results and see how everyone voted.

A whopping 212 of you participated in the process, for which I thank you. 
Particular thanks go to the 15 people who voted in all 43 of the polls:
Arman, Art Rock, Bettina, Bulldog, Gordontrek, Headphone Hermit, Ingélou, Kjetil Heggelund, mmsbls, musicrom, Pugg, Sloe, SuperTonic, tdc, Trout.

If you're surprised that your name isn't on that short list, you may have missed some by accident. Tomorrow I'm going to PM about 50 users to let them know exactly which polls they missed.

So this basically is a *request/plea* to everyone to get involved. It doesn't matter if you're a novice or an expert, or have narrow or broad tastes: everyone's vote counts the same. The more voters I get, the more representative & reliable the data are. 
(Because the final scores are based on the _percentages_ of people who voted a certain way, rather than the _numbers_, not voting for a particular composer will also have an effect - so liking one composer increases their score, while _not_ liking them decreases it.)

I intend to make the full data set available to whoever wants it, because there's lots of potentially interesting information to be gleaned. Not just which composers are liked by the most people, but also whether liking one composer correlates with liking another...

If you've only participated in a handful of polls (and about half of the 212 have only voted in 7 or fewer), or never done any, then I'd be especially delighted if you took part. In the next post below I'll provide links to all 43 of the polls.

In a week or so I guess I'll say that the polls are officially closed (though in reality they're open permanently) and post a new thread presenting a final leaderboard and some exploration of what the data might mean.

Thanks again for voting!


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

#1: Bach, Sibelius, Cage...
#2: Mozart, Satie, Gershwin...
#3: Beethoven, Milhaud, J Strauss...
#4: Brahms, Franck, Gubaidulina...
#5: Schubert, Schoenberg, Pärt...
#6: Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams, Messiaen...
#7: Verdi, Mussorgsky, Takemitsu...
#8: Schuman, Borodin, Lutoslawski...
#9: Haydn, Boulez, Adams...
#10: Debussy, Kodály, Varèse...
#11: Wagner, Gounod, Maderna...
#12: Mahler, Dowland, Bruch...
#13: Handel, Reich, Boccherini...
#14: Dvořák, Dufay, Kurtág...
#15: Mendelssohn, Glazunov, Buxtehude...
#16: Chopin, Martinů, Rihm...
#17: Ravel, Khachaturian, Ferneyhough...
#18: Stravinsky, Berio, Wolf...
#19: Prokofiev, Poulenc, Stockhausen...
#20: Bartók, Rautavaara, Tallis...
#21: Strauss, Gesualdo, Saariaho...
#22: Liszt, Penderecki, Massenet...
#23: Shostakovich, Respighi, Carter...
#24: Rachmaninoff, Gluck, Victoria...
#25: Vivaldi, Delius, Tippett...
#26: Bruckner, Falla, Mascagni...
#27: Berlioz, Villa-Lobos, Piazzolla...
#28: Grieg, Bellini, Hildegard...
#29: Elgar, Hindemith, JC Bach...
#30: Saint-Saëns, Ligeti, Schnittke...
#31: Rossini, Weber, Lully...
#32: Fauré, Nielsen, Spohr...
#33: Rameau, Xenakis, Donizetti...
#34: Britten, Albéniz, Feldman...
#35: Monteverdi, Walton, Glass...
#36: Bizet, Holst, Biber...
#37: Smetana, Berg, Lehár...
#38: Copland, Palestrina, Pachelbel...
#39: Barber, Puccini, Hummel...
#40: Janáček, Josquin, Michael Haydn...
#41: Webern, Purcell, Dutilleux...
#42: Ives, Scarlatti, Rodrigo...
#43: Scriabin, CPE Bach, Ginastera...


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I missed poll number 12. Now I have voted in every poll. No need to send me a PM.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I have just done them all.


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

I had missed a couple...but I have voted in all of them now.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Assignment completed.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

I finished the few I had remaining. I'm looking forward to seeing the results and analysis.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Nereffid, thanks for doing this series of polls. I find it interesting to compare my tastes to those of other TC members...I'm looking forward to seeing the final data, which will help me figure out whether I am an eccentric person or a conformist person! :lol:


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## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

I love these polls Nereffid! It's clear you've put a lot of work into these for which I'm grateful. I've now voted in every one! Can't wait to see the results.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bettina said:


> Nereffid, thanks for doing this series of polls. I find it interesting to compare my tastes to those of other TC members...I'm looking forward to seeing the final data, which will help me figure out whether I am an eccentric person or a conformist person! :lol:


Don't tell me that you rally care


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Definitely fun polls worthy to participate. I try to keep up.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Thought I voted on all of them but I seem to have missed five or so. Hope I got all of them now.


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## Martin D (Dec 13, 2016)

Nereffid said:


> Tomorrow I'm going to PM about 50 users to let them know exactly which polls they missed.
> 
> So this basically is a *request/plea* to everyone to get involved. It doesn't matter if you're a novice or an expert, or have narrow or broad tastes: everyone's vote counts the same. The more voters I get, the more representative & reliable the data are.
> (Because the final scores are based on the _percentages_ of people who voted a certain way, rather than the _numbers_, not voting for a particular composer will also have an effect - so liking one composer increases their score, while _not_ liking them decreases it.)


The key thing to stress in the case of the 50 voters you intend to PM is that if they didn't vote because they didn't like any of composers on offer they should tick the option _"I don't know any, or don't like any"._

Otherwise, if they don't do so, the total number of voters in those polls will be too low, and therefore the percentages of the ticked composers biased upwards.

Alternatively, I guess you could base your analysis simply on the number of votes that each composer achieved, although I accept that this raises problems resulting from random drop-outs in the number of voters due to other reasons. Neither approach is perfect.

Once you have completed the analysis in a week's time I would like to see the detailed results.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

You are all such splendid people! Thanks... keep 'em coming!


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

I've done the ones I missed.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> ... you may have missed some by accident.


I'd missed #11, which I've voted in now. 

Also, it seems that I didn't vote for Martinů in #16, which was an oversight. If possible it'd be great if you could do a +1.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Surprised to find I'd missed three of them. Not any more though.:tiphat:


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## Marinera (May 13, 2016)

Man, that was epic, finally finished all the polls. Still don't understand how come there were so many that I didn't vote in, because it seems like i'm voting all the time when I'm on TC.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Marinera said:


> Man, that was epic, finally finished all the polls. Still don't understand how come there were so many that I didn't vote in, because it seems like i'm voting all the time when I'm on TC.


Some of those polls were restricted to Pay per Poll Premium Talk Classical members.

Now that all the profit has been squeezed out of them, all the polls have been open to the public at the ultimate discount.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

hpowders said:


> Some of those polls were restricted to Pay per Poll Premium Talk Classical members.
> 
> Now that all the profit has been squeezed out of them, all the polls have been open to the public at the ultimate discount.


You mean there was once a required payment to endure endless polls? (I think I can see why that ended.)


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I've now voted in all of them.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

JAS said:


> You mean there was once a required payment to endure endless polls? (I think I can see why that ended.)


As Hpowders, the serious masochist, these polls were an ideal way for me endure psychological pain without resorting to physical pain such as the usual water-boarding.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

JAS said:


> You mean there was once a required payment to endure endless polls? (I think I can see why that ended.)


The reverse operates in this thread. In order for your comment to be read, your fee is: Voting in all the polls.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> The reverse operates in this thread. In order for your comment to be read, your fee is: Voting in all the polls.


So, waterboarding or participating in the polls . . . hmmmm . . . is the water very cold?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

JAS said:


> You mean there was once a required payment to endure endless polls? (I think I can see why that ended.)


Luckily I used a credit card, disputed the charge and got my $750 Bach. No more answering TC email solicitations!


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

The response so far has been wonderful and gratifying. Thanks again, especially to those who've gone through the full list.

I think all the polls have had more than 20 extra voters, so the results are more representative of the general taste than they were before. It's interesting though, that with some exceptions the leaderboard hasn't changed very much. (It was never meant to be taken seriously anyway because of the statistical unreliability of the data, but I've found it a handy guide to the overall situation.) For example, the top 20 composers are still the same, though in a different order. It seems that some of the results that have surprised people - such as Richard Strauss being in the top 4 - are now being "taken care of". Although the results can never tell us who are the _favourite_ composers, it looks like the extra voters have helped put my polls in reasonable alignment with surveys done by other methods.

But the real fun begins when I start to correlate votes for one composer with votes for another!

In the meantime, if you haven't voted yet, all votes are always welcome.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Nereffid said:


> The response so far has been wonderful and gratifying. Thanks again, especially to those who've gone through the full list.
> 
> I think all the polls have had more than 20 extra voters, so the results are more representative of the general taste than they were before. It's interesting though, that with some exceptions the leaderboard hasn't changed very much. (It was never meant to be taken seriously anyway because of the statistical unreliability of the data, but I've found it a handy guide to the overall situation.) For example, the top 20 composers are still the same, though in a different order. It seems that some of the results that have surprised people - such as Richard Strauss being in the top 4 - are now being "taken care of". Although the results can never tell us who are the _favourite_ composers, it looks like the extra voters have helped put my polls in reasonable alignment with surveys done by other methods.
> 
> ...


Can't wait for that.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

*Status update*

I'm really quite overwhelmed with the response! There are now 72 people who have voted in all the polls, and I expect this to reach 80 at least. That's a big enough number for me to do some proper comparisons and correlations.
But I'm now a little greedy, and so (inspired by the fact that there were quite a few brand-new voters and people who'd missed almost all the polls who have now voted in all of them) I'm planning on PMing rather more irregular participants than I'd first decided, which is a time-consuming process.
So I won't be providing any results for a while yet. Hopefully they'll be worth the wait!

In the meantime I can reveal that despite every poll gaining 30 or so voters in the past week, over three-quarters of the composers saw their scores change by less than 3% (the average change for all composers was -1%).


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## Machiavel (Apr 12, 2010)

Indeed that was a marathon!:lol: :wave: Too many new composers. My head is going to explode.

Do we have to expect another tsunami of polls?:devil:


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Machiavel said:


> Indeed that was a marathon!:lol: :wave: Too many new composers. My head is going to explode.
> 
> Do we have to expect another tsunami of polls?:devil:


I think I'm done with polls for the time being... but Art Rock's suggestion that the results could form the basis of a "what your _favourite_ composers?" project is a good one!


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## JamieHoldham (May 13, 2016)

Just voted in all of them relunctantly,

makes my knowledge of composers seem very dim when I only liked about 10 or so composers out of the 60+ of them


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

I voted...for the sake of science! I'm tired now though and I feel like my mousing arm has Carpal tunnel syndrome.


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## pokeefe0001 (Jan 15, 2017)

Nereffid said:


> So this basically is a *request/plea* to everyone to get involved. It doesn't matter if you're a novice or an expert, or have narrow or broad tastes: everyone's vote counts the same. The more voters I get, the more representative & reliable the data are.


And what, in heaven's name, is this data representative of? And what does reliability mean in this case?

I have a very strong antipathy to "polls" of this sort. My tastes are indicative of nothing but my tastes. I do not want to influence, or even pretend to influence, anybody's taste, and nobody's personal preferences are going to influence mine. (Seeing a composer I've never heard of may prompt me to investigate. Seeing how somebody "rates" the composer will not.)

If anybody assumes anything significant can be drawn from my relative rating of Mozart vs. Schnittke (for instance) then that assumption is enough reason for me to keep my preference secret.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

pokeefe0001 said:


> And what, in heaven's name, is this data representative of? And what does reliability mean in this case?
> 
> I have a very strong antipathy to "polls" of this sort. My tastes are indicative of nothing but my tastes. I do not want to influence, or even pretend to influence, anybody's taste, and nobody's personal preferences are going to influence mine. (Seeing a composer I've never heard of may prompt me to investigate. Seeing how somebody "rates" the composer will not.)
> 
> If anybody assumes anything significant can be drawn from my relative rating of Mozart vs. Schnittke (for instance) then that assumption is enough reason for me to keep my preference secret.


The data is representative of the people who vote, but if a significant proportion of TC contributors vote then the data may be a more reliable pointer of TC as a whole. The main impetus behind the polls is simply that people make assumptions, and claims get made, such as "hardly anyone likes X", and it would be nice to have some actual data to test these claims. The goal is information, not influence.

Nothing significant can be drawn from your relative rating of Mozart vs. Schnittke. But something significant can be drawn from 100 such relative ratings - even if it's just the discovery that the relative rating isn't significant!


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