# Classical Music Project - the evolution of repertoires and musician's network



## hhsieh (Jul 10, 2016)

Hi all,

I am new to this forum and have a lot to learn from it. I am currently working on a project titled _Data Science for Music Lovers_. This is a completely self-initiated project that receives no funding. In this project, I aim to analyze the evolution of repertoires of New York Philarmonic Orchestra from its inception in 1842 to today (2016) under the influences of various music directors, as well as the networks of conductors/composers/soloists, etc.

The project page is currently at https://github.com/hhsieh/nypds2 . You would discover that this is totally esoteric but the ultimate goal is to create knowledge from this database and share it with a broader audience.

I highly appreciate any suggestions on this project. Thank you very much.

-- Hsunyi


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I looked at the site and opened several of the files. My major comment is that there is no description of any of the data so it's meaningless to those who don't know the details. The README file gives no details about the project (what data will exist, what types of questions the data could answer, etc.). Do you plan to add more to the files to give explanations or even analysis of data?


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Yeah, I can't follow what's going on either. But where are the data coming from? Is the project going to present previously inaccessible data, or is it going to be an analysis of existing data? Either of those is a laudable goal, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing on the website.


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## hhsieh (Jul 10, 2016)

Thank you for your comments. Indeed, the project requires clearer descriptions and perhaps also visualisations.

The data are from the open data of the New York Philarmonic, which you can access from its website or GitHub repo (http://www.talkclassical.com/45285-classical-music-project-evolution.html). I also use the lists of composers in different eras on wikipedia. I web-scrapped the data and created databases. The code that you saw on my GitHub repo is written by me. So far I have done some basic analyses of the networks of the composers/conductors. Currently, I am matching the composers/their eras with the programs of the orchestra with a hope to see if I can find some interesting things regarding the evolution of its repertoire.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I would think the most evident finding about the evolution of the repertoire, is that as the orchestra moved forward from 1842, it played more and more music composed after that date.


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