[9.2] Network Assignment Using Golden Record Curation Quiz Data

by markpepe

When Beethoven was alive, I don’t think he knew that his music would broadcasted across space via radio waves and a golden disc. This networking task demonstrates that Beethoven is the most popular composer on Voyager’s Golden Disc, or is he?

I first took at look at Group B.  Specifically, the targets (pieces of music) with the most sources (people) connected to them were Beethoven’s 5th, Johnny B. Goode, and Melancholy Blues. 7 sources were connected to all 3 targets; 6 sources were connected to 2 of the 3 targets; and 3 sources were connected to 1 of the 3 targets. Only 1 source of all 16 sources connected to the target with the least amount of sources, Pygmy Girls’ Initiation Song.

My hunch for this is that Beethoven, Chuck Berry, and Louis Armstrong are important musical figures in our culture. Beethoven’s da da da dum is in our collective consciousness from children shows, TV, movies, and almost every music class will incorporate that piece into the curriculum. Chuck Berry and Louis Armstrong are amongst a few of the musicians who laid the ground work for pop music. Both of those pieces use the 12 bar blues musical form and the following chords in this pattern:

||: I   | I   | I   | I  | IV | IV | I   | I  | V   | IV| I   | V:||

Any combination of these chords with the addition of the iv chord will give you almost every pop song on the radio. A little divertimento, take a look at this video by Axis of Awesome to hear these chords.

Back to the Task. I thought I would try Google Trends to compare the most popular pieces in Group B with the least popular. Beethoven is clearly the most popular Google search, but it was a challenge figuring out how to search the trend for the Pygmy Girls’ Initiation Song. I would get a 0 for each combination. Bambuti Pygmy Song is what it is called on Spotify.

I then took a look at Group A, my group, to see the connections in communities. To no surprise, the piece that connected all four sources was Beethoven’s 5th. 9 targets connected 3 of the 4 sources, and 6 of those 9 targets were of the Western music tradition. Only one of the community sources gives reasoning as to why they included Beethoven, which corroborates my hunch, popularity in culture. It’s ingrained in western culture. All four sources in my group were also connected by blues based music too: Chuck Berry, Louis Armstrong, and Blind Willy Johnson.

In analyzing these networks I found myself having trouble making inferences. I have the data on my screen and I see the connections, but I feel that I was lacking the qualitative data to make those inferences. That is the reason why I analyzed these networks using data from the quiz, and Google Trends; this showed Beethovens popularity. In Group A, 12 of 17 sources had Beethoven’s 5th as a target, and in Group B, 13 of 18. Well over 50% of sources connected to Beethoven’s 5th in their network. If I include Beethoven’s other piece Quartet No. 13, that brings his total in Group A to 15, and 15 in Group B as well. Totalling 30 sources for Beethoven.

Thank you for reading, but wait…

I’ll be BACH.

Bach had three pieces on the Golden Disc: Brandenburg Concerto, Partita for Violin, and Prelude & Fugue. The totals in Group A was 11 sources, and 20 sources in Group B Bach. Bringing his total to 31! Just edging out Beethoven by 1. Though none of Bach pieces had more sources than Beethoven’s 5th, Bach had more targets, and Group B gave 10 sources to the Brandenburg Concerto compared to 6 sources in Group A. Using Google Trends again, Beethoven wins over Bach.

To conclude, I have posted the networks of Beethoven and Bach below.

Beethoven Group A 15 sources from 2 targets.

Beethoven Group B 15 sources from 2 targets.

Bach Group A 11 sources and 3 targets.

Bach Group B 20 sources and 3 targets.