Volume no :54, Issue no: 1, November (2018)

EMERGENCE OF BENFORD’S LAW IN MUSIC

Author's: Azar Khosravani and Constantin Rasinariu
Pages: [11] - [24]
Received Date: November 14, 2018
Submitted by:
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18642/jmsaa_7100122017

Abstract

We analyzed a large selection of classical musical pieces composed by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and Tchaikovsky, and found a surprising connection with mathematics. For each composer, we extracted the time intervals each note was played in each piece and found that the corresponding data sets are Benford distributed. Remarkably, the logarithmic distribution is present not only for the leading digits, but also for all digits.

Keywords

Benford distribution, classical music, logarithmic distribution of digits, Q-Q plots.