Analysis of creativity in western classical piano melodies based on complex systems theory

Abstract

Art is the fruit of creativity. It can also serve as a touchstone for machines trained on large amounts of data with various algorithms to test their originality. As those examples raise the questions about whether creation is unique to human beings, there has been growing academic interest in the essence of creativity. Many attempts have been tried to quantify creativity, but there is still a lack of effort to explain in detail the manifestation of creativity especially in the eyes of a particular art. In this paper, we analyzed the network of classical music to measure creativity and the measurement results were validated by musical characteristics. Furthermore, we showed that creativity and melodic entropy reveal a positive correlation based on the insight that history of Western music was a process of breaking down the traditional harmonic rules. Unlike prior research, this study does not merely quantified creativity, but also conducted specific case studies and explored the meaning of musical creativity in Western musical history by examining the relationship between creativity and diversity.