Title: Interconnecting a Network of Musical Influence by Four Degrees

Speaker(s): Addesyn Marshall, Rosa Flores, Brooklyn Price

Abstract: A sense of belonging is one of the five basic needs for human survival. Thus, networks and interactions between individuals play a crucial role in humanity. Because there is such a high importance on interconnectivity within society, there are many different ways to connect people. One way that humans create networks is through music. Being able to categorize music and artists by their level of influence allows our society to see the connections and influence music has on people. We created a model to help us understand what makes music influential and while showing the relationships between musicians. Our model consists of multiple networks that allow us 1) to obtain the percentage of direct influence from our data using a matrix and submatrices of decades and genres. 2) illustrate and implement the Kevin Bacon Law to find the degree of separation between Influencers and Followers referred to as the RAB number. 3) uses conditional formatting to determine the proximity of musical characteristics by genre and by the artist to each character's average over the last century. Our network obtained the Average RAB number of 3.625, meaning that most Influencers are connected to their followers by 4 Degrees. It determined that danceability, liveness, loudness, and speechiness were the traits that contributed most to influenceability. Also, it created a definition for genres and showed how those genres have evolved.

Advisor: Vinodh Chellamuthu