An Experiment with Electric Guitar Signals for Exploring the Virtuosity based on the Entropy of Music

TL;DR

This study explores the relationship between musical virtuosity and entropy in electric guitar signals, suggesting entropy as a measure of diversity and virtuosity levels in music based on an interdisciplinary analysis.

Contribution

It introduces an entropy-based approach to quantify virtuosity in electric guitar signals, linking signal diversity to musical virtuosity through experimental analysis.

Findings

Virtuosity correlates with specific entropy ranges.

Entropy values indicate levels of diversity in audio signals.

Different signals can have similar entropy despite different values.

Abstract

We analyze the concept of virtuosity as a collective attribute in music and its relationship with the entropy based on an experiment that compares two sets of digital signals played by composer-performer electric guitarists. Based on an interdisciplinary approach related to the complex systems, we computed the spectrum of signals, identified statistical distributions that best describe them, and measured the Shannon entropy to establish their diversity. Findings suggested that virtuosity might be related to a range of entropy values that identify levels of diversity of the frequency components of audio signals. Despite the presence of different values of entropy in the two sets of signals, they are statistically similar. Therefore, entropy values can be interpreted as levels of virtuosity in music.