Pi\`eces de viole des Cinq Livres and their statistical signatures: the musical work of Marin Marais and Jordi Savall

TL;DR

This paper investigates the audio spectrum of 'Pièces de viole des Cinq Livres' by Marin Marais and Jordi Savall, identifying exponential distributions as their statistical signature through complex systems analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel spectral analysis approach to identify statistical signatures in historical musical recordings, highlighting the exponential distribution as characteristic.

Findings

Spectral components are highly skewed.

Exponential distribution best fits the spectral data.

Statistical signatures may relate to musical structure.

Abstract

This study analyzes the spectrum of audio signals related to the work of "Pi\`eces de viole des Cinq Livres" based on the collaborative work between Marin Marais and Jordi Savall for the underlying musical information. In particular, we explore the identification of possible statistical signatures related to this musical work. Based on the complex systems approach, we compute the spectrum of audio signals, analyze and identify their best-fit statistical distributions, and plot their relative frequencies using the scientific pitch notation. Findings suggest that the collection of frequency components related to the spectrum of each of the books that form this audio work show highly skewed and associated statistical distributions. Therefore, the most frequent statistical distribution that best describes the collection of these audio data and may be associated with a singular statistical signature is the exponential.