My field of research is using statistics to explore the history of music. Today I’d like to talk about some analysis I’ve done on women composers and their works. Time is short, so I’ve got just four charts, and I’ll talk briefly about what they tell us about women composers, and about the data and the methodology, and the sort of issues that can arise with this sort of investigation. There is more detail available at this link.1
The first chart is an attempt to quantify how many women composers there are.2 Continue reading →
Franz Pazdírek was a Viennese music publisher who, in the first decade of the twentieth century, compiled a ‘Universal Handbook of Music Literature’ – a composite catalogue of all sheet music then in print, worldwide. This ambitious undertaking (which, perhaps not surprisingly, was never repeated) was published over six years, and resulted in nineteen 600-page volumes listing music publications by 1,400 publishers covering every continent except Antarctica. 
The gentleman pictured to the right is Welsh composer Henry Brinley Richards.
In what ways can statistical techniques be used to investigate topics in historical musicology? I think there are four main approaches – hypothesis testing, quantification, modelling and exploration. Their use depends on the topic, the data, and the type of question you are trying to answer.