![]() ![]() I suppose some of these ideas are somewhat known, others maybe not so much. MARK GLICKMAN: So there are a bunch of little things that came out of our model. Let’s talk about McCartney versus– what makes a Paul McCartney song a Paul song.ĭR. IRA FLATOW: All right, let’s go down to brass tacks here. So if you treat the melody line, the notes in a melody line, almost as if that’s the words in the document, as well as having the chord sequence, which can also be viewed as like another dictionary of words that are in a document, you can use the same kind of analysis, which basically is examining the frequencies of certain kinds of words and certain kinds of chords or certain notes sequences or chord sequences as the way of establishing the fingerprint for a songwriter. So for example, in an individual song there’s a melody line and there’s also a chord sequence. And we applied the same kind of idea to musical content of songs. There’s a long history of analyzing sequences of words to be able to distinguish different authors. And the way that we did it was to borrow from some ideas that are used in analysis of text documents. MARK GLICKMAN: Well there are lots of ways to take a song and break it down into its constituent parts. IRA FLATOW: So how do you break down a song in a way that will tell who wrote it?ĭR. MARK GLICKMAN: Thank you very much for having me. Mark Glickman, senior lecturer on statistics in the Department of Statistics at Harvard. He has developed an algorithm to determine the authorship of In My Life and several other contested Beatles songs by identifying what makes a song as a John song or a Paul song. My next guest is one such curious fan, as well as a Harvard statistician. There’s something in the songs themselves that make them unique to the songwriter. Was there a way to get closer to the truth? True Beatle fans will tell you that they are more partial to songs written by Paul or by John. The two Beatles agreed to disagree, but die-hard fans remain curious. John claims to have written that tune, but Paul remembers it differently. (SINGING) All these places have their moments with lovers and friends I still can recall. That was over 50 years ago though, so it’s no surprise that memories have gotten a little fuzzy when it comes to who wrote which Beatles song. IRA FLATOW: If you had a number one hit song, I bet you would remember writing it, right? John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote over 200 songs together. He joins Ira to discuss solving the mysteries of musical authorship with statistics. He developed an algorithm to determine the authorship of “In My Life” and several other contested Beatles songs, by identifying what makes a song a John song or a Paul song. Mark Glickman, senior lecturer in statistics at Harvard University, was one such curious fan. But die-hard fans remained curious-was there a way to get closer to the truth? True Beatles fans will tell you they’re more partial to songs written by Paul or John. ![]() Take for example, the song “In My Life.” John claimed to have written that track, but Paul remembers it differently. So it’s no surprise that memories have gotten a little fuzzy when it comes to who wrote which Beatles song. John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote over 200 songs together over 50 years ago. If you had a number one hit song, you would probably remember writing it. A graffitied wall in Prague, Czech Republic. ![]()
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