Heatmap

# A tibble: 6 x 3
  class               precision recall
  <fct>                   <dbl>  <dbl>
1 Euphoric Hardstyle      0.789   0.75
2 Happy Hardcore          0.923   0.6 
3 Industrial Hardcore     0.588   0.5 
4 Mainstream Hardcore     0.444   0.4 
5 Raw hardstyle           0.333   0.6 
6 Uptempo                 0.529   0.45

Cluster Scatterplot

Cluster Analysis

How loud is harder styles music?

Loudness

The construction work metaphor in the introduction of this portfolio sort of makes sense when looking at loudness. With violin plots; the thicness indicates how many tracks are at a specific point of the y-axis. At the thickest part of the 'blob' is where most of the tracks can be found. Sometimes, in the shape of a violin. In this case, it no such shape can be found. But to look at the harder styles. 4 of the harder styles can be found above the other harder genres. Having a slight advantage over dubstep and death metal. Euphoric hardstyle and happy hardcore falling a bit short of the rest. Generally can be said, harder styles definitely contain a strong loudness.

It is happy of serious?

Valence

In general harder styles music has a serious tone to it. Especially hardcore genres (industrial, main, uptempo) seem to be more serious. An exeption seems to be happy hardcore with a more valent tone, which considering the name should not be a very big surprise. Hip hop and rock however seem to contain more valience. So, it looks like the hardcore compensates for the happy.

Does it truly live up to it's fast reputation?

Tempo

Strangely enough, harder styles music do not seem to have an extravagrantly high tempo. Which kind of were one of the predesignated criteria to determine wether it's harder styles music or not. Euphoric and raw hardstyle seem to have most of the tracks around the 150BMP and 160-165BMP mark respectively. This is in line with the tendency for hardstyle producers to remain loyal to the 150-160BMP. Surprisingly, uptempo seems to be at 100BMP, for which I have two hypothesis. First is Spotify tempo assesment spasses out, due to too high BPM or undefinable beat kicks. Second is there are often long breaks between drops in uptempo songs. It could be that a long break compensate for high BPM.

How much energy goes in harder styles music?

Energy

Energy seems more variable among the harder styles. With most genres having a great portion of it. Judging by the thickness of the plots for mainstream hardcore, rawstyle and especially industrial seem on average to contain the most energy. Comparible to death metal. The energy for happy hardcore and euphoric hardstyle seem more variable.

What about keys?

Why keys in harder styles don't work

It does seem that harder styles music in general does not remain loyal to one certain key. One explanation for that could be it is to refrain from being more repetative. For example the kick of hardstyle is pretty generalized. The variation possibility is limited so to create some additinal variability. There will be played with melodies a lot.

Another point is that it might be useless to assign keys to harder styles music. Because it is digitally synthetised, audio comes from many different frequencies at once and are often distored and boosted. Despite there often being some kind of melody, a histogram of keys might not depict the information about the key we want.

Comparison; Imaginary - Brennan Heart

The structural analysis will be done on two tracks. maginary from Brennan Heart is truly a classic and is also a well defined euphoric hardstyle track.

and Life is Lost from Dr. Peacock and Sefa characterizes itself as a true frenchcore track.

The first track is imaginary by Brennan Heart. This track has got 5 phases with repetition visible:

intro - buildup - first drop - buildup - second drop

The buildup and drops are similar in structure, which is visible in the plot aswell.

The intro starts with singing, and a simple beat and melody. Timbre coëfficients c02, c04 and c06 are the strongest here.

Afterwards follows the buildup. The singing continues and additional melodies with increasing intensity join in. c03 and c05 join c02 with high intensity. c01 comes un in the background, which gives the listener the feel of a drop coming.

The drop. Most of the energy is put in c01 and c06. It seems that these could be the core of the hardstyle 'kick'.

The buildup and drop repeat with noticable differences.

Self simularity imaginary: timbre

Self-similarity of the imaginary track with timbre features.

Self similarity imaginary: pitch

The pitch self similarity show repitition of the drop and buildup.

Comparison Life is Lost

The Life Is Lost track also has phases to be defined. Intro - First drop - Buildup - Drop - Pauze - Drop - Pauze - Drop - Outro

The track begins with atmospheric introduction (listen)

Without warning the track develops into the first drop. Just like the hardstyle track; ** the kick exists in the c01 coefficient**

Afterwards in settles down into a buildup phase. Moving along the melody and the story. Strong C02 and c03 activity.

At the second drop, there is high c01 activity to be found. But it exists together with melodies.

The pauses are short and rich in c02 and c03.

The outro creates a transition to a piano play. Una mattina by Ludovico Enaudi, which, fun fact, is the sample Dr Peacock and Sefa used to create this track. It also gives you the opportunity to get down to earth and ask yourself 'what'd just happen?'

This track has much less buildup than the first track. The drops are longer and appear more frequently. One of the imporant differences between hardstyle and hardcore is highlighted here. Hardcore drops are much less subtle and have less buildup than hardcore drops in general. Also hardcore drop are longer in duration than hardstyle drops.

Self simularity life is lost: Timbre

Self similarity life is lost: pitch