Network science has shown itself to be useful in understanding a complex system by allowing us to unearth novel and intriguing patterns among its components. It is playing a particularly integral role in understanding social systems where collaboration between people is essential. Music is one such domain, as evidenced by how its centuries-old history is filled with intriguing episodes of collaborations between its central personalities and the influences they exerted on one other. In this article, the authors present their findings in the network understanding of the landscape of collaborations in western classical music.

The Internet has enabled easy storage and retrieval of various network data, including data showing the relationship between music professionals. “High-Throughput Humanities” is a new way of thought that aims to bring analysis of such large-scale data to the study of traditional humanities subjects including music. Here we present how networks of musical professionals can help us understand the process of collective music production and the human perception of musical similarity.