Introduction

The data collected for our project focuses on how different music genres affect listeners’ BPMs. For our data, we focused on the genres rock, pop, ballad, classical, metal, alternative, and electronic. We used a finger pulse oximeter to collect data for each team member. When the device was attached to each listener, we played a different song from each genre for a minute.

Rock Genre

For our first graph, we wanted to focus on the Rock Genre. We collected data on 6 different rock songs. The songs listened to ranged from 70 to 164 BPM. The songs in the rock genre include “Stairway to Heaven” (70-100 BPM), “Slip of the Night” (100 BPM), “I Wanna Be Your Slave” (120 BPM), “Come As You Are” (120 BPM), “Red” (180 BPM), and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” (164 BPM).

In the graph, the x-axis lists the songs we collected, and the y-axis shows heart rate (BPM). The orange line we see is the average line connecting the songs’ means, and the individual points highlight each song’s mean. The blue dashed line represents the smooth trend line across all data. The blue points across the graph are the individual data points that we all collected when listening to each song on its own. The highest mean overall for the rock genre is “Come As You Are” in comparison to “Stairway to Heaven”, which was our lowest overall mean.

In comparison, “Come As You Are” starts with a bass, then adds drums and the lead vocalist, and continues to include more instruments. In comparison, “Stairway to Heaven” begins with a light acoustic guitar and a flute, and plays that for 52 seconds, then the vocals come in towards the end. This could be a primary reason “Stairway to Heaven” was the lowest-BPM song recorded.

Pop Genre

For our next graph, we focused on the Pop genre, with one Ballad song included for comparison. We collected data on 12 different songs. The songs listened to ranged from 84 to 190 BPM. The songs include “Girlfriend” (146 BPM), “Together Above” (190 BPM), “POP!” (97 BPM), “Good 4 U” (167 BPM), “Telepatia” (84 BPM), “The Less I Know the Better” (117 BPM), “Sienna” (148 BPM), “Gangnam Style” (138 BPM), “Espresso” (104 BPM), “The Feels” (120 BPM), “Stateside” (123 BPM), and “Lover You Should’ve Come Over” (119 BPM).

Looking at the data, two of the higher-tempo songs, “Together Above” (190 BPM) and “Good 4 U” (167 BPM), had higher average heart rates than slower songs like “Telepatia” (84 BPM). “The Feels” had one listener at 112 BPM, which stood out from the rest. The pop ballad “Lover You Should’ve Come Over” yielded BPM data ranging from 62 to 98. This could be because it was very different compared to the other pop songs. The dashed trend line has a slight positive slope, indicating that higher-tempo songs generally lead to higher heart rates.

Classical Genre

For our next graph, we focused on the Classical genre, including one Classical-Ballad song. We collected data on 9 different songs. The songs listened to ranged from 76 to 163 BPM. The songs include “Fur Elise” (105 BPM), “Claire de Lune” (76 BPM), “Le Carnaval des Animaux” (141 BPM), “Merry-Go-Round of Life” (130 BPM), “Waltz of the Flowers” (162 BPM), “Passacaglia A Minor” (123 BPM), “Nocturne Op.9 No.2 in B Flat Major” (138 BPM), “Moonlight Sonata” (163 BPM), and “Lover You Should’ve Come Over” (119 BPM).

Looking at the data, the classical songs have overall higher heart rates, with most above 90. “Fur Elise” had one listener at 98 BPM, “Claire de Lune” had one at 96 BPM, and “Waltz of the Flowers” had one at 97 BPM. In comparison, “Moonlight Sonata” (163 BPM) was our highest-tempo classical song, and it had a listener at 97 BPM.

The ballad “Lover You Should’ve Come Over” again gave us a wide range, from 62 to 99 BPM, similar to what we saw in the Pop graph. This could be because ballads often tell stories and evoke a range of emotions, which listeners can interpret differently. Along with that, this chart also shows one outlier with the lowest BPM across the whole graph, which shows that different people are affected by different factors, such as caffeine, attachment to songs or genre, dislike, or the relaxing effect of classical music compared to loud music a user is used to.

Metal, Alternative, and Electronic Genres

For our next graph, we focused on the Metal, Alternative, and Electronic genres. We collected data on 10 different songs. The songs listened to ranged from 77 to 170 BPM. The songs include “Enter Sandman” (121 BPM) and “Blue Light” (107 BPM) for Metal; “Welcome to the Black Parade” (97 BPM), “Green Eyes::Sienna” (77 BPM), “Supermassive Black Hole” (120 BPM), and “Red Swan” (132 BPM) for Alternative; and “Around the World” (121 BPM), “ibibt” (170 BPM), “SMB” (135 BPM), and “365” (127 BPM) for Electronic.

Looking at the data, the metal songs “Enter Sandman” and “Blue Light” both had high heart rates. In comparison, the alternative songs have various BPMs across the graph. Supermassive Black Hole has the highest individual heart rate at 105, while the electronic songs seem to have a consistent trend of heart rates around 80-90.

Even with the BPMs of the songs, which vary on the graph, we can see that they are consistent, as the data points stay closely related to one another. This is something new that we discovered in the data. Some listeners have similar connections to the song, either liking or disliking it, or being familiar with the current song they’re listening to. The dashed line is also mostly flat, indicating that the overall trend remains consistent. In metal, alternative, and electronic genres, the tempo of songs can contribute to why listeners’ BPMs are similar, as songs are closely alike or share the same vibe.

Rock vs Pop BPM Distribution

For this graph we wanted to compare the BPM distribution between rock and pop songs, two polar opposite genres to see how tempo variance can cause different BPMs in listeners.

Looking at the graph, Pop songs have a wider range of BPMs than Rock songs. Pop ranges from around 84 BPM all the way up to 190 BPM, with a big cluster in the 80-150 range.