All That Jazz, Patterns in the Keys

This visualisation uses a force-directed layout, courtesy of D3, to view approximately 1200 classic Jazz standards by key, date and composer. Some interesting patterns emerge.

The video below shows how one can create attractive transitions between different data views by adapting the pseudo physics of the system, changing the attraction and repulsion factors.

We start with the jazz songs clustered around their respective keys. We then change the attractors from the jazz keys to a timeline. You can clearly see that the distribution of musical keys has changed over time.

From musical keys we change the attractors to the songs’ composers, showing a list of the most popular composers in jazz with their songs ordered by time.

Finally we move back to the original song clustering by key.