It is said that when a piece of music conforms to Fibonacci numbers and/or the golden section, human beings are more inclined to like that song than one that does not. Our goal is to take that statement and see if there is any validity to it by running tests on the most popular songs from different years. We want to see if we can find any relationships between past “hits” and Fibonacci numbers, and eventually want to see if we can determine chart toppers by whether or not they subscribe to Fibonacci. Here is how to help us out…

The main Fibonacci numbers are: 1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,233,377,610,987. When a piece of music has a duration of one of these numbers and a dramatic instrumental element at another, it is said to be a Fibonacci song. For example, if “Born in the USA” by Springsteen is 377 seconds long and the instrumental climax appears at 144 seconds into the song, it is considered to be a Fibonacci piece of music. Calculating the golden section is a little bit different.

First, pick a song and find the duration of that song in seconds. Next, find the instrumental climax of the song and divide the duration by the dramatic element. If the ratio is 1.619 or something very close to that, it is said to be a golden section song. For example, if “One Way Out” by the Allman Brothers is 420 seconds long and the dramatic element appears at 260 seconds into it, you would get: 420/260 = 1.615 making it close enough to be a golden section song!