Some Statistics on What I Have Been Playing
Note: This was a statistical overview that I performed back in 1997. Consider it a snapshot of what I try to do, although the statistical breakdown has changed somewhat over the years. Also significant to note is the fact that back in '97, the Galaxy was a 4 hour show, and I had much more space to do with what I wanted to.
Here are some statistics on what I have been playing recently.
Keep in mind that this is not the best method of measuring exactly how much of each type of music you will hear on the show. The best way would be to mark down all the times for each selection, then give a percentage of time taken up by each genre. For instance, you will find that Classical music takes up more than 15% of the show, but a 2 hour long opera is a single selection. This means that by this count, one such opera counts less than 5 pieces of punk rock music that take a total of 10 minutes. Unfortunately, we are not currently keeping records of selection times. If we were to do so, then I would be able to provide much improved statistics. That could possibly happen someday, as we have recently installed a computer at the station, and we might eventually be able to keep our music logs on a spreadsheet, which would probably allow us to keep such detailed records.
Also keep in mind the difficulty of assigning genres to some pieces of music. This was quite a struggle for me at times. I could not decide at times whether Crosby, Stills and Nash should be classified as Pop, Classic Rock, or Folk Rock before finally settling with Folk Rock. I had a similar situation with Simon and Garfunkel. Witness the Grammy nominations for Rage Against the Machine for both the Hard Rock and the Metal categories. The Grammys have a Hard Rock category, but I found that to be rather limiting, and I certainly cannot limit myself to the categories that they have established, since they have no Celtic category. I also have had to combine some categories, such as the different possible ethnic categories, and I also have placed Gospel music into the Other category, although I might change that in the future.
This page is maintained by Douglas Flummer, your humble pilot and navigator.
Last Update: March 24, 2008
Email: saxman@siu.edu