Searching for dominant high-level features for music information retrieval

Music Information Retrieval systems are often based on the analysis of a large number of low-level audio features. When dealing with problems of musical genre description and visualization, however, it would be desirable to work with a very limited number of highly informative and discriminant macro-descriptors. In this paper we focus on a specific class of training-based descriptors, which are obtained as the loglikelihood of a Gaussian Mixture Model trained with short musical excerpts that selectively exhibit a certain semantic homogeneity. As these descriptors are critically dependent on the training sets, we approach the problem of how to automatically generate suitable training sets and optimize the associated macro-features in terms of discriminant power and informative impact. We then show the application of a set of three identified macro-features to genre visualization, tracking and classification

Improving music genre classification using automatically induced harmony rules

We present a new genre classification framework using both low-level signal-based features and high-level harmony features. A state-of-the-art statistical genre classifier based on timbral features is extended using a first-order random forest containing for each genre rules derived from harmony or chord sequences. This random forest has been automatically induced, using the first-order logic induction algorithm TILDE, from a dataset, in which for each chord the degree and chord category are identified, and covering classical, jazz and pop genre classes. The audio descriptor-based genre classifier contains 206 features, covering spectral, temporal, energy, and pitch characteristics of the audio signal. The fusion of the harmony-based classifier with the extracted feature vectors is tested on three-genre subsets of the GTZAN and ISMIR04 datasets, which contain 300 and 448 recordings, respectively. Machine learning classifiers were tested using 5 × 5-fold cross-validation and feature selection. Results indicate that the proposed harmony-based rules combined with the timbral descriptor-based genre classification system lead to improved genre classification rates

Improving music genre classification using automatically induced harmony rules

We present a new genre classification framework using both low-level signal-based features and high-level harmony features. A state-of-the-art statistical genre classifier based on timbral features is extended using a first-order random forest containing for each genre rules derived from harmony or chord sequences. This random forest has been automatically induced, using the first-order logic induction algorithm TILDE, from a dataset, in which for each chord the degree and chord category are identified, and covering classical, jazz and pop genre classes. The audio descriptor-based genre classifier contains 206 features, covering spectral, temporal, energy, and pitch characteristics of the audio signal. The fusion of the harmony-based classifier with the extracted feature vectors is tested on three-genre subsets of the GTZAN and ISMIR04 datasets, which contain 300 and 448 recordings, respectively. Machine learning classifiers were tested using 5 × 5-fold cross-validation and feature selection. Results indicate that the proposed harmony-based rules combined with the timbral descriptor-based genre classification system lead to improved genre classification rates

Klasifikasi Lagu Berdasarkan Genre pada Format WAV

AbstrakDalam dunia yang berkembang pesat, media audio semakin komplek. Karena itulah diperlukan sebuah mekanisme penentuan jenis lagu (genre) yang tepat secara efektif dan efisien.  Pencarian secara manual sudah tidak efektif dan efisien lagi karena banyaknya data yang tersimpan.          Zero Crossing Rate (ZCR), Average Energy (E) dan Silent Ratio (SR) adalah 3 Feature Extraction yang digunakan untuk klasifikasi pencarian 12 genre.Tiga dimensi adalah bentuk visualisasi pengukuran tingkat kemiripan sebuah data berdasarkan hasil klasifikasi yang diinput oleh user.            Dalam penelitian ini pengujian klasifikasi menggunakan metode 3, 6, 9 dan 12 genre melalui jarak terdekat (Euclidean Distance). Hasil pengujian yaitu menunjukkan bahwa 3 genre yaitu Balada, Blues dan Classic menunjukkan = 96,67%, 6 genre yaitu Balada, Blues, Classic, Harmony, Hip Jop dan Jazz menunjukkan = 70% dan 9 genre yaitu Balada, Blues, Classic, Harmony, Hip Hop, Jazz, Keroncong, Latin dan Pop menunjukkan = 53,33% serta 12 genre = 33,33% Kata Kunci— Zero Crossing Rate (ZCR), Average Energy (E), Silent Ratio (SR), Euclidean Distance  Abstract            Music genre is getting complex from time to time. As the size of digital media grows along with amount of data, manual search of digital audio files according to its genre is considered impractical and inefficient; therefore a classification mechanism is needed to improve searching.            Zero Crossing Rate (ZCR), Average Energy (E) and Silent Ratio (SR) are a few of features that can be extracted from digital audio files to classify its genre. This research conducted to classify digital audio (songs) into 12 genres: Ballad, Blues, Classic, Harmony, Hip Hop, Jazz, Keroncong, Latin, Pop, Electronic, Reggae and Rock using above mentioned features, extracted from WAV audio files. Classification is performed several times using selected 3, 6, 9 and 12 genres respectively.            The result shows that classification of 3 music genres (Ballad, Blues, Classic) has the highest accuracy (96.67%), followed by 6 genres (Ballad, Blues, Classic, Harmony, Hip Hop, Jazz) with 70%, and 9 genres (Ballad, Blues, Classic, Harmony, Hip Hop, Jazz, Keroncong, Latin, Pop) with 53.33% accuracy. Classification of all 12 music genres yields the lowest accuracy of 33.33%.   Keywords— Zero Crossing Rate (ZCR), Average Energy (E), Silent Ratio (SR), Euclidean Distanc

An Experimental Analysis of the Role of Harmony in Musical Memory and the Categorization of Genre

Expectations play a significant role in the way a listener experiences a piece of music. These expectations have been thought to generate through the probabilistic learning of harmonic structures by exposure to music. They make up what is called schematic memory. Through this understanding of musical memory, researchers have found that different schematic frameworks exist in participants from different cultures. This study has two primary goals. The first is to isolate harmony as a key element of schematic memory for music. The second is to consider the possibility that different genres within Western music may have their own schematic frameworks, as represented in musical memory, in a way similar to music from different cultures. While harmony was found to play a significant role in schematic memory, it remains unclear whether or not different genres within Western culture are categorized independently due to the differences in their harmonic frameworks

Musical Genre Identification and Differentiation of Rock, R&B/Hip-Hop, and Christian Songs Through Harmonic Analysis

This thesis attempts to identify and distinguish musical genre through harmonic analysis. The genres of Rock, R&B/Hip-Hop, and Christian have been selected for this study. The top ten songs from each genre (as listed by Billboard’s Year End Charts) are analyzed and contrasted with those of other genres in an attempt to prove that harmonic analysis alone is sufficient to identify the genre of an unknown song. Heavy in analysis, this thesis will find structure in music and use that structure to more deeply appreciate not only the study of genre, but of music itself

Exploring the Features to Classify the Musical Period of Western Classical Music

Music Information Retrieval (MIR) focuses on extracting meaningful information from music content. MIR is a growing field of research with many applications such as music recommendation systems, fingerprinting, query-by-humming or music genre classification. This study aims to classify the styles of Western classical music, as this has not been explored to a great extent by MIR. In particular, this research will evaluate the impact of different music characteristics on identifying the musical period of Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Modern. In order to easily extract features related to music theory, symbolic representation or music scores were used, instead of audio format. A collection of 870 Western classical music piano scores was downloaded from different sources such as KernScore library (humdrum format) or the Musescore community (MusicXML format). Several global features were constructed by parsing the files and accessing the symbolic information, including notes and duration. These features include melodic intervals, chord types, pitch and rhythm histograms and were based on previous studies and music theory research. Using a radial kernel support vector machine algorithm, different classification models were created to analyse the contribution of the main musical properties: rhythm, pitch, harmony and melody. The study findings revealed that the harmony features were significant predictors of the music styles. The research also confirmed that the musical styles evolved gradually and that the changes in the tonal system through the years, appeared to be the most significant change to identify the styles. This is consistent with the findings of other researchers. The overall accuracy of the model using all the available features achieved an accuracy of 84.3%. It was found that of the four periods studied, it was most difficult to classify music from the Modern period

Logic-based Modelling of Musical Harmony for Automatic Characterisation and Classification

The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the authorMusic like other online media is undergoing an information explosion. Massive online music stores such as the iTunes Store1 or Amazon MP32, and their counterparts, the streaming platforms, such as Spotify3, Rdio4 and Deezer5, offer more than 30 million6 pieces of music to their customers, that is to say anybody with a smart phone. Indeed these ubiquitous devices offer vast storage capacities and cloud-based apps that can cater any music request. As Paul Lamere puts it7: “we can now have a virtually endless supply of music in our pocket. The ‘bottomless iPod’ will have as big an effect on how we listen to music as the original iPod had back in 2001. But with millions of songs to chose from, we will need help finding music that we want to hear [...]. We will need new tools that help us manage our listening experience.” Retrieval, organisation, recommendation, annotation and characterisation of musical data is precisely what the Music Information Retrieval (MIR) community has been working on for at least 15 years (Byrd and Crawford, 2002). It is clear from its historical roots in practical fields such as Information Retrieval, Information Systems, Digital Resources and Digital Libraries but also from the publications presented at the first International Symposium on Music Information Retrieval in 2000 that MIR has been aiming to build tools to help people to navigate, explore and make sense of music collections (Downie et al., 2009). That also includes analytical tools to suppor