2009 Discussion Forum 4B. Musical Similarity
https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/22445
2024-03-28T23:56:38ZCourt decisions on music plagiarism and the predictive value of similarity algorithms
https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/22628
Court decisions on music plagiarism and the predictive value of similarity algorithms
Mullensiefen, Daniel; Pendzich, Marc
Tune plagiarism in pop music is a common and often feverishly debated phenomenon which surely has to do with the vast amounts of money that individual melodies are able to generate in today s pop music business. The similarity between melodies is assumed to be a very important factor in a court s decision about whether a new tune is an illegitimate version of a pre-existing melody. Despite the wide-spread belief that there is a fixed and simple limit to the number of corresponding notes between two melodies, actual court decisions are based on far more complex considerations regarding the musical material.
This paper first sketches the legal framework and principal features of the legal processing of cases of alleged melodic plagiarism with a focus on US copyright law and discusses selected cases to highlight the corresponding legal practices. In the empirical part of this paper, we model court decisions for cases of alleged melodic plagiarism employing a number of similarity algorithms. As a ground truth dataset we use a collection of 20 publicly available cases from the last 30 years of US jurisdiction. We compare the performance of standard similarity algorithms (edit distance and n-gram similarity measures) to several new similarity algorithms that make use of statistical information about the prevalence of chains of pitch intervals in a large pop music database. Results indicate that these statistically informed algorithms generally outperform the comparison algorithms. In particular, algorithms based on Tversky s (1977) concept of similarity show a high performance of up to 90% of court decisions correctly predicted. We discuss the performance and structure of the algorithms in relation to a few interesting example cases and give an outlook on the potential and intricacies of our approach.
2009-12-22T11:35:16ZA content-based music retrieval engine: JMIR-Mozart
https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/22627
A content-based music retrieval engine: JMIR-Mozart
Ala-Härkönen, Väinö; Brunberg, Jussi; Lemström, Kjell; Mikkilä, Niko
The rapid increase of storage capacity has brought along large-scale multimedia databases. To access such databases, content-based retrieval methods are needed in order to avoid the burden of handcraft involved in building a query system working on metadata. The burgeoning demand for such methods can be seen, for instance, in the number of researchers working on developing tools and algorithms to this end. In this paper, we present a prototypic, client-server query engine for content-based music retrieval (CBMR). Our main aim is to help researchers working in the field so that they could have a retrieval platform where to embed and test their novel tools and algorithms without the burden of building a whole system from scratch. We give an overview to the platform: the architectural solutions, the communication protocols and user interface design. As for an example, we have embedded in this platform some music similarity and transcription algorithms developed in the C-BRAHMS research group, and thus achieved a complete retrieval system that can be queried on our website. We describe these algorithms in brief and discuss the performance of the retrieval system.
The platform is released to public under the GNU General Public License, allowing anyone interested to freely use and modify the software.
2009-12-22T11:22:01ZSome vantage indexing approaches for rhythmic and melodic search
https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/22626
Some vantage indexing approaches for rhythmic and melodic search
Typke, R.; Walczak-Typke, A. C.
In this paper, we discuss several improvements and approaches to musical content-based search that utilize the vantage indexing technique. We show how one can build an optimum vantage index for a variant of the Earth Mover s Distance that is appropriate for searching rhythmic patterns. We discuss a genetic algorithm approach for finding good vantage objects for arbitrary distance measures that obey the triangle inequality. Finally, we discuss a method which utilizes vantage indexing for searching prametric spaces spaces in which the distance measure does not obey the triangle inequality and where distinct points may have distance 0.
2009-12-22T11:19:29ZUsing the same to make different. Analysis of a traditional musical repertoire based on centonisation
https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/22625
Using the same to make different. Analysis of a traditional musical repertoire based on centonisation
Tourny, Olivier
This paper deals with music based on Centonisation, a compositional technique broadly used during the Middle Age, still at work in many musical traditions around the world. Based on a limited stock of melodic patterns, it consists of using them in as much as many different ways as possible. The multiple possible combinations of ABCD musical patterns (ABCD, ABDC, etc.) can create as much as possible different musical pieces. As a result, understanding a musical corpus built on centonisation is quite a challenge for the listener: most of pieces sound the same although they are always different. In other words, the centonisation technique does not simply deals with the same and the other in music: it only works on these principles.
As a very simple theoretical music technique, it possesses a very high potential for complex development in practice. In that sense, such a technique could be of great value as a basis for computational analysis that deals with automated pattern identification and extraction. Similarly, centonisation as an implicit/explicit system seems well adapted for experimental studies that analyze the cognitive processes involved in listening, such as identification, memorization and recognition of mobile melodic patterns in a closed system that is purely experimental or effective, like in the presented Ethiopian case.
2009-12-22T11:16:05ZPrimary versus secondary musical parameters and the classification of melodic motives
https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/22624
Primary versus secondary musical parameters and the classification of melodic motives
Eitan, Zohar; Granot, Roni Y.
Music theorists often maintain that motivic categorization in music is determined by primary musical parameters music-specific aspects of pitch and temporal structure, like pitch intervals or metric hierarchies, serving as bases for musical syntax. In contrast, secondary parameters, including important aspects of extra-musical auditory perception like loudness, pitch register and timbre, do not establish motivic categories. We examined systematically the effects of contrasts in primary vis-à-vis secondary musical parameters on listeners melodic classification. Matrices of melodic patterns, each presenting 8 motives, were created by all interactions of two contrasting conditions in three musical features. In Experiment 1, four matrices manipulated pitch contour, pitch-interval class, and a compound feature involving the secondary parameters of dynamics, pitch register and articulation. In Experiment 2, four different matrices manipulated rhythmic structure (metrical and durational accent), pitch intervals, and the compound feature used in Exp1. Participants (95 participants, 27 musically trained, in Exp. 1; 88 participants, 23 musically trained, in Exp. 2) classified stimuli in each matrix into two equal-numbered (4-4) groups of motives belonging together. In both experiments, most participants used contrast in secondary parameters as a basis for classification, while few classifications relied on differences in pitch interval (Exp. 2) or interval class (Exp. 1). Classifications by musically trained participants also applied melodic contour and rhythm. Results suggest a hierarchy of musical parameters that challenges those suggested by most music theorists. We discuss the ramifications of the results for notions of perceived thematic-motivic structure in music, and consequentially for cognitively-informed music analysis.
2009-12-22T11:10:18ZA different kind of similarity: the recognition of style in listening
https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/22623
A different kind of similarity: the recognition of style in listening
Baroni, Mario
Recognising a musical style implies managing a number of similarities. However, the nature of such similarities and their organisation within a piece of music are radically different from those discussed in Forum A4, where themes, patterns or melodies were compared. The perception of a style involves the totality of the structural features present in a given piece or set of pieces. According to the theory put forward in the present article, the arrangement of these features is governed by a hierarchy of rules, whose lowest level organises minimal features such as pitches, scale degrees, metrical accents, durations and so on, each of them enjoying a relative independence from the others. Each rule is repeatedly used, resulting in a series of variously connected minimal features which are distributed in different places throughout the piece. When listening to a style it is not possible to manage such kinds of similarity analytically: one simply perceives a certain feeling of familiarity. This effect is particularly enhanced by comparisons between slightly different but not identical styles. Familiarity is not merely the perception of the objective presence of diffuse similarities, but also of the internal coherence among the expressive intentions.
2009-12-21T19:26:10ZSimilarity perception as a cognitive tool for musical sense-making: deictic and ecological claims
https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/22622
Similarity perception as a cognitive tool for musical sense-making: deictic and ecological claims
Reybrouck, Mark
This is a programmatic paper. It elaborates on the concept of similarity as a cognitive tool for sense-making in music. Taking as a starting point the definition of similarity as a relational concept, it tries to provide a description in terms of standard and goal that can be applied to the delimitation of elements as well as to the comparison of these elements with each other. As such it focusses on three major topics: (i) the delimitation of elements, (ii) the comparison of these elements to themselves (self-reference) and to each other, and (iii) an operational framework for the delimitation of these elements. The latter is considered from the position of deixis and ecological perception, relying on the deictic act of mental pointing to elements that are eligible for deliberate attention as well as on the ecological principles of event perception and cognitive economy. It is possible, further, to conceive of pointing as an internal construction of an external operation, and to consider pointing as a predication process which can be applied to focal points as well as to events with at least some extension through time.
2009-12-21T19:24:07ZSimilarity relations between groups of notes: Music-theoretical and music-psychological perspectives
https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/22621
Similarity relations between groups of notes: Music-theoretical and music-psychological perspectives
Ockelford, Adam
The starting point of this article is Irène Deliège s essay on the similarity relationships that, it is claimed, lie at the heart of creating and cognising musical structure (2007): in particular (though not exclusively) relations that function internally within works, and which may be perceived implicitly or conceived explicitly. Initially, a music-theoretical tack is adopted, commencing from Arnold Schoenberg s concept of the musical motive (Alternatively known as motif ), and his taxonomy of motivic transformations, which, he asserts, underpin musical coherence (1967). This and other classifications by the theorists Rudolph Réti (1951), Jan LaRue (1970) and Wilson Coker (1972) are interrogated using the author s zygonic theory of music-structural understanding (Ockelford, 2004, 2005a, 2005b, 2006a), and, with reference to the music-psychological work of Mary Louise Serafine (1983), David Temperley (1995) and Bruno Repp (1997), a new, composite taxonomy is proposed, which sets out the forms of connection that can logically exist between one group of notes and another. This is illustrated with musical examples, which suggest (a) that similarity cannot be judged in isolation from the musical context in which it occurs (something that is modelled through an expanded version of Leonard Meyer s (1973) formula of perceived conformance ); and (b) that similarity is likely to be judged differently between and even within subjects, depending on the listening style that they adopt. This will vary in general terms according to listeners musical beliefs and experiences, and specifically in relation to the attitudes and attention that they bring to bear on a given occasion. Hence it is concluded that there is not, and could never be, a universal metric of perceived musical similarity. How, then, does one explain the coherence of music as a communicative medium, which purportedly depends on a common understanding of relationships of similarity between composers, performers and listeners? It is surmised that composers intuitively or consciously endow their music with sufficient similarity for it to be recognisable and meaningful to listeners, even if some connections, particularly those functioning at a conceptual level, are missed or construed in unanticipated ways (Ockelford, 2004). The highly repetitive nature of music means that analysts too are able to identify not only those similarity relationships that seek to illuminate the compositional process or reflect or influence the way that listeners approach pieces, but also those correspondences that are deemed to be intrinsically noteworthy, without necessarily having any direct bearing on the musical experience. Clearly, this stance is at odds with music-psychological methodologies that tend to examine aspects of similarity perception that are common across a population. That is to say, different music-related disciplines (and even different approaches within disciplines) are likely to afford similarity a different ontological status. Zygonic theory offers a way forward: a conceptual framework that different epistemological modi operandi can potentially share.
2009-12-21T19:22:05ZTaxonomic categorisation of motivic patterns
https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/22620
Taxonomic categorisation of motivic patterns
Lartillot, Olivier
The issue of pattern description in computational models for motivic analysis is closely related to the cognitive debate on categorisation, in which are traditionally opposed well-defined and ill-defined categorisations. The ill-defined conceptualisation has been considered as a suitable framework for the formalisation of musical categorisation as it takes into account motivic variations. It seems that computational models rely rather on well-defined categorisation, due to its better controllability. The computational model we previously presented (Lartillot & Toiviainen, 2007) strikes a balance by developing a new flexible framework allowing the taking into account of unrestricted variability, but in the same time ensuring a precise description of whole categories, including their underlying variations. For that purpose, categories are not described by one single prototype, but on the contrary by a taxonomy of subcategories forming a multi-levelled hierarchy. The proposed computational model forms a complex system of interdependencies: its behaviour cannot be predicted but can only be observed through a computational running on actual musical examples. The behaviour emerging from the model offers hence a possible explanation of listeners cognitive capabilities and might indicate necessary conditions for cognitively relevant modelling.
2009-12-21T19:19:22ZHow similar is similar?
https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/22619
How similar is similar?
Cambouropoulos, Emilios
In the first part of the paper a theoretical discussion is presented regarding the fundamental concept of similarity and its relation to cue abstraction and categorisation. It is maintained that similarity is by definition context-dependent and strongly interrelated to cue abstraction and categorisation. Emphasis is given to determining the musical surface that can act as a musically pertinent lowest level of abstraction on which similarity between musical entities can be measured. Then, each of these concepts is examined in more detail with respect to a number of research studies presented in the recent special issue of Musicæ Scientiæ on musical similarity (Discussion Forum 4A, 2007). Views claiming that a geometric piano-roll-like representation is the most appropriate choice for polyphonic pattern matching, or that musical repetition is structurally significant if at least fifty percent of a pattern is equivalent (i.e. if it is more similar than dissimilar), or that dramatic disparities between musical similarities and corresponding categories can be found in empirical studies, are critically re-examined with a view to clarifying the fundamental concept of similarity.
2009-12-21T19:16:47Z