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Convention Paper

Scale Degree Profiles from Audio Investigated with Machine Learning

Authors: Purwins, Hendrik; Blankertz, Benjamin; Obermayer, Klaus; Dornhege, Guido

AES Convention 116 · Paper 6106 · May 2004

Abstract

In this paper we introduce and explore a method for extracting low
dimensional features from digitized recordings of music performance:
The so called constant Q scale degree profiles are 12-dimensional
vectors that reflect the prominence of the 12 scale degrees in
respective analyzed part of music. Here we study the type and amount
of information that is captured in those profiles when calculated
from whole short pieces of piano music. The analyzed data set
includes pieces from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC), part I and
II, the sets of preludes that encompass a piece in every key by
Chopin (op.28), Alkan (op.31), Scriabin (op.11), Shostakovich
(op.34), and the fugues of Hindemith's `ludus tonalis' (one fugue
for each pitch class, neither major nor minor). For the purpose of
investigation we employ supervised and unsupervised machine learning
techniques. In a supervised approach we investigated
the ability of classifiers to recognize composers from profiles.
As unsupervised methods we performed (1) a cluster
analysis which resulted in one major and one minor cluster, and (2)
a visualization technique called Isomap which reveals in its
2-dimensional representation some additional structure apart from
the major--minor duality. In
summary it is astonishing how much information on a music piece
is contained in the 12-dimensional profiles that can be calculated
in a straight-forward manner from any digitized music recording.

Details

Published in
AES Convention 116
AES Convention
116
Paper number
6106
Publication date
May 6, 2004
Session subject
Room and Architectural Acoustics; Musical Acoustics
Affiliation
Berlin University of Technology, Berlin, Germany ; Fraunhofer FIRST (IDA), Berlin, Germany (See document for exact affiliation information.)
Type
Convention Paper