Textual and musical invariants for searching and classification of traditional music

Ilya Saitanov

pp. 78-87

in: Polina Eismont, Olga Mitrenina, Asya Pereltsvaig (eds), Language, music and computing, Berlin, Springer, 2019

Abstract

The goal of this research is to determine whether such properties as tonality, mode, meter and tune title remain similar between different versions of the same melody. A variability in some features makes classifying and searching tasks more difficult. The author uses a corpus of traditional dance melodies on audio recordings from Macedonia (Greece), as a base for analysis. We show that, in general, none of the features – meter, mode, key and tune title – are invariable on their own, for all versions of a selected tune. At the same time, using linguistic features where the musical ones fail, and vice versa, helps to improve the chances of a correct attribution and an efficient search.It is possible now to use the examples of invariance violations to assess possible search systems for a corpus of musical works.