On Rhythm and General Music Similarity

The contribution of this paper is threefold: First, we propose modifications to Fluctuation Patterns [14]. The resulting descriptors are evaluated in the task of rhythm similarity computation on the “Ballroom Dancers” collection. Second, we show that by combining these rhythmic descriptors with a timbral component, results for rhythm similarity computation are improved beyond the level obtained when using the rhythm descriptor component alone. Third, we present one “unified” algorithm with fixed parameter set. This algorithm is evaluated on three different music collections. We conclude from these evaluations that the computed similarities reflect relevant aspects both of rhythm similarity and of general music similarity. The performance can be improved by tuning parameters of the “unified” algorithm to the specific task (rhythm similarity / general music similarity) and the specific collection, respectively.