Speech-Recognition Interfaces for Music Information Retrieval: 'Speech Completion' and 'Speech Spotter'

This paper describes music information retrieval (MIR) systems featuring automatic speech recognition. Although various interfaces for MIR have been proposed, speech-recognition interfaces suitable for retrieving musical pieces have not been studied. We propose two different speech-recognition interfaces for MIR, speech completion and speech spotter, and describe two MIR-based hands-free jukebox systems that enable a user to retrieve and play back a musical piece by saying its title or the artist’s name. The first is a music-retrieval system with the speech-completion interface that is suitable for music stores and car-driving situations. When a user can remember only part of the name of a musical piece or an artist and utters only a remembered fragment, the system helps the user recall and enter the name by completing the fragment. The second is a background-music playback system with the speech-spotter interface that can enrich human-human conversation. When a user is talking to another person, the system allows the user to enter voice commands for music-playback control by spotting a special voice-command utterance in face-to-face or telephone conversations. Our experimental results from use of these systems have demonstrated the effectiveness of the speech-completion and speech-spotter interfaces.