Similarity is a key concept for estimating associations among a set of objects. Music similarity is usually exploited to retrieve relevant items from a dataset containing audio tracks. In this work, we approach the problem of semantic similarity between short pieces of music by analysing their instrumentations. Our aim is to label audio excerpts with the most salient instruments (e.g. piano, hu...

Considering educational games as interactive metaphors for learning material, we suggest in this paper that PlayStation-like gamepads are appropriate user interfaces that enable students to play with music concepts without being hindered by their own instrumental limitations. Our proposal builds upon current pedagogical research that shows that fun games increase learners’ motivation and foster...

Musicologists and linguists have often suggested that the prosody of a culture's spoken language can influence the structure of its instrumental music. However, empirical data supporting this idea have been lacking. This has been partly due to the difficulty of developing and applying comparable quantitative measures to melody and rhythm in speech and music. This study uses a recently-developed...

The music industry has significantly evolved in recent years, largely due to the growth of newer forms technology, such as distribution platforms and production tools. With technological changes, academic institutions must understand need alter their curricula better prepare students for growing field commercial music. Traditional education programs emphasized classical music, theory, instrumen...

A central concern in neo-institutional research is the genesis of new organizational fields. This article explores the emergence of the MPB (Brazilian Popular Music) field in tandem with the organization of music festivals in the sixties. The festivals were instrumental in combining musicians, critics and the audience in a forum relatively buffered from the music industry influence. This intera...

Congenitally deaf Japanese children with cochlear implants were tested on their recognition of theme songs from television programs that they watched regularly. The children, who were 4-9 years of age, attempted to identify each song from a closed set of alternatives. Their song identification ability was examined in the context of the original commercial recordings (vocal plus instrumental), t...

aqu (大曲) was a genre of entertainment music popular in China from the Han dynasty to the Song dynasty. While da (大) in Chinese means large or great, qu (曲) means a song, or more generally, a piece of music. As its name implies, a daqu was always a long, multisectional piece of music performed in a grand style uniting singing of poetic verses, instrumental playing, and dancing together, and the ...

Subjective and psychophysiological emotional responses to music from two different cultures were compared within these two cultures. Two identical experiments were conducted: the first in the Congolese rainforest with an isolated population of Mebenzélé Pygmies without any exposure to Western music and culture, the second with a group of Western music listeners, with no experience with Congoles...

In this paper, I briefly review some comparative data that provide an empirical basis for research on the evolution of music making in humans. First, a brief comparison of music and language leads to discussion of design features of music, suggesting a deep connection between the biology of music and language. I then selectively review data on animal "music." Examining sound production in anima...

Thousands of music tracks are uploaded to the Internet every day through websites and social networks that focus on music. While some content has been popular for decades, some tracks that have just been released have been ignored. What makes a music track popular? Can the duration of a music track’s popularity be explained and predicted? By analysing data on the performance of a music track on...