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AGREEMENT AMONG HUMAN AND AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPTIONS OF GLOBAL SONGS

  • Yuto Ozaki
  • , John McBride
  • , Emmanouil Benetos
  • , Peter Q. Pfordresher
  • , Joren Six
  • , Adam T. Tierney
  • , Polina Proutskova
  • , Emi Sakai
  • , Haruka Kondo
  • , Haruno Fukatsu
  • , Shinya Fujii
  • , Patrick E. Savage
  • Keio University
  • Institute for Basic Science
  • Queen Mary University of London
  • Ghent University
  • Birkbeck University of London

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Cross-cultural musical analysis requires standardized symbolic representation of sounds such as score notation. However, transcription into notation is usually conducted manually by ear, which is time-consuming and subjective. Our aim is to evaluate the reliability of existing methods for transcribing songs from diverse societies. We had 3 experts independently transcribe a sample of 32 excerpts of traditional monophonic songs from around the world (half a cappella, half with instrumental accompaniment). 16 songs also had pre-existing transcriptions created by 3 different experts. We compared these human transcriptions against one another and against 10 automatic music transcription algorithms. We found that human transcriptions can be sufficiently reliable (~90% agreement, κ ~.7), but current automated methods are not (<60% agreement, κ <.4). No automated method clearly outperformed others, in contrast to our predictions. These results suggest that improving automated methods for cross-cultural music transcription is critical for diversifying MIR.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)500-508
Number of pages9
JournalProceedings of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference
Volume2021
StatePublished - 2021

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