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What is Music Information Retrieval?¶

While you listen to these excerpts, name as many of its musical characteristics as you can. Can you name the genre? tempo? instruments? mood? time signature? key signature? chord progression? tuning frequency? song structure?

Another:

One more:

What is MIR?¶

Here is a sampling of tasks found in music information retrieval:

fingerprinting
cover song detection
genre recognition
transcription
recommendation
symbolic melodic similarity
mood
source separation
instrument recognition
pitch tracking
tempo estimation
score alignment
song structure/form
beat tracking
key detection
query by humming

Why MIR?¶

discover, organize, monetize media collections
search ("find me something that sounds like this") songs, loops, speech, environmental sounds, sound effects
workflows in consumer products through machine hearing
automatic control of software and mobile devices

Commercial Applications¶

Example: RiffStation

Example: Melodyne

Example: Auto-Tune

Example: Key Detection and Auto-harmonization with iZotope Nectar 2

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