Editing Musical similarity

{{Short description|Resemblance between musical works}}
The notion of '''musical similarity''' is particularly complex because there are numerous dimensions of similarity. If similarity takes place between different fragments from one musical piece, a musical similarity implies a [[repetition (music)|repetition]] of the first occurring fragment. As well, eventually, the similarity does not occur by direct repetition, but by presenting in two (or more) set of relations, some common values or patterns. Objective musical similarity can be based on musical features such as:

Pitched parameters
* [[Pitch (music)|Pitch]] interval similarity
* [[Melody|Melodic]] similarity<ref>Greg Aloupis, Thomas Fevens, [[Stefan Langerman]], Tomomi Matsui, Antonio Mesa, Yurai Nunez, and David Rappaport, and Godfried T. Toussaint, "Algorithms for computing geometric measures of melodic similarity," ''Computer Music Journal'', Vol. 30, No. 3, Fall 2006, pp. 67–76.</ref>
* [[Modulation (music)|Modulation]] pattern similarity
* [[Timbre|Timbral]] similarity

Non-pitched parameters
* [[Meter (music)|Metrical]] structure similarity
* [[Rhythm]]ic pattern similarity<ref>Godfried T. Toussaint, "A comparison of rhythmic dissimilarity measures," ''FORMA'', Vol. 21, No. 2, 2006, pp. 129–149.</ref>
* [[Section (music)|Section]] structure similarity

Semiotic parameters
* [[Modality (semiotics)|Modality]] structure similarity
* [[Extension (semantics)|Extension]]al similarity
* [[Intension]]al similarity

Nevertheless, similarity can be based also on less objective features such as musical genre, personal history, social context (e.g. music from the 1960s), and a priori knowledge.

Similarity is relevant also in [[music information retrieval]].<ref>Arshia Cont, Shlomo Dubnov, Gérard Assayag. [https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TASL.2010.2066266 On the Information Geometry of Audio Streams with Applications to Similarity Computing]. IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2011, 19 (4), pp. 837-846.</ref>
Finally, musical similarity can be extended to the comparison between musical gestures in performance and composition.<ref>Maria Mannone, [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17459737.2018.1450902 Introduction to gestural similarity in music. An application of category theory to the orchestra], ''Journal of Mathematics and Music'', Vol. 12, No. 2, 2018, pp. 63–85.</ref>

==Applications==
Automatic methods of musical similarity detection based on [[data mining]] and [[co-occurrence]] analysis has been developed in order to classify music titles for electronic music distribution.<ref>[[François Pachet]], Geert Westermann, Damien Laigre, [http://www.csl.sony.fr/downloads/papers/2001/pachet01c.pdf Musical Data Mining for Electronic Music Distribution] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140327024728/http://www.csl.sony.fr/downloads/papers/2001/pachet01c.pdf |date=2014-03-27 }}. Proceedings of the 1st WedelMusic Conference, pp. 101-106, Firenze, Italy, 2001.</ref>

==References==
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Musical Similarity}}
[[Category:Music theory]]


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