A WWW‐based melody retrieval system

This paper discusses a system that operates on the WWW and retrieves the song title from the melody of a song. In retrieval from a sung tune, it is not always true that the input melody information (such as pitch and span) is exact. The result of coarse conversion of the input data to the melody information based on thresholds is used as the retrieval key, and the matching to a song in the database is attempted. It has been difficult, however, to define adequate thresholds. In particular, it has been difficult to derive effective retrieval keys for the span. It has also been difficult to make the process converge toward the correct solution by using the coarse information. From such a viewpoint, this study proposes the following two approaches in matching: (1) A method is presented to set optimal thresholds for deriving an effective retrieval key. (2) A matching procedure to restrict precisely the candidates for the correct song from the database song is presented. Retrieval with a higher matching accuracy than in the conventional method is realized, and a system that can be utilized by multiple users on the WWW is constructed. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 2, 85(9): 63–74, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/ecjb.10073