Method and apparatus for searching similar music

• US 20070174274A1
• Filed: 07/17/2006
• Published: 07/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/26/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: Zhu, Xuan, Kim, Hyoung, She, Yuan, Eom, Ki, Kim, Ji
• Application Number:
  US11/487,327
• Publication Number:
  US 20070174274A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/634 Query by example, e.g. query by humming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/68 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/683 using metadata automatically derived from the content

Abstract

A method of searching for similar music includes: extracting first features from music files usable to classify a music by a mood and a genre; classifying the music files according to the mood and the genre using the extracted first features; extracting second features from the music files so as to retrieve a similarity; storing both mood information and genre information on the classified music files and the extracted second features in a database; receiving an input of information on a query music; detecting a mood and a genre of the query music; measuring a similarity between the query music and the music files that are identical in mood and genre to the query music by referring to the database; and retrieving the similar music to the query music according to the measured similarity.

Claims

1. A method of searching for similar music, the method comprising:

extracting first features from music files usable to classify a music by a mood and a genre;

classifying the music files according to the mood and the genre using the extracted first features;

extracting second features from the music files so as to retrieve a similarity;

storing both mood information and genre information on the classified music files and the extracted second features in a database;

receiving an input of information on a query music;

detecting a mood and a genre of the query music;

measuring a similarity between the query music and the music files that are identical in mood and genre to the query music by referring to the database; and

retrieving the similar music with respect to the query music based on the measured similarity.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the extracting of the first features includes:

extracting Modified Discrete Cosine Transformation (MDCT) coefficients by partially decoding the music files;

selecting a predetermined number of sub-band MDCT coefficients among the extracted MDCT coefficients; and

extracting a spectral centroid, a bandwidth, a rolloff, a flux, and a flatness, as timbre features, from the selected MDCT coefficients.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the extracting of the second features includes computing a maximum, a mean, and a standard deviation of the extracted timbre features.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the extracting of the first features includes:

extracting MDCT coefficients by partially decoding the music files;

selecting a predetermined number of sub-band MDCT coefficients among the extracted MDCT coefficients;

extracting an MDCT Modulation Spectrum (MDCT-MS) by performing a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) on the selected MDCT coefficients; and

dividing the MDCT-MS into an N number of sub-bands and then extracting an energy from the divided sub-bands, the energy usable as tempo features based on the MDCT-MS.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the extracting of the second features includes extracting a centroid, a bandwidth, a flux, and a flatness, as the second features for the retrieving, according to the MDCT-MS-based tempo features.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the measuring a similarity includes computing Euclidean distances of the features of the music files that are identical in the mood and the genre to the query music.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the retrieving the similar music includes retrieving an N number of the music files, as the similar music, the computed Euclidean distances of which are smaller than a predetermined value.

8. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program for implementing the method of claim 1.

9. An apparatus for searching for similar music, the apparatus comprising:

a first feature extraction unit extracting first features from music files usable to classify a music by a mood and a genre;

a mood/genre classification unit classifying the music files according to the mood and the genre using the extracted first features;

a second feature extraction unit extracting second features from the music files usable to retrieve a similarity;

a database storing both mood information and genre information on the classified music files and the extracted second features;

a query music input unit receiving an input of information on a query music;

a query music detection unit detecting a mood and a genre of the query music using the input information of the query music and finding the first and the second features of the query music for a similarity retrieval; and

a similar music retrieval unit retrieving the similar music from the music files which are identical in mood and genre to the detected query music while referring to the database.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the second feature extraction unit extracts MDCT-based timbre features and MDCT-MS-based tempo features from the music files, and computes a maximum, a mean, and a standard deviation of the respective features extracted in a corresponding analysis zone, and wherein the database stores the computed maximum, the computed mean, and the computed standard deviation as a metadata.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the retrieval unit searches similar music to the query music using the maximum, the average, and the standard deviation.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the retrieval unit computes Euclidean distances of features of the music files that are identical in the mood and the genre to the query music, and retrieves an N number of music the computed distances of which are smaller than a predetermined value as the similar music.

13. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the music files include a tag data representing the genre information, and wherein the mood/genre classification unit extracts the tag data from the music files and then arranges the music files according to a genre using the genre information of the extracted tag data.

14. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the music files include moving picture experts group audio layer-3 (MP3) files or advanced audio coding (ACC) files.

15. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the mood information and the genre information of the classified music files and the extracted second feature information are stored as metadata.

16. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the mood/genre classification unit classifies the music files by genre based on extracted timbre features and, when ambiguity in the results of genre classifying in a genre is greater than a threshold, categories of the music files in the genre are rearranged.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the mood/genre classification unit merges at least some of the categories of the rearranged music files into a number of moods.

18. A method of searching for similar music, the method comprising:

classifying music files according to mood and genre using extracted first features, which are features of the music files usable to classify music by a mood and a genre;

storing both mood information and genre information on the classified music files and extracted second features which are usable to retrieve a similarity in a database;

detecting a mood and a genre of an input query music;

measuring a similarity between the query music and the music files that are identical in mood and genre to the query music by referring to the database; and

retrieving the similar music with respect to the query music based on the measured similarity.

19. A computer-readable storage medium storing a program for implementing the method of claim 18.