What Features Makes It Easy to Remember Melodies

ICMPC 2023

Transcript

1. What Features Makes It Easy to Remember Melodies What Features Makes It Easy to Remember Melodies Wataru Masuda*, Eriko Aiba**, and Tetsuro Kitahara* *Nihon University, Japan **University of Electro-Communications, Japan Introduction What are catchy melodies? Research question Results Melodies easy to remember According to a dictionary What melodic features make it easy to remember melodies? Our hypothesis Easily memorable melodies have both typical and atypical features Complicated rhythm Disjunct pitch motion Non-diatonic notes Simple rhythm Conjunct pitch motion Diatonic notes Melodies having only typical features are less memorable than those having both Method Key idea Melody Edited melody Remove atypical features Listen Listen Listen again Listen again Easier to remember? Less easy to remember? Materials Participants 162 people via crowdsourcing (No restrictions about musical experiences etc.) 24 melodies (8 bars) from RWC Music DB Procedure Listen to 12 melodies 1st phase 6 unedited 6 edited interval Listen to 12 melodies 2nd phase 6 are included in the 1st phase Question Listened to the same melody in the 1st phase? [Backbeat group] (6 melodies) Remove backbeats [Disjunct group] (6 melodies) Remove disjunct intervals* Remove non-diatonic notes [Non-diatonic group] (6 melodies) *Perfect 4th or wider intervals are regarded as disjunct here. (a) Backbeat group Melody # notes changed True-positive rates unedited edited Stat. test unedited < edited unedited > edited unedited < edited (b) Distinct group Melody # notes changed True-positive rates unedited edited Stat. test (c) Non-diatonic group Melody # notes changed True-positive rates unedited edited Stat. test in the original melodies (It has been changed to by editing) 4 times of perfect 4th pitch rising in the original melody Blue notes in the original melody