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 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 interval similarity
• Melodic similarityGreg 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.
• Modulation pattern similarity
• Timbral similarity

Non-pitched parameters

• Metrical structure similarity
• Rhythmic pattern similarityGodfried T. Toussaint, "A comparison of rhythmic dissimilarity measures," FORMA, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2006, pp. 129–149.
• Section structure similarity

Semiotic parameters

• Modality structure similarity
• Extensional similarity
• Intensional 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.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.

Finally, musical similarity can be extended to the comparison between musical gestures in performance and composition.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.