VALMIR
On Valid and Reliable Experiments in Music Information Retrieval

Music Information Retrieval (MIR), as the interdisciplinary science of retrieving information from music, conducts experiments with a multitude of methods from machine learning, statistics, signal processing, artificial intelligence, etc. It relies on the proper evaluation of all these methods to measure the success of new algorithms, or, in more general terms, chart the progress of the whole field of MIR. The principal role of computer experiments and their statistical evaluation within MIR is now widely accepted and understood, but the more fundamental notions of validity and reliability in MIR experiments are still rarely discussed within the field. This lack of awareness for valid and reliable MIR experimentation is at the heart of a number of seemingly puzzling phenomena in recent MIR research and will be tackled in this project. The project is currently located at the Johannes Kepler Universität Linz.

Research staff

• Arthur Flexer
• Katharina Prinz

Sponsor