What does music mood mean for real users?

Jin Ha Lee, Trent Hill, and Lauren Work

iConference 2012

Mood: a relatively long lasting and stable emotional state (Meyer, 1956)

Emotion?Affect?

Music mood

• Recently received a lot of attention in

MIR (Music Information Retrieval) domain

• “Audio Music Mood Classification” task in MIREX, starting in 2007

Music Information RetrievalEvaluation eXchange

How does it

Make You Feel?Just got

engaged?

Happy?

Heartbroken?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meredithas/169929608/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Can we detect or extract mood?

…really?

What

TERMSdo people use to represent mood?

What

FACTORSdetermine it?

68 songs in total

39 coverversions of 12 songs

29 other songs

Für Elise Fly me to the moonCalifornia dreamin’Jingle bells핑계 (Excuse)비처럼 음악처럼 (Like rain, like music)그리움만 쌓이네 (Yearning)붉은 노을 (Red sunset)Paparazzi – Lady GagaHe’ll have to go – Jim ReevesHe ain’t heavy, he’s my brother – The HolliesAny dream will do – Jason Donovan

Amazon Mechanical Turk

User’s Mood

Terms

46 users

1778 tags

551 unique tags

•36 frequently used (>10x)

•305 used once

Commontags

happy 79energetic 41sad 40hopeful 31relaxed 30calm 29cheerful 22joyful 21relaxing 21lively 20romantic 20upbeat 20angry 19melancholy 19peaceful 18bored 17soothing 17fun 16

lonely 16optimistic 16excited 15mellow 15nostalgic 15thoughtful 14bouncy 12confused 12dark 12depressed 12dreamy 12playful 12warm 12moving 11sleepy 11uplifting 11vibrant 11tired 10

Valence: Positive (POS) – Negative (NEG) Energy: High Energy (HE) – Low Energy (LE) Intensity: High Intensity (HI) – Low Intensity (LI)

What

TERMSdo people use to represent mood?

What

FACTORSdetermine it?

Sources: Where does music mood “live?”

Intrinsic vs. extrinsic

exciting vs. excitedannoying vs. annoyedliberating vs. liberated

Whose mood?

Creator?

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Whose mood?

Performer?

Whose mood?

Listener?

confused,discontent,

heartbroken, pouty,

resentful, stressed,

sulky, strident

Lyrics:not just words, words, words

paranoid, depressed, empty, gloomy, somber…

altruistic, loyal, trustworthy

ironic, sarcastic, mocking, cynical, complaining…

From MIREX E6K Walkthrough

!

Tempo & Cultural Context

blue, concerned, dark, depressing (3), dismal, down, dreary, grief, lonely, melancholy (2), mournful, sad (4), somber, sorrow, sorry, uneasy, unhappy, uninspiring

mellow, moving, romantic

alone, cold (2), dark, listless, lonely, melancholic, moody, pessimistic, sad, somber

energetic, enigmatic, exotic, hopeful (2), impulsive, mellow, motivational, spirited, sunny, supple, vibrant (2), warm, wishful

The Mamas & The Papas Clare Teal

More on cultural context

People often first encounter new music from various media (e.g., watching a movie or TV commercial, listening to the radio) without ever knowing the artist name and song title (Lee, 2008)

Other factors

• Delivery• Instrumentation• Genre• Musical expectancy• Social expectation• Personal preference• Familiarity• …and more

Conclusion

• Vocabulary of music mood is highly varied among listeners

• Mood is affected by numerous factors, intrinsic and extrinsic

• Mood is a highly subjective feature for describing and organizing music

• Perhaps best exploited when used in conjunction with other means for classification

Future work

• In-depth interview with users• Cross-cultural study of music mood

perception• Users’ response to music containing

conflicting moods across different factors

Questions?