Presentation of "What does music mood mean for real users?" by Jin Ha Lee, Trent Hill, and Lauren Work at the iConference 2012

1. What does music mood mean
for real users?
Jin Ha Lee,Trent Hill, and Lauren Work
iConference 2012

2. Mood: a relatively long lasting
and stable emotional state (Meyer, 1956)
Emotion?
Affect?

3. 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 Retrieval
Evaluation eXchange

4. How does it
Make You
Feel?
Just got engaged?
Happy?

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

6. Can we
detect or
extract
mood?
…really?

7. What
TERMS
do people use to
represent mood?
What
FACTORS
determine it?

8. 68 songs in total
39 cover
versions of
12 songs
29 other songs

9. Für Elise
Fly me to the moon
California dreamin’
Jingle bells
핑계 (Excuse)
비처럼 음악처럼 (Like rain, like music)
그리움만 쌓이네 (Yearning)
붉은 노을 (Red sunset)
Paparazzi – Lady Gaga
He’ll have to go – Jim Reeves
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother – The Hollies
Any dream will do – Jason Donovan

10. Amazon MechanicalTurk

11. User’s Mood Terms
46 users
1778 tags
551unique tags
•36 frequently used (>10x)
•305 used once

12. Common
tags
happy 79
energetic 41
sad 40
hopeful 31
relaxed 30
calm 29
cheerful 22
joyful 21
relaxing 21
lively 20
romantic 20
upbeat 20
angry 19
melancholy 19
peaceful 18
bored 17
soothing 17
fun 16
lonely 16
optimistic 16
excited 15
mellow 15
nostalgic 15
thoughtful 14
bouncy 12
confused 12
dark 12
depressed 12
dreamy 12
playful 12
warm 12
moving 11
sleepy 11
uplifting 11
vibrant 11
tired 10

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

14. What
TERMS
do people use to
represent mood?
What
FACTORS
determine it?

15. Sources: Where does music mood “live?”

16. Intrinsic vs. extrinsic
exciting vs. excited
annoying vs. annoyed
liberating vs. liberated

17. Whose
mood?
Creator?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Burt_Bacharach_1972.JPG

18. Whose
mood?
Performer?

19. Whose
mood?
Listener?

20. confused,
discontent,
heartbroken, pouty,
resentful, stressed,
sulky, strident

21. Lyrics:
not just words, words, words
paranoid,
depressed,
empty,
gloomy,
somber…
altruistic,
loyal,
trustworthy
ironic, sarcastic, mocking,
cynical, complaining…

22. From MIREX E6K Walkthrough
!

23. 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, p
essimistic, sad, somber
energetic,
enigmatic, exotic,
hopeful (2),
impulsive, mellow,
motivational,
spirited, sunny,
supple, vibrant
(2), warm, wishful
The Mamas &The Papas ClareTeal

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

25. Other factors
• Delivery
• Instrumentation
• Genre
• Musical expectancy
• Social expectation
• Personal preference
• Familiarity
• …and more

26. 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

27. Future work
• In-depth interview with users
• Cross-cultural study of music mood
perception
• Users’ response to music containing
conflicting moods across different factors

28. Questions?