Week 2 - MIR What is it?

What is Music Information Retrieval(MIR)? I know at least one of my classes talked about databases and collecting data for retrieval. But what a unique and very necessary idea as to retrieving data that is music! I think as time goes on and the future has an ever increasing need to make things more accessible and refined, more and more call upon innovation and creativity. Classics and traditions are rediscovered and influence new age. Music Information Retrieval needs to be explored and mastered in order to expose, share, and discover the old and new.

I had no idea of the concept of MIR before this class. Working in the library field, I personally feel that there is a lack of appreciation for music as a material held by the library. More advanced library systems have databases that actually make music downloadable for patrons. Patrons can then use music to educate, enrich, and decide what music may influence them. Music can tell stories, take people on an adventure, and teach things just as books do. Music should be treated with the same respect as books. Why is it that books are the first thing to be digitized when music is so much easier and faster to digitize or is it? Hopefully more libraries that we can consider shall we say "old school" will become either "new school" or MIR will just become general knowledge as we discover more about it.

As I understand it MIR is the tool used to organize and catalog music. Whether it be music sheets entered into a database or mp3s, MIR can act as a search engine to pull up a specific sound, pattern, track, album. The ability to find these for a researcher, student, or a fan can mean access to years of preserved music which can be saved and passed on to future generations. Though the field is still growing advancements have been made which are pretty extraordinary. For examples of this refer to week 9 of music collections.

Something that makes MIR interesting not to just the library field but even the music business, is that because music is being created digitally in the 21st century, many business can use MIR. Retrieving music or music information can be used by businesses like iTunes. According to Breen (2005), iTunes playlists which are also described as "smart playlists" allow users to define what kind of music they listen to on their iPods. In other words, if users are tired of listening to songs they listened to one to many times, they can call upon their smart playlist to decide which songs they have not listened to in a long period of time. The smart playlist then looks way deep into the darkest depths of a users ipod to retrieve that music and automatically play it.

Music Information Retrieval can be used in many venues and not just the library field. MIR is a field that is continuing to grow and a relatively modern concept as mp3 players, podcasts, and databases evolve so does MIR. The field still seems to have further developments to make in order to keep up with today's evergrowing tech savvy world.


Breen, C. (2005). Brilliant Playlists. Macworld, 22(6), 74-76. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.