What Features Makes It Easy to Remember Melodies

What Features Makes It Easy to Remember Melodies Wataru Masuda*, Eriko Aiba**, and Tetsuro Kitahara* *Nihon University, Japan **University of Electro-Communications, Japan Introduction What are catchy melodies? Melodies easy to remember According to a dictionary Research question What melodic features make it easy to remember melodies? Our hypothesis Easily memorable melodies have both typical and atypical features Simple rhythm Melodies having only typical features are Conjunct pitch motion less memorable than those having both Diatonic notes Complicated rhythm Disjunct pitch motion Non-diatonic notes Method Listen again Easier to Listen Melody Procedure 1st phase remember? Remove atypical features Edited melody Listen Listen again Less easy Listen to 12 melodies to remember? Materials 24 melodies (8 bars) from RWC Music DB [Backbeat group] (6 melodies) 2nd phase interval Key idea Question 6 unedited 6 are included 6 edited in the 1st phase Listened to the same melody in the 1st phase? *Perfect 4th or wider intervals are regarded as disjunct here. [Disjunct group] (6 melodies) [Non-diatonic group] (6 melodies) Remove disjunct intervals* Remove backbeats Listen to 12 melodies Remove non-diatonic notes Participants 162 people via crowdsourcing (No restrictions about musical experiences etc.) (It has been changed to by editing) True-positive rates unedited edited unedited < edited (b) Distinct group Stat. test Melody Melody (a) Backbeat group # notes changed 4 times of perfect 4th pitch rising in the original melody in the original melodies # notes changed unedited > edited True-positive rates unedited edited Blue notes in the original melody (c) Non-diatonic group Stat. test Melody Results unedited < edited # notes changed True-positive rates unedited edited Stat. test