Problems and Opportunities of Applying Data- & Audio-Mining Techniques to Ethnic Music

Current research in music information retrieval focuses on Western music. In music from other cultures, both musical structures and thinking about music can be very different. This creates problems for both the analysis of musical features and the construction of databases. On the other hand, a well-documented digitization offers interesting opportunities for the study and spread of ‘endangered’ music. Here, some general problems regarding the digital indexation of ethnic music are given, illustrated with a method for describing pitch structure, comparing Western standards with African music found in the digitization of the archives of the Royal Museum of Central-Africa in Tervuren (Brussels).