The Music Information Retrieval Evaluation eXchange: Some Observations and Insights

Advances in the science and technology of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) systems and algorithms are dependent on the development of rigorous measures of accuracy and performance such that meaningful comparisons among current and novel approaches can be made. This is the motivating principle driving the efforts of the International Music Information Retrieval Systems Evaluation Laboratory (IMIRSEL) and the annual Music Information Retrieval Evaluation eXchange (MIREX). Since it started in 2005, MIREX has fostered great advancements not only in many specific areas of MIR, but also in our general understanding of how MIR systems and algorithms are to be evaluated. This chapter outlines some of the major highlights of the past four years of MIREX evaluations, including its organizing principles, the selection of evaluation metrics, and the evolution of evaluation tasks. The chapter concludes with a brief introduction of how MIREX plans to expand into the future using a suite of Web 2.0 technologies to automated MIREX evaluations.