On the Inherent Segment Length in Music

Music consists of sounds organized in time. These sounds can be understood from a rhythmic, timbral, or harmonic point of view, and they can be understood on different time scales, going from the very short (note onsets) to the medium (grouping), to the large scale with musical form. Note onsets, grouping and form are common musical terms, which can be compared to different aspects of audition, memory and grouping behavior. These terms can be compared to chunks, riffs, and other temporal segmentation terms currently used in music. When identifying chunks, riffs, sections, forms, or other structural elements, do they really exist, or does the identification process create them? This work presents a method, based on automatic segmentation, that identifies the inherent structure sizes in music, i.e. gives indications as to what are the optimal segmentation sizes in the music. This work has implications for rhythmical and abStract