Towards global music digital libraries: A cross-cultural comparison on the mood of Chinese music
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare music mood perceptions of people with diverse cultural backgrounds when they interact with Chinese music. It also discusses how the results can inform the design of global music digital libraries (MDL).
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey was designed based on the Music Information Retrieval Evaluation eXchange (MIREX) five-cluster mood model, to solicit mood perceptions of listeners in Hong Kong and the USA on a diverse set of Chinese music. Statistical analysis was applied to compare responses from the two user groups, with consideration of different music types and characteristics of listeners. Listeners’ textual responses were also analyzed with content coding.
Findings
Listeners from the two cultural groups made different mood judgments on all but one type of Chinese music. Hong Kong listeners reached higher levels of agreement on mood judgments than their US counterparts. Gender, age and familiarity with the songs were related to listeners’ mood judgment to some extent.
Practical implications
The MIREX five-cluster model may not be sufficient for representing the mood of Chinese music. Refinements are suggested. MDL are recommended to differentiate tags given by users from different cultural groups, and to differentiate music types when classifying or recommending Chinese music by mood.
Originality/value
It is the first study on cross-cultural access to Chinese music in MDL. Methods and the refined mood model can be applied to cross-cultural access to other music types and information objects.
Keywords
Citation
Hu, X. and Lee, J.H. (2016), "Towards global music digital libraries: A cross-cultural comparison on the mood of Chinese music", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 72 No. 5, pp. 858-877. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-01-2016-0005
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited