A speech interface for building musical score collections

ABSTRACT

Building machine readable collections of musical scores is a tedious and time consuming task. The most common interface for performing music data entry is a mouse and toolbar system; using the mouse, the user selects a rhythm (note shape) from a toolbar, then drags the note to the correct position on the staff. We compare the usability of a hybrid speech and mouse-driven interface to a traditional mouse-driven one. The speech-enhanced interface allows users to enter note rhythms by voice, while still using the mouse to indicate pitches. While task completion time is nearly the same, users (N=13) significantly preferred the speech-augmented interface. A second study using the first two authors of this paper (N=2) indicates that experienced users can enter music 11% faster with the speech interface. Many users expressed a desire to enter pitches, as well as rhythms, by speech. A third study, however, shows that the recognizer is unable to reliably distinguish among A, B, C, D, E, F and G (N=10).

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Interaction styles (e.g., commands, menus, forms, direct manipulation); Natural language

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.2 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
      I.2.1 Applications and Expert Systems
          Subjects: Natural language interfaces

General Terms:
Design, Documentation, Experimentation, Human Factors, Management, Measurement, Performance, Theory

Keywords:
music digital libraries, music notation editors, speech recognition, user interfaces