Fractal dimension and classification of music

The fractal aspect of different kinds of music was analyzed in keeping with the time domain. The fractal dimension of a great number of different musi cs (180 scores) is calculated by the Variation method. By using an analysis of variance, it is shown that fractal dimension helps discriminate differe nt categories of music. Then, we used an original statistical technique bas ed on the Bootstrap assumption to find a time window in which fractal dimen sion reaches a high power of music discrimination. The best discrimination is obtained between 1/44100 and 16/44100 Hertz. We admit that to distinguis h some different aspects of music well, the high information quantity is ob tained in the high frequency domain. By calculating fractal dimension with the ANAM method, it was statistically proven that fractal dimension could d istinguish different kinds of music very well: musics could be classified b y their fractal dimensions. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reser ved.