Make Me a Match: An Evaluation of Different Approaches to Score-Performance Matching

Abstract

A matcher is an algorithm that links events in a musical performance to the corresponding events in a score. Matching is difficult because performers make errors, performers use expressive timing, and scores are frequently underspecified. In this article, two existing matchers are discussed. A general control structrure is described, in order to respecify these matchers and to be able to compare them. A new matcher is proposed that uses structural annotations in the score to deal better with the difficulties in matching.