Genre identification of very brief musical excerpts

The purpose of this study was to examine how well individuals were able to identify different music genres from very brief excerpts and whether musical training, gender and preference played a role in genre identification. Listeners were asked to identify genre from classical, jazz, country, metal, and rap/hip hop excerpts that were 125, 250, 500, or 1000 ms in length. Participants ( N = 347), students recruited from three college campuses in the southeast region of the USA, were found to be quite successful in identifying the genre of brief excerpts, even at 125 ms. Length of excerpt significantly affected participants’ ability to identify genre with longer time lengths leading to greater accuracy. Classical, metal, and rap/hip hop excerpts were correctly identified more often than were country or jazz excerpts. Further, there were many distinct interactions across lengths among genres. Musical training did not affect participants’ ability to identify excerpts overall or by length, but training was found to affect genre identification: those with training were better able to identify classical and jazz excerpts while those without training were better able to identify rap/hip hop excerpts. Gender did not affect participants’ ability to identify excerpts overall or by length, but gender was found to affect genre identification: males were better able to identify metal excerpts. Preference did affect participants’ ability to identify excerpts; most favorite genres were identified more accurately than all other genres and least favorite genres were identified less accurately than all other genres. In general, these findings support a primary conclusion that people are adept at identifying particular genres when presented with excerpts that are one second or less.