Characterization and Similarity in A Cappella Flamenco Cantes

This paper intends to research on the link between musical similarity and style and sub-style (variant) classification in the context of flamenco a cappella singing styles. Given the limitation of standard computational models for melodic characterization and similarity computation in this particular context, we have proposed a specific set of melodic features adapted to flamenco singing styles. In order to evaluate them, we have gathered a collection of music recordings from the most representative singers and have manually extracted those proposed features. Based on those features, we have defined a similarity measure between two performances and have validated their usefulness in differentiating several styles and variants. The main conclusion of this work is the need to incorporate specific musical features to the design of similarity measures for flamenco music so that flamencoadapted MIR systems can be developed.