YMusic Search Engine - Help Content

YMusic (pronounce "Why Music") is a search engine associated with a music database comprising approximately 39,000 analyzed tracks, a good part of which has an audio link to YouTube and/or Spotify. It covers practically all styles and musical periods until today, which allows interesting comparisons (Bach versus The Beatles, ...).

You can search for titles not only by metadata (title, composer, ...) but mainly on the basis of specific musical criteria, ie on the actual musical content of the tracks. This is the main interest of this music search engine.

It is an experimental tool and its access is completely free. The objective is twofold. On the one hand, it makes it possible to compare different pieces on the basis of one or more musical criteria. Thus, we can compare the harmonic richness, the use of melodic intervals, the predominant rhythmic pulsations, the instrumentation, ... on a set of pieces. On the other hand, you can create playlists based on the search results, listen to them and export them to YouTube and/or Spotify.

A remark is needed regarding the results obtained through a research. The analysis of the musical content was carried out on the basis of the content of the score or an equivalent file and not extracted from the audio content. Although the corresponding YouTube and Spotify audio links have been selected with great care, sometimes the audio link is slightly different from the analyzed score. These are often different interpretations, arrangements for other instruments, simplifications, etc. Usually the musical criteria match well, but variations or inaccuracies are therefore possible and inevitable, due to the method by which the database was created.

YMusic has been optimized to work on Chrome and Safari browsers. Other browsers may presently present some graphical anomalies. To use YMusic optimally, we suggest you use either Chrome or Safari.

YMusic requires a display screen large enough to be used usefully and comfortably. Therefore, it is not recommended to use YMusic on a smartphone.

The search engine page has 6 panels that can be displayed or hidden using the 6 buttons at the top of the page.

The help button "?" to the right provides a quick access to this manual. In the upper right corner of each panel, you will also find a "?" icon that links to the specific help for that panel, as well as a closing box allowing to close this panel more easily.

When the application is launched, the first two panels are visible. Adjust the visible panels to suit your use and to maximize visual space. A typical use would be as follows.

2 - Search Panel

The first line allows you to define the maximum number of results to display, between 100, 500 and 1000, as well as the presence of the type of audio link required. More than 80% of the titles have an audio link. If your goal is to create playlists, you better have at least one audio link. If you just want to analyze, you can choose the option "With or without audio link". You can also request the presence of links specifically on YouTube or Spotify.

The following 4 lines are the categories of criteria that can be used. The first allows you to search using basic data of the score, such as tempo, key signature, instrumentation, ... The next allows more advanced searches on the type of musical content (notes present, durations, harmonies, intervals, ...). Then you have a text search category by the title, the composer, the style, ... A last category allows a text search on all the associated metadata.

The last line allows you to save search configurations with their results, so that you can retrieve them later.

Let us see in detail the content of these zones.

Opening the settings associated with a criterion also has the consequence of listing the values of this criterion in the list of results obtained. So, if you want to compare the tempo values of a set of titles, without limiting the tempo itself, you can open this setting and the results list will give you a column that will show the tempo of all the resulting tracks. This is valid for all musical criteria: to view them in a column, you must display the search settings that correspond to them, even if you do not modify these settings. You can open more than one at the same time.

Conversely, the settings areas which are closed will not be taken into account for the search, even if you have defined search parameters in them.

Note that when you search for multiple criteria at once, the given ranges must all match for a title to appear in the results. It is therefore a logical "AND" search. For example the tempo must be within a certain range AND the length of the song must be within a certain range.

Specify the tempo range for the searching. The tempo is expressed in beats per minute. A value of 60 represents a tempo where each beat lasts one second. The beat depends on the type of measure present in the song. A measure of 4/4 or 3/4 for example will be measured in quarter note tempo. A 6/8 measure will be measured in dotted quarter note tempo.

The tempo variation measures the average difference between the basic tempo and its evolution in the track. A piece that has a fixed tempo for the duration of the track will have a tempo variation of zero. So the higher this number is, the more the track has variations of tempo. Mathematically this is the standard deviation of the tempo values encountered in the track.

This area is more extensive and allows you to search for the type of key signature(s) found in the score. A key signature indicates the accidentals of the notes to be used (the equivalent of black / white notes on a piano keyboard). A key signature is specific to musical notation and does not necessarily represent a perceptible musical characteristic. Indeed, the key indicates the number of flats or sharps displayed by default on the staff, but each individual note can be played with its own accidental. So in theory you can write any music in any key signature and it will sound exactly the same. In practice, we choose a key signature according to the majority of the altered notes that are in the piece, and therefore we will say that such and such a piece is written in D major, which implies that most of the F and C notes are altered with a sharp.

To filter titles based on key signature, you can:

Choose the number of different key signature(s) that are present, by default between 1 and 15, which includes all the pieces of the data base, since there are only 15 possible different key signatures. By choosing for example between 1 and 1, you will only find the pieces which have a single fixed key signature for their entire duration.
You can choose the main key signature of the piece, that is to say the one which is the majority if there are several.
You can choose the key signature in which the track starts, that is, the key signature in the first measure of the track.
Then you can choose the specific presence of one or more given key signature(s), in percentage. By choosing, for example, a key signature from 100% to 100% in A Major, you will only find pieces written entirely in A Major. By choosing two key signatures between 25 and 100% each, you will find titles that have at least these two keys in these proportions. To add or remove a choice of key signature, use the two buttons + and -.

Similarly to key signatures, here you can select titles based on the time signature in which they are written. The time signature determines how beats are grouped in a track and gives an overall rhythmic feel to the song. For example we can easily distinguish a 4/4 time signature (most rock is written in this time signature) from a 3/4 time signature which is the typical example of a waltz, binary / ternary opposition. There are many different time signatures and we have listed 20 of them. The 21st choice represents all the other possible measures not listed (like 7/8, 9/4, ... which are much less frequent).

Here you can filter the time signature as follows:

Choose the number of different time signature(s) that are present, by default between 1 and 21. By choosing for example from 2 to 2, you will find the parts which include exactly two types of time signatures.
You can choose the main time signature of the track, that is to say the one which is the majority if there are several.
You can choose the time signature in which the track must start, ie the one present at the first measure of the track.
Then you can choose the specific presence of one or more given time signature(s), in percentage. By choosing, for example, a time signature of 3/4 from 100% to 100%, you will only find tracks written entirely in 3/4. By choosing two time signatures between 25 and 100% each, you will find titles that have at least these two measures in these proportions. To add or remove a choice of time signature, use the two buttons + and -.

Here you will find 7 musical criteria, each of which has several different aspects. The principle is to analyze the presence and distribution of the musical elements which form the music itself, i.e. the pitch of the notes, the duration of the notes, the intensities of the notes, the sounds that play these notes, the rhythmic pulsations, the melodic intervals and the types of harmonies. Distribution means the way in which these different elements are present and in what proportions.

Let's take a look at each distribution in detail.

The pitch of a note is simply the frequency of vibration of the air that transmits it. To represent pitch, we use a number between 0 and 127, which is the standard representation of notes in a MIDI file. The value 60 corresponds to the central C note of the piano, the one located below the G-clef staff. Each unit represents a semitone. So, the value 61 represents a C #, 62 represents a D, ... a jump of 12 semitones represents an octave, so the value 72 represents the C note one octave higher than the central C. The value 0 corresponds to a very low C, even lower than the lowest note of a piano.

Here are the criteria that allow you to select titles according to the notes that are present.

It is the average pitch of all the notes present in a song. If the average is for example 60 (central C of the piano) it could be a simple melody which evolves a few notes around C. But it could also be a full orchestral piece, which covers the whole range from very low to very high, but whose midpoint is on central C. By default the search suggests between 0 and 127, which places no limit. You can specify a minimum value and a maximum value. You will get all of the titles whose mean values fall within this range.

The dispersion value makes it possible to better distinguish the two situations described in the previous point. It is a measure that expresses how the pitches deviate from the average. A very small dispersion value will indicate that the notes in the track are all very close to the average value. A value of zero, an extreme case, represents a melody that always repeats the same note throughout the track. A high dispersion value would be found for example in a complete symphonic orchestration, because the piccolo would be very high and the double bass very low, both very far from the central note. You can therefore specify a dispersion range and get all the pieces that satisfy it. If you place for example the minimum at zero and the maximum at 5, you will obtain titles whose notes do not deviate very much from a central note.

Here, the search is made on the number of different notes used in the track, regardless of where those notes fall within the full possible range of pitches. A minimum and maximum value of 7 will give you all titles with only 7 different pitches (each of which may appear multiple times).

Here the search is done on the lowest note of a track. If you set the minimum value to 60 (central C), all titles with at least one note lower will be excluded from the search.

Similarly, the search is made on the highest pitch of a track, choosing the minimum value and the maximum value.

The range represents the difference between the highest note and the lowest note. For example, by setting the maximum range to 12 semitones, it is then possible to select only the titles whose notes cover a maximum of one octave, without constraint on the position of this octave (this could be a full octave in very low notes or a full octave in the high notes).

Each note in a piece of music has a specific duration. This criterion makes it possible to select titles on the basis of the durations of the notes. An arbitrary numbering of the durations is used. A value of "1" represents the duration of a 32nd note, in the tempo of the track. So a duration of 8 represents a quarter note, which usually corresponds to the tempo. Let's take the example of a track with a tempo of 60 per quarter note, where each beat (quarter note) lasts one second. A value of duration "8" corresponds to 8 32nd notes, which is a quarter note, lasting one second. A value of "1" would be an eighth of a quarter note, so an eighth of a second. A value of "16" corresponds to two quarter notes, therefore one half note, which has 2 seconds of duration. If the tempo changes, this value changes in the same proportion. It is therefore a scale of relative values of note durations within the same piece.

Given this numbering convention, here are the search criteria which allow you to select titles according to the length of notes present. Note that a value of zero corresponds to any note that is shorter than the 32nd note (grace notes, trill, 64th note, ...).

The search is carried out on the average of the duration of the notes of the score. Select a minimum and maximum duration value and you will get titles with average duration within the specified range. Similar to the example given for pitches, an average of "8" for example (quarter note) simply means that the average duration of notes is one quarter note. This could be a song consisting of quarter notes only, but also a song that had a balance of half notes and eighth notes, with no quarter notes present. Or any other combination whose average would be around a quarter note.

This criterion makes it possible to distinguish the two situations expressed in the previous point. How far do the note durations deviate from the average note duration of the entire track ? You can specify a minimum and maximum range and get all the titles that match. By specifying a small range, for example 2, you will find tracks with most notes of similar durations.

Here you can search based on the number of different note durations in a song. By specifying a maximum value of "1", you will find all the titles of which all the notes have the same duration for the whole track. A value of "2" will give you titles that only have two values of different durations.

Here the search is done on the shortest duration of the notes of a piece. If you set the minimum value to 8 (quarter note), all titles with at least one shorter note will be excluded from the search and only tracks with all notes equal to or longer than a quarter note will be found.

Similarly, the search is done on the longest note of a track, choosing the minimum value and the maximum value.

This is the difference between the shortest and the longest duration. By limiting the range, you exclude titles that have very disparate durations. A maximum value of zero will give you titles with only one note duration.

Each note in a track is played with a given intensity. We call this the dynamics, which are distributed conventionally from a quadruple piano pppp to a quadruple forte ffff written in the musical score. We have divided the intensities into 16 arbitrary zones, representing a scale of the zones of possible intensities and these are numbered from 1 to 16. Given this numbering convention, here are the search criteria that allow you to select titles depending on the intensities of the notes present.

All the notes of a piece are sorted by intensity category and here you can filter the titles by the intensity categories present. As it is an average, it gives an idea of the average position of the intensities. By asking for a low average, you will have pieces written with soft volume intensity.

The greater the dispersion, the more contrasted the title will appear when listening to it. This value indicates how far away the intensities are from the average value for the entire track.

Another way to manage intensities is to impose that the track has a minimum or maximum of different intensity values. By setting a value of "1" as the maximum, you will find tracks that have a unique, monotonous intensity throughout the length of the piece.

Here the research is done on the lowest intensity of the notes of a piece. If, for example, you set the minimum value to 12, all tracks with at least one lower note intensity will be excluded from the search and only those songs where all the notes are played loudly will remain.

Similarly, the search is done on the highest intensity note of a song, choosing the minimum value and the maximum value.

It is the difference between the weakest and strongest intensity present in a song. If you set a value of "0" as the maximum, only the tracks with a monotonic intensity will remain. By imposing "15" you will obtain pieces with a strong contrast in intensity.

Each note in a track is played with a specific instrument. This criterion makes it possible to search for tracks on the basis of the instrumentation used in the analysis of the database. The proportions are given in number of notes played per instrument.

Allows you to select the number of instruments involved in the searched titles. By setting the maximum to "1" you will obtain all the titles comprising only one instrument (soloist). By specifying a minimum of 10, we will obtain titles with already substantial instrumental ensembles. Here we do not take into account the proportions, there could be one saxophone note and everything else on the flute, the result would nevertheless be two different instruments.

The search element at the bottom of the frame allows multiple searches to be performed on the proportion of specific instruments. You can search by specific instrument, percussion instrument, or instrument category. The drop-down menu then allows you to specify the instrument or category. Then choose a required proportion rate between 0 and 100%. The search will filter the titles based on this.

By using the "+" and "-" buttons you can add / remove another instrument to search. A practical example would be for example minimum 50% piano and minimum 20% violin and you will find many pieces for piano and violin. By limiting to 2 instruments, you will only find tracks with piano and violin to the exclusion of any other instrument.

A rhythmic harmonic is simply an integer or fractional multiple of the main beat imposed by the tempo. Let's take the example of a piece written in 4/4 at a tempo of 60. We therefore have one beat per second, which is represented by quarter notes. The quarter note is here the rhythmic harmonic "1". The rhythmic harmonic "2" is twice as fast, so it's eighth notes. Harmonic "3" will be represented by eighth note triplets. Harmonic "4" will be sixteenth note, and so on. In the other direction, we can also divide and consider the rhythmic harmonic "1/2", which means that the frequency of this rhythm is divided by two (its duration is multiplied by two) and we therefore have in our example the rhythmic harmonic "1/2" represented by a half note. "1/4" will be the whole note, etc.

Tempo is usually representative of the main cadence the song follows, the sense of perceived speed at which the track is played. The notion of rhythmic harmonic refines this perception of speed. If the tempo is the main beat, then the distribution of rhythmic harmonics more subtly represents the impression of speed felt when listening to the track. We could indeed have a piece that is played at quarter note equal 60, where this quarter note duration is the main, accented beat that drives the music. And on the other hand, the presence of faster secondary rhythms: the higher rhythmic harmonics. The more there are, the more one will have the impression that beyond the main beat, there are fast things happening in the music playback.

So a piece at a tempo of quarter note = 60 with a strong "4" harmonic and a weak "1" harmonic will give the impression of a fairly fast track, despite the tempo being a moderate tempo at the base.

This criterion therefore makes it possible to distinguish the way in which the rhythmic harmonics are represented and to carry out a search on this basis. It is divided into 5 different sections.

This criterion makes it possible to determine the number of rhythmic harmonics present in the searched titles. By setting the maximum very low (1 or 2), you will obtain titles with small rhythmic diversity. Conversely, by searching for titles on a basis of a high minimum (10 and +), the selected tracks will be richer in rhythm.

Allows you to search on the basis of the majority rhythmic harmonic in the titles. Thus, a majority harmonic of "2" will find the titles where the eighth notes are the most numerous rhythmically. A "3" harmonic will give titles based on ternary rhythms, etc.

Here we search for titles based on the slowest rhythmic harmonic found. By taking a minimum of "1", the resulting titles will have all their rhythmic harmonics equal to or greater than 1.

Conversely, we select here on the basis of the fastest rhythmic harmonic found in a title.

Here you can perform a precise search for the presence of one or more specific rhythmic harmonics. The 16 harmonics taken into account are presented as 16 settings, which cover by default all cases, from 0 to 100%. To find a song that would have a lot of quarter notes and a many eighth note triplets, you could start the search with: harmonic 1 between 50 and 100%, harmonic 3 between 30 and 100% and then refine the settings according to the results obtained.

The melodic interval is the distance between two successive notes of a melody. It can be ascending or descending, small or large. It is measured in number of semitones, positive for an ascending interval, negative for a descending interval. Music theory also gives precise names to qualify them, such as a minor second, a unison, a major third, ... YMusic's analysis is made on the basis of intervals ranging from minus two octaves (-24 semitones) up to two octaves (+24 semitones). This analysis only covers the melodic parts of the analyzed piece, that is to say instrumental parts which only include one note played at a time. If there is a string section that plays chords, that section is not taken into account for melodic analysis. It could therefore be that a purely chord accompaniment piece would not contain melodic intervals, since no individual melody is present. Here are the criteria that allow you to refine a search based on the types of melodic intervals found.

This setting allows you to specify the minimum and maximum presence of one or more melodic intervals. A drop-down menu lists the possible intervals, under their usual musical name, which corresponds from top to bottom respectively from +24 to -24 semitones. By choosing a minimum of 100% of a given interval, we will find (if they exist) the titles comprising only this interval.

To specify the presence of several melodic intervals, use the "+" and "-" buttons, which add a search area combined with the previous ones.

By taking the mathematical average of all the melodic intervals found in a track, we get a value that can be searched. By asking for a positive mean interval, we will obtain titles which melodies are more ascending than descending, and vice versa.

This number represents how the melodic intervals deviate from the average melodic interval of the track. The greater the dispersion, the richer the melodies of the selected titles will be.

Here the search is made on the basis of the type of interval: up, unison (repetition of the same note) or down. For example, you can determine that the melodies you are looking for will have at least 25% repetition and at least 50% ascending intervals.

Used to specify the number of different types of intervals found in a searched title. The richness and extent of the melody will depend on it.

The search is carried out on the basis of the smallest descending melodic interval which is present in the searched title.

The search is carried out on the basis of the greatest descending melodic interval which is present in the searched title.

The search is carried out on the basis of the smallest ascending melodic interval which is present in the searched title.

The search is carried out on the basis of the largest ascending melodic interval which is present in the searched title.

The idea here is to carry out a search on the basis of the harmonies present, therefore on the combination of the notes played simultaneously, what is more commonly called chords. Here are the different researches that can be done on this principle.

Polyphony is the number of notes played simultaneously by all the instruments present. For a solo piece for flute, this number will always be "1", or "0" when there is a rest in the score. And for a full orchestra, it could have several dozen notes. So this criterion makes it possible to select titles on the basis of the greatest polyphony found. A maximum value of "1" will result in all single-note solo instrument pieces.

If we analyze a chord played by a full orchestra, although there might be several dozen notes, we will usually find many notes duplicated one or more octaves higher or lower. We could therefore have 5 C notes at various pitches. These C notes will reinforce the harmony present but will not really change the type of chord played. So the idea here is to "reduce" the polyphony to the 12 base notes of one octave and see how many different notes you hear at once. This will depend on the richness of the present chord, regardless of the fact that several of these notes are duplicated in other octaves. This number is referred to here as reduced polyphony and is between "0" and "12". By imposing a minimum of 4 or 5 notes of reduced polyphony, the richness of the harmony heard will be greater.

The idea here is to detect the richness of harmonies per unit of time, specifically, the number of different harmonies present in one minute of music. The larger it is, the richer and more diverse the harmony will be. The search can be made on the basis of 4 numbers, each time in a range determined by you:

On full polyphony, as explained above
On reduced polyphony, as a single octave
On full polyphony transposed in C
On reduced polyphony transposed in C

When specifying "transposed in C", it means that the lowest note present in the harmony serves as the basis for a transposition to the note C, all the notes present being transposed in the same way. In practice, this makes it possible to detect the types of chords present. For example, if a piece has on the one hand a D major chord (D, F #, A) and an A major chord (A, C #, E), these 2 chords are placed on two different notes (D and A ) but are both part of a single family of chords, in this specific case the "Major" chord. So by bringing all the chords found towards the note C, we will only find in this case one type of present chord, the "Major" chord. We can therefore carry out the search on this finer basis if desired, ie detect the different types of chords, regardless of their bass note.

YMusic's analysis defines 32 different harmony classes. On the one hand the single note (which is a rudimentary harmony in itself), then the intervals, i.e. two notes played at the same time (a major third, a minor seventh, ...) and then the different types of chords with 3, 4, 5 notes and more.

The first criterion allows you to choose the number of types of harmony present in a track. The bigger it is, the richer will be the harmony perceived in the whole piece.

The following element can be duplicated using the "+" and "-" buttons in order to perform a specific search on the proportion of presence of given harmonies in a track. The desired harmony is specified via a drop-down menu and its proportion range can be defined by two sliders between 0 and 100%.

A chord based on a given note can contain that root note as the lowest note of the chord, for example the C major chord with the notes C, E, G. This is called the root position of the chord. But this same chord can be "inverted", that is to say from the lowest to the highest, be in the order E, G, C. This is the first inversion. It changes the sound color a bit when listening, but keeps a family resemblance with its root chord. In the same way one can invert in the order G, C, E, it is the second inversion. A 4 or 5 notes chord may include a third or fourth inversion.

This criterion is used to determine which types of position the chords use in the searched tracks. You can specify a limit range between 0 and 100% for each position.

As already mentioned, you can combine all of these criteria to perform more complex and personalized searches.

By opening this area, you can perform a text search on the title, composer, performer and style. The set of titles is divided into no less than 880 different styles, themselves grouped into 24 general categories, which you can search via 24 check boxes. Some of the titles also include the year of composition. The titles which do not include it have a year equal to zero. You can therefore also include the year in your search criteria.

This search can be combined with all the musical criteria explained above.

This area allows a global text search on all the metadata present (title, composer, style and performer). Here too you can combine it with the music search criteria.

When you set up a search, you can save it so that you can retrieve it in the future. This is especially useful if your search has many parameters chosen and adjusted to obtain a specific result. For this function to be active, you must open a YMusic account and be connected to this account. It's completely free and you can get it in 30 seconds via the panel titled "My Account". Without an account, this area remains grayed out and unusable. If you have an account, make sure you're signed in to it, in the same panel.

To save your search, give it a title in the text box to the right of the Save this research as button and then click this button. Your search is added to the drop-down menu entitled My Researches, which is just above it. To retrieve a previously saved search, select it from the drop-down menu and click the Load button. The search panels will then restore the same settings and automatically launch the search to obtain the results in the list on the right.

By using the Delete button, you can simply delete this search from your account.

3 - Results Panel

This panel is basically a list. This is where the results are displayed. By default, the columns of the list include the title, style, year, composer and performer.

According to the criteria you specified in the search panel, the numerical values and the distributions of these criteria are also displayed in columns. For a criterion to be displayed in this list, it must be open in the search panel, even if you do not specify a value limiting the criterion. For example, if you carry out a search on the pitches of notes present, by specifying and limiting these criteria, you can, without making it restrictive, also display the duration of the titles found as well as their tempo, by simply opening these two criteria of duration and tempo.

You can adjust the column width by clicking and dragging the column separator line. By clicking in the title of a column, you can sort this column in increasing values. By clicking a second time, the sort is descending. By clicking a third time, it returns to the default sorting, with the titles displayed in alphabetical order.

Some criteria include a distribution indicating the proportions of the presence of a series of possible values. For example, if you turn on a key signatures search, you will see a Key signature distribution column appear in the list, which looks like this:

In this specific case, it displays the presence of the 15 possible key signatures, between 7 flats (completely to the left) and 7 sharps (completely to the right). The column is therefore divided into 15 sub-columns, each of which can display the presence of a type of key signature by a blue rectangle which height represents the proportion present in the title in question. By dragging the mouse over these rectangles, you will see a small text appear indicating the proportion present in percentage, as well as the type of key signature in question. This visual representation makes it easy to get an idea of what the different titles displayed in the list contain. The search is not done directly on a distribution, but the distribution helps to view the data in a table. For distributions that have many sub-columns, you can widen the column in question to have greater precision in examining it.

By clicking with the right mouse button, you can select the visible columns in the list.

By clicking on a line, you can select it.

By clicking on a line while holding the SHIFT key, you can extend the already existing selection to the new clicked line.

By clicking on a line while holding the CTRL key, you add (or remove, if it is already selected) that line to the selection.

4 - Graphic Panel

When a search is performed, you can use this panel to view the numerical data in graphical form. For this, there must necessarily be numbers in the columns of the search results, otherwise the graph is of no use.

The idea of this graphic is to position each title as a point in an area with X and Y coordinates. Two drop-down menus allow you to specify the musical criteria taken into account to position the title on the X axis and the Y axis. An additional drop-down menu allows you to determine the size of a point to represent one of the musical criteria.

Here is a practical example where a hundred titles are represented:

With the settings chosen here, a title is positioned as high on the graph than its tempo is high, as much to the right as the duration of the piece is long, and the size of the point indicates in a relative way the number of key signatures present in this piece.

To use the graphics panel more comfortably, you can close the other panels so that the graphics takes up the full size of the screen.

Once this graph is displayed, you can:

Hover the mouse over the different points: a text at the bottom of the panel displays the title in question and its precise values.
By holding down the right mouse button you can use the mouse wheel to zoom in to better examine an area.
When you have increased the zoom and still holding the right mouse button, you can move the mouse to move around the graph to examine a specific area. Combine the zoom of the mouse wheel with just moving the area.
By clicking (with the left button) and dragging the mouse, you can draw a rectangle which allows you to select the corresponding points (titles). These will also be selected in the list of results (and vice versa). By drawing a selection rectangle while holding down the SHIFT key, you add the points to the current selection. And with the CTRL key, you reverse the points surrounded by the rectangle.

Another mode can be used to view the distribution of the values of a criterion. To do this, in the drop-down menu of the Y axis, choose the first choice entitled Quantity and in the drop-down menu of the X axis, choose the musical criterion you wish to analyze. You will obtain a different graph, showing the quantity of titles present in each horizontal slice of the criterion in question. Here is an example for the duration of the title:

5 - Similarities Panel

This panel makes it possible to establish the similarity of all the titles on the basis of a reference title. When you open this panel, it is empty. Double-click on a title in the main results list, on the basis of which you want to perform the comparison. This title will then appear in the comparison list, in first position, as well as all the other titles, classified in the order of similarity to the reference title.

The list has a column entitled Similarity expressed as a percentage. The first line is the reference title, so the similarity of this title to itself is necessarily 100%. The rest of the list displays, in descending order of similarity, all of the other titles that were selected in the search. Here is a practical example, where we used the criteria of tempo, range of note pitches and distribution of note pitches.

The similarity is calculated on the basis of the selected criteria and you can weight these criteria via the sliders on the left. If there are three criteria set at 100 percent like here, it means that the percentage of similarity is calculated equally on the three criteria. In other words, in this example, to have a total similarity (100%) it is necessary that the tempo of the two compared titles is exactly the same, that the range of the pitches corresponds perfectly and that the distribution of the pitches is exactly the same. The percentage in the Similarity column therefore gradually decreases for the titles compared, all the more so as these three criteria deviate from the values of the reference title.

By changing the settings of the left sliders, you can change the importance of each criterion in the comparison. When you modify these settings, it is then necessary to click the Build the list of titles with similarities button in order to recalculate the similarities of all the titles taking into account this change in weightings. For example, if you keep the first criterion at 100% and the other two at zero%, then you might have a few more titles that have 100% similarity to the reference title. This limits the comparison to a single criterion. So we can say that two tracks with the same tempo are 100% similar, based on a tempo comparison only. It is therefore always a relative similarity that this table makes it possible to establish, on the basis of one or more selected criteria and in the proportion that you decide.

You can also select lines from this list, in a similar way to the main results list and two buttons allow you to select everything or add the titles to the current playlist.

This comparison feature, used on many criteria and titles, makes it possible to find titles which have important musical similarities and which are therefore likely to please someone who would very much like the title used as a comparison reference. This is a start of a "music recommendation" type of functionality, but here based on the actual musical content and not on the basis of song listening statistics and an analysis of the type "Fans also like ...".

6 - Playlists Panel

This panel allows you to build playlists based on the titles you have selected through searches and also sorted according to a similarity determined by you.

The two lists (results and similarities) allow you to add titles to the current playlist (which is initially empty).

The playlist also displays a title list, with a column titled Y / S. The presence of a Y for a title indicates that there is an audio link that can be listened to via YouTube. The presence of an S indicates the presence of an audio link that can be listened to via Spotify.

Four buttons are present just above the playlist, respectively allowing to clear the playlist, to remove the selected title, to move up or down the selected title (in order to modify the order of the playlist).

Below the playlist are three tabs.

The first tab allows you to save playlists in order to recover them in the future. It is only active if you have a YMusic account and are logged into it. Having a YMusic account is completely free and you can get it in 30 seconds via the panel titled "My Account". Without an account, this area remains grayed out and unusable. If you have an account, make sure you're signed in to it, in the same panel.

To save the current playlist, give it a name in the text box to the right of the Save this playlist as button and then click this button. It is then added to the drop-down menu entitled My playlists. To retrieve a playlist, select it from the drop-down menu and click the Load button. The Delete button allows you to delete a playlist from your library.

By clicking on the YouTube Player tab you get a basic player which allows you to listen to the title selected in the playlist, as long as this title has a YouTube audio link. For the YouTube player, you can also start the playlist by double-clicking a title. At the end of the playback of this title, the next one will be started automatically.

By clicking on the Spotify Player tab you get the official Spotify player, which is less flexible to use than the YouTube player. A double click on the title cannot start this player or link the other titles. Specifically, you need to use the player's Start button presented by Spotify. If you don't have a Spotify account, you will only be able to listen to 30 seconds of the track in question. If you create a free account on Spotify (which you can do on the Spotify site), then you can have access to the full duration of the titles. For this, you must be connected to the Spotify account through your Internet browser, whether it is a free or paid account.

You can also export your playlists to YouTube and Spotify. The two buttons that allow this are in the Save / Restore Playlists tab. The procedure is different for YouTube and Spotify.

The Watch this playlist on YouTube... button creates a link that opens directly in a new tab in your browser on the YouTube page. This link actually creates a temporary "unlisted" playlist. You can listen to it directly on YouTube. It seems that YouTube's new interface no longer allows you to copy this temporary playlist at once to a playlist in your account. It is still possible to copy each video separately to a playlist in your account. You must of course be logged in to your YouTube account.

For Spotify, click the Export this playlist to Spotify button. Then open the Spotify application on Windows or Mac (the procedure does not seem to work if you are using Spotify directly in the browser). Create a playlist on your account and once it is displayed you can simply use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + V to paste the playlist there. You can do the same with an existing playlist, to add tracks from YMusic.

7 - User Account Panel

This panel allows you to create or log into a YMusic account. A YMusic account is free and simply allows you to be able to save searches and playlists made with YMusic.

To create an account, click the Create an account ... button and define a username, a password, as well as your email address and your choice of whether or not to receive the YMusic newsletter, then click on the Register button.

The application then tells you that you are well connected. If you check the Stay connected box, a cookie will be saved and you will automatically stay logged in for your future visits to the YMusic site.

If you are not logged in, simply enter your username and password and you will be logged in.

A Can't remember my password... button allows you to enter your username and YMusic will send you a new password to the email address provided during registration.

When you are logged in, you can modify your account settings at any time using the Edit account button. You can modify the password, the email address and the choice to receive or not the YMusic newsletter.