# Transfer learning for music classification and regression tasks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.09179 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.09179/

## Key facts

- Cited by 37 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 27 Mar 2017.

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 37)

- [MERT: Acoustic Music Understanding Model with Large-Scale Self-supervised Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.00107/) (2023)
- [MuLan: A Joint Embedding of Music Audio and Natural Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12415/) (2022)
- [Head2Toe: Utilizing Intermediate Representations for Better Transfer Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03529/) (2022)
- [Codified audio language modeling learns useful representations for music information retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.05677/) (2021)
- [Foundation Models for Music: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.14340/) (2024)
- [The Tunnel Effect: Building Data Representations in Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19753/) (2023)
- [MusCaps: Generating Captions for Music Audio](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.11984/) (2021)
- [MAP-Music2Vec: A Simple and Effective Baseline for Self-Supervised Music Audio Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.02508/) (2022)
- [Multi-Task Self-Supervised Pre-Training for Music Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.03229/) (2021)
- [Comparison and Analysis of Deep Audio Embeddings for Music Emotion Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.06517/) (2021)
- [Learning music audio representations via weak language supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.04214/) (2021)
- [BERT-like Pre-training for Symbolic Piano Music Classification Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.05223/) (2021)
- [Adapting TTS models For New Speakers using Transfer Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.05798/) (2021)
- [Fine-tuning deep learning model parameters for improved super-resolution of dynamic MRI with prior-knowledge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.02711/) (2021)
- [LC-Protonets: Multi-Label Few-Shot Learning for World Music Audio Tagging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.11264/) (2024)
- [Jointist: Joint Learning for Multi-instrument Transcription and Its Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.10805/) (2022)
- [Audio Embeddings as Teachers for Music Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.17424/) (2023)
- [Music Instrument Classification Reprogrammed](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.08379/) (2022)
- [Jointist: Simultaneous Improvement of Multi-instrument Transcription and Music Source Separation via Joint Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.00286/) (2023)
- [Myna: Masking-Based Contrastive Learning of Musical Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12511/) (2025)
- [Conformal Prediction Under Generalized Covariate Shift with Posterior Drift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.17744/) (2025)
- [Wasserstein Transfer Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.17404/) (2025)
- [A Methodology for Exploring Deep Convolutional Features in Relation to Hand-Crafted Features with an Application to Music Audio Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.00110/) (2021)
- [MS-SincResNet: Joint learning of 1D and 2D kernels using multi-scale SincNet and ResNet for music genre classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.08910/) (2021)
- [A Study on Broadcast Networks for Music Genre Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12086/) (2022)
- [VI-PANN: Harnessing Transfer Learning and Uncertainty-Aware Variational Inference for Improved Generalization in Audio Pattern Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.05531/) (2024)
- [Towards Human-in-the-Loop Onset Detection: A Transfer Learning Approach for Maracatu](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.04858/) (2025)
- [Complex Network-Based Approach for Feature Extraction and Classification of Musical Genres](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.04654/) (2021)
- [Towards noise robust trigger-word detection with contrastive learning pre-task for fast on-boarding of new trigger-words](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.03971/) (2021)
- [Bi-Sampling Approach to Classify Music Mood leveraging Raga-Rasa Association in Indian Classical Music](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06583/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In this paper, we present a transfer learning approach for music classification and regression tasks. We propose to use a pre-trained convnet feature, a concatenated feature vector using the activations of feature maps of multiple layers in a trained convolutional network. We show how this convnet feature can serve as general-purpose music representation. In the experiments, a convnet is trained for music tagging and then transferred to other music-related classification and regression tasks. The convnet feature outperforms the baseline MFCC feature in all the considered tasks and several previous approaches that are aggregating MFCCs as well as low- and high-level music features.