# The Music Meta Ontology: a flexible semantic model for the interoperability of music metadata

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.03942 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.03942/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 3 of its 52 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 7 Nov 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [The Landscape of Ontology Reuse Approaches](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.12599/) (2020)
- [The HaMSE Ontology: Using Semantic Technologies to support Music Representation Interoperability and Musicological Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.05817/) (2022)
- [The Music Annotation Pattern](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.00988/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [OntoChat: a Framework for Conversational Ontology Engineering using Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05921/) (2024)
- [A Pattern to Align Them All: Integrating Different Modalities to Define Multi-Modal Entities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13803/) (2024)
- [Competency Questions as Executable Plans: a Controlled RAG Architecture for Cultural Heritage Storytelling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.02545/) (2026)
- [Characterising LLM-Generated Competency Questions: a Cross-Domain Empirical Study using Open and Closed Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.16258/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The semantic description of music metadata is a key requirement for the creation of music datasets that can be aligned, integrated, and accessed for information retrieval and knowledge discovery. It is nonetheless an open challenge due to the complexity of musical concepts arising from different genres, styles, and periods -- standing to benefit from a lingua franca to accommodate various stakeholders (musicologists, librarians, data engineers, etc.). To initiate this transition, we introduce the Music Meta ontology, a rich and flexible semantic model to describe music metadata related to artists, compositions, performances, recordings, and links. We follow eXtreme Design methodologies and best practices for data engineering, to reflect the perspectives and the requirements of various stakeholders into the design of the model, while leveraging ontology design patterns and accounting for provenance at different levels (claims, links). After presenting the main features of Music Meta, we provide a first evaluation of the model, alignments to other schema (Music Ontology, DOREMUS, Wikidata), and support for data transformation.