Tutorial

The first thing you see after the login is the My Songs page.

Here you can see the songs available for you to annotate, some information regarding them and the actions available for each song. To annotate a song, click on the button. If you find a song hard to annotate, you can choose to ignore/skip it by clicking the button. If you ignore a song, all annotations that you have done regarding that particular song will be deleted and it won't appear again on the list. Also, if you finished annotating all songs, here, you can choose to annotate another set.

After clicking on the button, you should see the song page, in which you will perform the annotations. This page is composed of two sections and should look like the image.

Note that, as this is the first time this song is annotated, the "Annotations form" section only has one empty row. Also note the button, which works in the same fashion as the one in the My Songs page.

To add an annotation row, position the slider in the desired position and click the button:

As can be seen in the image, this automatically fills in the end time field of the first row and adds another row with the correct values already inserted. Also, a marker is added to the player, so you can seek to that position simply by clicking on it. If the interval of the annotations changes, the marker position will be updated, and if the annotation is removed, the marker will also be removed.

It is also possible to add annotations inside the interval of an existing one.

Regarding the intervals, you should note that no empty fields are allowed and that the last interval must end with the duration of the song.

Also, if you wish you can manually change the start and end of the intervals.

Removing annotation rows can be done by clicking on the button at the right of the desired row.

As you can see in the image, when a row is removed the intervals are ajusted to remain valid.

After all the intervals are defined, it is now time to insert the arousal and valence values (actually, you can insert those values while you are defining the intervals). You can do this by filling the fields with the keyboard, but we recommend that you use the Thayer plane. To use it, simply click on the button at the right of the desired row.

The dialog on the image appears. Now, simply click on the point in the Thayer plane corresponding to the emotion you perceive in that particular song interval.

Valence is associated with the type of emotion you perceive in the song: values close to 1 indicate a very positive song (e.g., happy); values close to -1 indicate a very negative song(e.g., sad or aggressive). Arousal is associated to the energy you perceive in the song: values close to 1 indicate very energic music; values close to -1 indicate very quiet music. For more information, please read the Help.

As you click in the dialog the fields are automatically filled in.

Note that a pre visualization of the annotations intervals and quadrants (if the arousal/valence values are not valid the interval will appear as white) is present above the seeker bar.

When you have done this for all the rows, either click on the "Save" button to save the annotations and still be able to change them later or click the "Submit" button to submit your work (you won't be able to access this song again and it will no longer appear on the My Songs page). If there are any errors, a notification appears bellow the field in question (see the image).

You have two keyboard shortcuts at your disposition: 'P' for toggling play/pause and 'L' for the same effect as the button.