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Valence as a measure of happiness

Valence as a measure of happiness

In Spotify's API is something called Valence, that describes the musical positiveness conveyed by a track. Tracks with high valence sound more positive (happy, cheerful, euphoric), while tracks with low valence sound more negative (sad, depressed, angry).

But how can Spotify's API measure a "happy feeling" with numbers? can you give me some additional information about the algorithm involved? Thanks!

 

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7 Replies

This is an attribute that we compute based on a wide variety of inputs. Generally speaking, we use a set of agreed upon ideas of what happy or positive music sounds like.
This was originally developed at The Echo Nest.
For more, read:
https://beta.developer.spotify.com/documentation/web-api/reference/tracks/get-several-audio-features...
https://web.archive.org/web/20170422195736/http://blog.echonest.com/post/66097438564/plotting-musics...


I was wondering if someone could elaborate more on this topic? I visited both links and none of them say specifically how valence is measured, other than by "advanced-computer-learning." How is Spotify defining valence? Minor/major key? Lyrical content? Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated. 

Hi! Did you ever get an answer to this issue? I am working on a research project and we are also interested in using the valence.

Hey there. No, I never got a response, sadly. If you learn anything about this measure, I’d love to hear about it!

nvm

nvm (sorry it wont let me just delete the post)

Training a model like a (deep) neural network is against the Developer Policy.

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