Singing information processing: techniques and applications

Por otro lado, se presenta un método para el cambio realista de intensidad de voz cantada. Esta transformación se basa en un modelo paramétrico de la envolvente espectral, y mejora sustancialmente la percepción de realismo al compararlo con software comerciales como Melodyne o Vocaloid. El inconveniente del enfoque propuesto es que requiere intervención manual, pero los resultados conseguidos arrojan importantes conclusiones hacia la modificación automática de intensidad con resultados realistas. Por último, se propone un método para la corrección de disonancias en acordes aislados. Se basa en un análisis de múltiples F0, y un desplazamiento de la frecuencia de su componente sinusoidal. La evaluación la ha realizado un grupo de músicos entrenados, y muestra un claro incremento de la consonancia percibida después de la transformación propuesta.La voz cantada es una componente esencial de la música en todas las culturas del mundo, ya que se trata de una forma increíblemente natural de expresión musical. En consecuencia, el procesado automático de voz cantada tiene un gran impacto desde la perspectiva de la industria, la cultura y la ciencia. En este contexto, esta Tesis contribuye con un conjunto variado de técnicas y aplicaciones relacionadas con el procesado de voz cantada, así como con un repaso del estado del arte asociado en cada caso. En primer lugar, se han comparado varios de los mejores estimadores de tono conocidos para el caso de uso de recuperación por tarareo. Los resultados demuestran que \cite{Boersma1993} (con un ajuste no obvio de parámetros) y \cite{Mauch2014}, tienen un muy buen comportamiento en dicho caso de uso dada la suavidad de los contornos de tono extraídos. Además, se propone un novedoso sistema de transcripción de voz cantada basada en un proceso de histéresis definido en tiempo y frecuencia, así como una herramienta para evaluación de voz cantada en Matlab. El interés del método propuesto es que consigue tasas de error cercanas al estado del arte con un método muy sencillo. La herramienta de evaluación propuesta, por otro lado, es un recurso útil para definir mejor el problema, y para evaluar mejor las soluciones propuestas por futuros investigadores. En esta Tesis también se presenta un método para evaluación automática de la interpretación vocal. Usa alineamiento temporal dinámico para alinear la interpretación del usuario con una referencia, proporcionando de esta forma una puntuación de precisión de afinación y de ritmo. La evaluación del sistema muestra una alta correlación entre las puntuaciones dadas por el sistema, y las puntuaciones anotadas por un grupo de músicos expertos

Ancientness and Traditionality: Cultural Intersections of Vocal Music and History in the Republic of Georgia

Drawing on varied sources and personal fieldwork, data suggests the use of Georgian traditional music as a way for modern Georgians to reclaim and re-imagine the past. The history of Georgia and Georgian perspectives of history both gives context for the music and illustrates many modern Georgians' sense of being under siege. Within Georgian ethnomusicology and within the dominant Georgian culture itself, two concepts, "traditionality" and "ancientness," play prominent roles in perspectives of Georgian traditional vocal music and identity formation. After describing traditionality and ancientness in the Georgian context, we explore several roles they play in the formation of Georgian identity. Many current Georgians, in choosing to practice traditionality with their musical performances and perceptions, draw close to their imagined, idealized past. Furthermore, ancientness of Georgian traditional vocal music helps defend the border against the "theoretical other" - whether geographic neighbors or historical oppressors - through difference-making

Effective piano accompaniment training for music teachers and performers - a case study from Turkey and North Cyprus

This study explores accompaniment playing in higher education in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with a specific focus on a module in accompaniment playing delivered in the Eastern Mediterranean University. The aim of the current study is to explore existing approaches to accompaniment tuition and investigate the extent to which 14 weeks of specific training can support the development of piano accompaniment skills in HE students. Accompaniment playing is an important and necessary skill for all types of musicians. While recent studies indicate that accompaniment playing is generally taught in group piano lessons and is mostly offered for four semesters, the approach varies and there is no recognised standard model for this form of training in Northern Cyprus and Turkey. The proposed training therefore builds on elements of existing models, and highlights a range of necessary skills and understandings for students. In examining the effectiveness of the module, the current study involves both qualitative and quantitative data collection tools, including questionnaires, interviews and a focus group along with pre and post-tests. The range of participants includes accompaniment-playing tutors and both past and presents students with experience of the MAP. The research findings reveal a range of essential components which are vital in the development of effective accompaniment skills. The current study recommends that effective piano accompaniment playing training should be organized in small groups and cover both teaching how to play an existing accompaniment for a soloist/ensemble and how to create an accompaniment for a melody. The proposed training focuses on both theoretical and practical elements which can help prepare young musicians for work in the professional field by providing active learning in a range of genres. This new, formal approach to accompaniment playing tuition therefore develops creative thinking and creative skills, contributes to the employability of students and enhances intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy beliefs

Perception, Pitch, and Musical Chords

In this dissertation, I argue that hearing a musical chord—a simultaneity of two or more notes perceived as a single object—is perceptually different from hearing separate concurrent tones, and that the object status of chords shapes our experience of listening to harmonic music. Following an outline of the acoustic and contextual cues that promote chordal listening, I offer a series of performance strategies based on these cues that maximize the likeliness of hearing a sonority as a chord. I then argue that these strategies played a role in the development of the Western practice of harmonic tonality, and that the design and use of polyphonic instruments in the late Renaissance period enabled many of these strategies to be applied within musical practice. A further investigation of contextual and experience-based factors in chord perception is conducted in a pair of experiments, in which the listener is asked to recognize or “hear out” a tone from within a three-tone sonority. A listener who perceives a sonority as a chord is better able to perceive its emergent features, which are defined as properties of the whole that are not necessarily properties of its parts. I examine the emergent feature of pitch—a familiar property of the musical tone in both perceptual and theoretical descriptions—using the virtual pitch model proposed by Ernst Terhardt, and I outline the conditions in which a listener might perceive a chord as bearing an emergent pitch. An analysis of the opening sonority of Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms gives an example of how chord pitch may be used as a compositional resource. Drawing upon the conclusions of this analysis, I suggest how further research on perceiving chords’ emergent features—in particular the perceptual correlate of the music-theoretical concept of chord quality—could be applied to develop a more complete understanding of how we experience chords

Harmonic duality : from interval ratios and pitch distance to spectra and sensory dissonance

Dissonance curves are the starting point for an investigation into a psychoacoustically informed harmony. Its main hypothesis is that harmony consists of two independent but intertwined aspects operating simultaneously, namely proportionality and linear pitch distance. The former aspect is related to intervallic characters, the latter to ‘high’, ‘low’, ‘bright’ and ‘dark’, therefore to timbre. This research derives from the development of tools for algorithmic composition which extract pitch materials from sound signals, analyzing them according to their timbral and harmonic properties, putting them into motion through diverse rhythmic and textural procedures. The tools and the reflections derived from their use offer fertile ideas for the generation of instrumental scores, electroacoustic soundscapes and interactive live-electronic systems.LEI Universiteit LeidenResearch in and through artistic practic