139 research outputs found
Signal separation of musical instruments: simulation-based methods for musical signal decomposition and transcription
This thesis presents techniques for the modelling of musical signals, with particular regard to monophonic and polyphonic pitch estimation. Musical signals are modelled as a set of notes, each comprising of a set of harmonically-related sinusoids. An hierarchical model is presented that is very general and applicable to any signal that can be decomposed as the sum of basis functions. Parameter estimation is posed within a Bayesian framework, allowing for the incorporation of prior information about model parameters. The resulting posterior distribution is of variable dimension and so reversible jump MCMC simulation techniques are employed for the parameter estimation task. The extension of the model to time-varying signals with high posterior correlations between model parameters is described. The parameters and hyperparameters of several frames of data are estimated jointly to achieve a more robust detection. A general model for the description of time-varying homogeneous and heterogeneous multiple component signals is developed, and then applied to the analysis of musical signals. The importance of high level musical and perceptual psychological knowledge in the formulation of the model is highlighted, and attention is drawn to the limitation of pure signal processing techniques for dealing with musical signals. Gestalt psychological grouping principles motivate the hierarchical signal model, and component identifiability is considered in terms of perceptual streaming where each component establishes its own context. A major emphasis of this thesis is the practical application of MCMC techniques, which are generally deemed to be too slow for many applications. Through the design of efficient transition kernels highly optimised for harmonic models, and by careful choice of assumptions and approximations, implementations approaching the order of realtime are viable.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Counci
Learning Opportunities 2015/2016
The graduation requirements of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy are in concert with those maintained by the State of Illinois with additional requirements as established by the IMSA Board of Trustees. Each semester students must take a minimum of 5 academic courses (2.5 credits) for a grade (not Pass/Fail). Fine Arts, Wellness, and Independent Study courses, or any course taken on a Pass/Fail basis do not count towards the 5 course (2.5 credits) minimum. Most students will take between 5 (2.5 credits) and 7 (3.5 credits) academic courses per semester. Only courses taken for a letter grade will count towards graduation credit. Students who take more than 5 academic courses may choose to take all courses for a grade. It is recommended that students who are approved to take 7 academic courses declare one elective Pass/Fail
A User-assisted Approach to Multiple Instrument Music Transcription
PhDThe task of automatic music transcription has been studied for several decades
and is regarded as an enabling technology for a multitude of applications such
as music retrieval and discovery, intelligent music processing and large-scale
musicological analyses. It refers to the process of identifying the musical content
of a performance and representing it in a symbolic format. Despite its long
research history, fully automatic music transcription systems are still error prone
and often fail when more complex polyphonic music is analysed. This gives
rise to the question in what ways human knowledge can be incorporated in the
transcription process.
This thesis investigates ways to involve a human user in the transcription
process. More specifically, it is investigated how user input can be employed
to derive timbre models for the instruments in a music recording, which are
employed to obtain instrument-specific (parts-based) transcriptions.
A first investigation studies different types of user input in order to derive
instrument models by means of a non-negative matrix factorisation framework.
The transcription accuracy of the different models is evaluated and a method is
proposed that refines the models by allowing each pitch of each instrument to
be represented by multiple basis functions.
A second study aims at limiting the amount of user input to make the
method more applicable in practice. Different methods are considered to estimate
missing non-negative basis functions when only a subset of basis functions can
be extracted based on the user information.
A method is proposed to track the pitches of individual instruments over time
by means of a Viterbi framework in which the states at each time frame contain
several candidate instrument-pitch combinations. A transition probability is
employed that combines three different criteria: the frame-wise reconstruction
error of each combination, a pitch continuity measure that favours similar pitches
in consecutive frames, and an explicit activity model for each instrument. The
method is shown to outperform other state-of-the-art multi-instrument tracking
methods.
Finally, the extraction of instrument models that include phase information
is investigated as a step towards complex matrix decomposition. The phase
relations between the partials of harmonic sounds are explored as a time-invariant
property that can be employed to form complex-valued basis functions. The
application of the model for a user-assisted transcription task is illustrated with a saxophone example.QMU
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