A Revaluation of Learning Practices in Indian Classical Music Using Technological Tools

Each khyāl performance of Indian classical music is unique and unreproducible because it is mainly based on improvisation. As for most orally transmitted musical repertoires, learning practices are essential as they guarantee that the musical codes are properly reproduced from one generation to another. In Indian classical music, practice, tightly imbricated in the pupil – teacher relation, favors clearly the imitation. Students tend to reproduce more or less successfully their master’s style. That’s why in order to be creative, it is necessary that each musician develops his own skills of understanding, experimentation and invention. Today, technological tools have considerably transformed our way of learning. From now on, it is possible to have access to considerable data for the understanding of traditional music, and to listen, record and analyse them via numerous audio softwares. Indeed, works by visualization allows reporting knowhow common to all these musics (fingering, musical process, improvisation, patterns…). Through various softwares and practice examples from Rajam’s dynasty (hindustani violinist players), hindustani violin lessons and rāg performances, we will present a “toolbox” useful for all musicians and musicologist to improve their self-study. If the pedagogy and teaching can give us comprehension keys, the apprenticeship, such as it is practiced in North India and in the long master to pupil’s tradition, favors clearly the imitation at the expanse of the assimilation. The pupil learns above all by imitation and by impregnation, without taking the time to understand or to write. He learns to know a number of ingredients, but does not inevitably learn how to use it. In this way, the pupil tends inexorably to reproduce with varying degrees of acuteness the master’s style. His space of creativity is extremely reduced even non-existent. The musician will feel difficulties finding his own style. For that purpose, it is necessary to him to be able to stand back, to be able to experiment, invent and understand. The technological tools really transformed our way of learning in our daily practice. So the analysis via a number of IT data and software allows to understand and to learn musical processes, specific ornamentations, rarely taught. In addition, it is possible to question the relationship between what is taught by the master and what is produced on stage. Through the comparison of different performances, different performers and different learning lessons, one can clearly dissociates the stored material from the improvised material, i.e. the fixed components from the modular elements. This current work aims to study this question, focusing on different rāg according to the vocal tradition of khyāl within the Rajam’s Dynasty, violinist descendants. In this communication, we investigate the possibility of using modern computer-based technologies as a teaching assistance system for Indian classical music. Due to its improvisation nature, a comparative approach is necessary to analyse it. For example, by comparing recordings between Hindustani violin lessons at the Hubli- Gurukul (India, August 2010-2012) and Hindustani rāg performances, it is possible to show up the way(s) Rajam Dynasty musicians transform the structural and structuring1 elements of a rāg. At a larger scale of analysis, by multiplying the interpreters on a same rāg, we could quantitatively compare their different improvisation strategies, and better understanding the fundamental elements of a rāg that need to be properly taught to every musician

Bi-class classification of humpback whale sound units against complex background noise with Deep Convolution Neural Network

Automatically detecting sound units of humpback whales in complex time-varying background noises is a current challenge for scientists. In this paper, we explore the applicability of Convolution Neural Network (CNN) method for this task. In the evaluation stage, we present 6 bi-class classification experimentations of whale sound detection against different background noise types (e.g., rain, wind). In comparison to classical FFT-based representation like spectrograms, we showed that the use of image-based pretrained CNN features brought higher performance to classify whale sounds and background noise.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1702.02741 by other author

Distribution and Cconnection to other Plant-Communities of Genista radiata (L.) Scop in the South Tyrol (Italy)

Es werden die Genista radiata-Bestände an der Mendel in Südtirol (Italien) beschrieben und ihr Gesellschaftsanschluß diskutiert. Das Genisto-Festucetum alpestris Peer 83 besidelt steile südexponierte Kalkhänge der hochmontanen und subalpinen Stufe und ersetzt z.T. den Zwergstrauchgürtel mit Pinus mugo. Ähnlich zusammengesetzt ist das Genisto-Festucetum alpestris pinetosum Peer 83, das in den ¡lockeren Erika-Kiefernwäldern auftritt und bis in die tiefmontane Stufe hinunterreicht. Keinerlei syntaxonomische Bedeutung besitzt Genista radiata in den thermophilen Buschwaldgesellschaften, in denen die Pflanze lediglich eine Variante zum Orno-Ostryetum seslerietosum Peer 81 darstellt und speziell in der Saumzone anzutreffen ist. Auch in den Lärchenwiesen der Kammlagen kommt Genista radiata nur sporadisch vor. Sie ist hier mit dem Festucetum nigrescentis laricetosum subass. prov. verzahnt.Istražene su vegetacijske sastojine vrste Genista radiata u južnom Tirolu i razmatrana njihova fitocenološka pripadnost. Asocijacija Genisto-Festucetum alpestris Peer 83 nastava strme, južne vapnenačke obronke visokobrdskog i subalpskog pojasa. Subasocijacija Genisto-Festucetum alpestris pinetosum Peer 83 dolazi u rijetkim borovim šumama s crnjušom i spušta se do u niži brdski pojas. Termofilne niske šume, u kojima Genista radiata nema posebno sintaksonomsko značenje, označene su samo kao varijanta zajednice Orno-Ostryetum seslerietosum Peer 81. Genista radiata dolazi također na travnjacima s arišem, ali samo sporadično i to u mješavini sa zajednicom Festucetum nigrescentis laricetosnm subass. prov.The Genista radiata-communities of the Mendel in the South Tyrol (Italy) are described and their connection to other plant-communities is discussed. Genisto-Festucetum alpestris Peer 83 settles on steep, south- exposed colcareous slopes of high-mountain and subalpine altitudes and replaces particularly the dwarf-shrub-belt with Firms mugo. Similar contents aire found in Genisto-F estucetum alpestris pinetasum Peer 83, which occurs in undensed Erico-Pinetum-communities and reaches down to the low-mountain-altitude. In the thermophilic bush-communities, in which Genista radiata is found only as a variant of Orneto-Ostryetum seslerie- tosum (Peer 81), the plant has no syntaxonomic importance. Genista radiata especially is found in the edge-zone. In the grassland of the larch- communities of the ridges Genista radiata appears only sporadically. Here the plant appeals in Festucetum nigrescentis laricetosum subass. prov

Animal-borne telemetry: An integral component of the ocean observing toolkit

Animal telemetry is a powerful tool for observing marine animals and the physical environments that they inhabit, from coastal and continental shelf ecosystems to polar seas and open oceans. Satellite-linked biologgers and networks of acoustic receivers allow animals to be reliably monitored over scales of tens of meters to thousands of kilometers, giving insight into their habitat use, home range size, the phenology of migratory patterns and the biotic and abiotic factors that drive their distributions. Furthermore, physical environmental variables can be collected using animals as autonomous sampling platforms, increasing spatial and temporal coverage of global oceanographic observation systems. The use of animal telemetry, therefore, has the capacity to provide measures from a suite of essential ocean variables (EOVs) for improved monitoring of Earth's oceans. Here we outline the design features of animal telemetry systems, describe current applications and their benefits and challenges, and discuss future directions. We describe new analytical techniques that improve our ability to not only quantify animal movements but to also provide a powerful framework for comparative studies across taxa. We discuss the application of animal telemetry and its capacity to collect biotic and abiotic data, how the data collected can be incorporated into ocean observing systems, and the role these data can play in improved ocean management

Transcription automatique de musique basé sur des connaissances a prior issues de l'Acoustique Musicale. Application aux répertoires de la cithare marovany de Madagascar

Ethnomusicology is the study of musics around the world that emphasize their cultural, social, material, cognitive and/or biological. This PhD sub- ject, initiated by Pr. Marc CHEMILLIER, ethnomusicolog at the laboratory CAMS-EHESS, deals with the development of an automatic transcription system dedicated to the repertoires of the traditional marovany zither from Madagascar. These repertoires are orally transmitted, resulting from a pro- cess of memorization/transformation of original base musical motives. These motives represent an important culture patrimony, and are evolving contin- ually under the inuences of other musical practices and genres mainly due to globalization. Current ethnomusicological studies aim at understanding the evolution of the traditional repertoire through the transformation of its original base motives, and preserving this patrimony. Our objectives serve this cause by providing computational tools of musical analysis to organize and structure audio recordings of this instrument. Automatic Music Transcription (AMT) consists in automatically estimating the notes in a recording, through three attributes: onset time, duration and pitch. On the long range, AMT systems, with the purpose of retrieving meaningful information from complex audio, could be used in a variety of user scenarios such as searching and organizing music collections with barely any human labor. One common denominator of our diferent approaches to the task of AMT lays in the use of explicit music-related prior knowledge in our computational systems. A step of this PhD thesis was then to develop tools to generate automatically this information. We chose not to restrict ourselves to a speciprior knowledge class, and rather explore the multi-modal characteristics of musical signals, including both timbre (i.e. modeling of the generic \morphological" features of the sound related to the physics of an instrument, e.g. intermodulation, sympathetic resonances, inharmonicity) and musicological (e.g. harmonic transition, playing dynamics, tempo and rhythm) classes. This prior knowledge can then be used in com- putational systems of transcriptions. The research work on AMT performed in this PhD can be divided into a more \applied research" (axis 1), with the development of ready-to-use operational transcription tools meeting the cur- rent needs of ethnomusicologs to get reliable automatic transcriptions, and a more \basic research" (axis 2), providing deeper insight into the functioning of these tools. Our axis of research requires a transcription accuracy high enough 1 (i.e. average F-measure superior to 95 % with standard error tolerances) to provide analytical supports for musicological studies. Despite a large enthusiasm for AMT challenges, and several audio-to-MIDI converters available commercially, perfect polyphonic AMT systems are out of reach of today's al- gorithms. In this PhD, we explore the use of multichannel capturing sensory systems for AMT of several acoustic plucked string instruments, including the following traditional African zithers: the marovany (Madagascar), the Mvet (Cameroun), the N'Goni (Mali). These systems use multiple string- dependent sensors to retrieve discriminatingly some physical features of their vibrations. For the AMT task, such a system has an obvious advantage in this application, as it allows breaking down a polyphonic musical signal into the sum of monophonic signals respective to each string.L’ethnomusicologie est l’étude de la musique en mettant l’accent sur les aspects culturels, sociaux, matériels, cognitifs et/ou biologiques. Ce sujet de thèse, motivé par Pr. Marc Chemillier, ethnomusicologue au laboratoire CAMS-EHESS, traite du développement d’un système automatique de transcription dédié aux répertoires de musique de la cithare marovany de Madagascar. Ces répertoires sont transmis oralement, résultant d’un processus de mémorisation/ transformation de motifs musicaux de base. Ces motifs sont un patrimoine culturel important du pays, et évoluent en permanence sous l’influence d’autres pratiques et genres musicaux. Les études ethnomusicologiques actuelles visent à comprendre l’évolution du répertoire traditionnel, et de préserver ce patrimoine. Pour servir cette cause, notre travail consiste à fournir des outils informatiques d’analyse musicale pour organiser et structurer des enregistrements audio de cet instrument. La transcription automatique de musique consiste à estimer les notes d’un enregistrement à travers les trois attributs : temps de début, hauteur et durée de note. Notre travail sur cette thématique repose sur l’incorporation de connaissances musicales a priori dans les systèmes informatiques. Une première étape de cette thèse fût donc de générer cette connaissance et de la formaliser en vue de cette incorporation. Cette connaissance explorer les caractéristiques multi-modales du signal musical, incluant le timbre, le langage musical et les techniques de jeu. La recherche effectée dans cette thèse se distingue en deux axes : un premier plus appliqué, consistant à développer un système de transcription de musique dédié à la marovany, et un second plus fondamental, consistant à fournir une analyse plus approfondie des contributions de la connaissance dans la transcription automatique de musique. Notre premier axe de recherche requiert une précision de transcription très bonne (c.a.d. une F-measure supérieure à 95 % avec des tolérances d’erreur standardes) pour faire office de supports analytiques dans des études musicologiques. Pour cela, nous utilisons une technologie de captation multicanale appliquée aux instruments à cordes pincées. Les systèmes développés à partir de cette technologie utilisent un capteur par corde, permettant de décomposer un signal polyphonique en une somme de signaux monophoniques respectifs à chaque corde, ce qui simplifie grandement la tâche de transcription. Différents types de capteurs (optiques, piézoélectriques, électromagnétiques) ont été testés. Après expérimentation, les capteurs piézoélectriques, bien qu’invasifs, se sont avérés avoir les meilleurs rapports signal-sur-bruit et séparabilité inter-capteurs. Cette technologie a aussi permis le développement d’une base de données dite “ground truth" (vérité de terrain), indispensable pour l’évaluation quantitative des systèmes de transcription de musique. Notre second axe de recherche propose des investigations plus approfondies concernant l’incorporation de connaissance a priori dans les systèmes automatiques de transcription de musique. Deux méthodes statistiques ont été utilisées comme socle théorique, à savoir le PLCA (Probabilistic Latent Component Analysis) pour l’estimation multi-pitch et le HMM (Hidden Markov Models)

Wind Speed Estimation Using Acoustic Underwater Glider in a Near-Shore Marine Environment

International audienceThis paper investigates the use of an acoustic glider to perform acoustical meteorology. This discipline consists of analyzing ocean ambient noise to infer above-surface meteorological conditions. The paper focuses on wind speed estimation, in a near-shore marine environment. In such a shallow water context, the ambient noise field is complex, with site-dependent factors and a variety of nonweather concurrent acoustic sources. A conversion relationship between sound pressure level and wind speed is proposed, taking the form of an outlier-robust nonlinear regression model learned with in situ data. This method is successfully applied to experimental data collected in Massachusetts Bay (MA, USA) during four glider surveys. An average error in wind speed estimation of 1.3 m · s -1 (i.e., average relative error of 14%) over wind speed values up to 17 m · s -1 is reported with this method, which outperformed results obtained with relationships from the literature. Quantitative results are also detailed on the dependence of wind speed error estimation on the environment characteristics, and on the classification performance of observations contaminated by acoustic sources other than wind. Passive acoustic-based weather systems are a promising solution to provide long-term in situ weather data with fine time and spatial resolutions. These data are crucial for satellite calibration and assimilation in meteorological models. From a broader perspective, this paper is the first step toward an operationalization of acoustic weather systems and their on-board embedding in underwater monitoring platforms such as gliders

Do Southern Elephant Seals Behave Like Weather Buoys?

International audienc