This book addresses the acoustic signal analysis and spectral dynamics of the tanpura, an Indian plucked string instrument. In addition, it strives to provide a logical and objective explanation of Indian classical musicians’ cognitive experience. Issues of relevance in this regard include the rich, mellifluous sound; the undulation of the loudness; the somewhat cyclical variation of the timbre, which is strongly related to these undulations; and the occasional perception of virtual notes to which no strings are tuned. The book analyses the materials used in the tanpura, the instrument’s simple structure, the intricacies of the lower bridge, and the theory of string vibration with variable string length. Cognitive experiments to provide the basis for perceptual quality assessment, as well as a methodology for ranking, are described. This is followed by acoustic analyses, both temporal and spectral, for sounds produced by male and female tanpuras, for each individual string and the combined one. An important aspect related to the naturalness of perceived sound, namely the intrinsically associated random perturbations, is also discussed. The apparent irregularities perceived in the acoustic signal produced by the tanpura reveal the importance of examining the signal from the perspective of non-linear analysis, an aspect that is also covered in the book. Given its scope, the book will appeal to students and researchers in the fields of music acoustics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science, as well as musicians and musicologists around the world.

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the basics of Hindustani music and the associated signal analysis and technological developments. It begins with an in-depth introduction to musical signal analysis and its current applications, and then moves on to a detailed discussion of the features involved in understanding the musical meaning of the signal in the context of Hindustani music. The components consist of tones, shruti, scales, pitch duration and stability, raga, gharana and musical instruments. The book covers the various technological developments in this field, supplemented with a number of case studies and their analysis. The book offers new music researchers essential insights into the use the automatic concept for finding and testing the musical features for their applications. Intended primarily for postgraduate and PhD students working in the area of scientific research on Hindustani music, as well as other genres where the concepts are applicable, it is also a valuable resource for professionals and researchers in musical signal processing.

This monograph presents a diverse collection of articles on Indian Art Music based on analytical work aided by computational tools. The book focuses mainly on the current practices in music and its representation in audio recordings, a perspective that is particularly relevant to oral traditions. It presents a rare and unique example of collaboration between musicians, musicologists, scientists, and engineers. The presentation brings together various aspects of research on Indian art music that benefits from audio processing or computing, ranging from musicology to information retrieval to instrument modeling. It is hoped that the monograph will serve as an accessible introduction to computational approaches for Indian art music in particular, and ethnomusicology more generally.

Rāgs Around the Clock is a rich and vibrant compendium for the discovery and study of North Indian classical music. The theory and practice of rāg are explored through two interlinked resources: a handbook of essays and analyses offering technical, historical, cultural and aesthetic perspectives; and two online albums – Rāg samay cakra and Twilight Rāgs from North India – featuring khayāl singer Vijay Rajput and accompanists. Extracts from the albums are also embedded into the text to enhance learning and understanding. Each rāg is accompanied by a description of its chief characteristics and technical features, a notation of the song (bandiś) on which the performance is based, and a transliteration and translation of the song text. Distinctively, Rāg samay cakra also includes spoken renditions of each of the texts, helping non-Hindavi speakers to achieve the correct pronunciation. Sharing insights from both theory and practice, this collection draws on recent scholarship while also showcasing the vocal idiom – the gāyakī – of Vijay Rajput, a disciple of the late Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. It offers invaluable reading for students and researchers of Indian classical music, world music and ethnomusicology, and a rich repository for teacher and student practitioners of the khayāl vocal style. The combination of an aural and written exploration of rāg will appeal to anyone drawn to this form of music – whether newcomer, student (śiṣyā) or aficionado (rasika).

This book presents advances in speech and music in the domain of audio signal processing. The book begins with introductory chapters on the basics of speech and music, and then proceeds to computational aspects of speech and music, including music information retrieval and spoken language processing. The authors discuss the intersection in the field of computer science, musicology and speech analysis, and how the multifaceted nature of speech and music information processing requires unique algorithms, systems using sophisticated signal processing, and machine learning techniques that better extract useful information. The authors discuss how a deep understanding of both speech and music in terms of perception, emotion, mood, gesture and cognition is essential for successful application. Also discussed is the overwhelming amount of data that has been generated across the world that requires efficient processing for better maintenance, retrieval, indexing and querying and how machine learning and artificial intelligence are most suited for these computational tasks. The book provides both technological knowledge and a comprehensive treatment of essential topics in speech and music processing.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of how fractal analytics can lead to the extraction of interesting features from the complex electroencephalograph (EEG) signals generated by Hindustani classical music. It particularly focuses on how the brain responses to the emotional attributes of Hindustani classical music that have been long been a source of discussion for musicologists and psychologists. Using robust scientific techniques that are capable of looking into the most intricate dynamics of the complex EEG signals, it deciphers the human brain’s response to different ragas of Hindustani classical music, shedding new light on what happens inside the performer’s brain when they are mentally composing the imagery of a particular raga. It also explores the much- debated issue in the musical fraternity of whether there are any universal cues in music that make it identifiable for people throughout the world, and if so, what are the neural correlates associated with the universal cues? This book is of interest to researchers and scholars of music and the brain, nonlinear science, music cognition, music signal processing and music information retrieval. In addition, researchers in the field of nonlinear biomedical signal processing and music signal analysis benefit from this book.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Computer Music Modeling and Retrieval, CMMR 2011 and the 20th International Symposium on Frontiers of Research in Speech and Music, FRSM 2011. This year the 2 conferences merged for the first time and were held in Bhubanes, India, in March 2011. The 17 revised full papers presented were specially reviewed and revised for inclusion in this proceedings volume. The book is divided in four main chapters which reflect the high quality of the sessions of CMMR 2011, the collaboration with FRSM 2011 and the Indian influence, in the topics of Indian Music, Music Information Retrieval, Sound analysis synthesis and perception and Speech processing of Indian languages.

Music moves through time; it is not static. In order to appreciate music wemust remember what sounds happened, and anticipate what sounds might comenext. This book takes you on a journey of music from past to present, from the Middle Ages to the Baroque Period to the 20th century and beyond!