Automatic Music Transcription is an area of active research at the intersection of Computer Science and Music, of interest for both theoretical and practical applications.We propose two Wave-to-MIDI transcription systems: Basic AUTUMN and V-AUTUMN.Both systems achieve their goal by performing window-by-window frequency-domain pitch extraction.Minimal assumptions are made on the content of the input signal.Listening tests show that AUTUMN performs acceptably well, with test subjects giving the system a rating of roughly 5 on a 9-point scale across a comprehensive range of musical examples.Quantitative analysis shows that AUTUMN can achieve success rates as high as 95%, with under 5% false-hit rates.Stability is the most important remaining problem to address.

Yazi's Dream celebrates the life of Yazi, our first cat. This project uses the dizi, a Chinese transverse flute that often imitates bird songs, to make tremolos for the fantasy birds used in Yazi’s Dream.

Time-varying spectra of three sets of musical instrument tones were data-reduced using two different methods based on bands. One method (used for Tests 1 and 2) preserved the average spectrum and rms amplitude-vs-time envelope for each band. The other method (used for Test 3) utilized critical-band smoothing of the spectral envelope. 20 subjects were tested for their ability to discriminate between original synthesized sounds and data-reduced sounds as a function of a critical bandwidth multiplier (CBM). For Test 1 (bassoon, flute, trumpet, harpsichord, harp, marimba, vibraphone, and violin pitched at E b 4), the CBM was varied from 1 to 12, resulting in discriminations between approximately 50% and nearly 100%. However, discrimination at CBM=1 unexpectedly varied from 45 to 85%. For Test 2 (seven piano tones pitched at A 0, A1,…,A 6), the CBM was varied from 0.25 to 12, resulting in discriminations between 42 and 92%. For Test 3 (bassoon, clarinet, flute, horn, oboe, sax, trumpet, violin pitched at E b 4), the CBM was varied from 1 to 3, resulting in discrimination between 47 and 99%. Our preliminary conclusion is that for CBM=1 the two methods of data reduction cause subtle but discriminable spectral changes for most single musical sounds.

This presentation will compare the spectral and expressive characteristics of the Hawaiian nose flute with the western concert flute. The Hawaiian nose flute is a bamboo courtship flute. This presentation will give live demonstrations on several nose flutes and the western flute, along with brief descriptions of the musical and spectral characteristics of these instruments, and then describe the additive synthesis design template used to capture their subtle timbral characteristics using score data in Csound. In addition, the expressive design successfully uses spectral interpolation for the idiomatic ornamental phrasing for each instrument. A special amplitude/frequency function modulation method simulates the trills, which are also slurred within phrases of varying numbers of notes. [This work was supported by the RGC Competitive Earmarked Research Grant 613505, with special thanks to Rodney ‘‘Kala’’ Willis for making the nose flutes.]

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author's name. The primary entry includes the coauthors' names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author's name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index.

This paper gives brief descriptions of five Chinese flutes: the paixiao, xun, koudi, xiao and dizi, and short musical excerpts with their notation, idiomatic phrasing and typical ornaments. The source material section describes their spectral characteristics. Following a brief description of the previous wavetable synthesis design, an expressive new Csound additive synthesis design used to model the instruments is described. Chinese notation is a convenient Csound pitch input method using Ling Lun's tuning. Finally, several excerpts from compositions illustrate applications of the designs.