Journal special issues (as guest editor) by Caroline Traube
Les Journées d'Informatique Musicale (JIM) réunissent chaque année des chercheurs en informatique... more Les Journées d'Informatique Musicale (JIM) réunissent chaque année des chercheurs en informatique musicale et différents acteurs de la vie musicale utilisant l'informatique comme moyen d'expression ou comme aide à la création. Les JIM sont pilotées par l'Association Française d'Informatique Musicale (AFIM) et sont soutenues par la Direction Générale de la Création Artistique du ministère français de la culture et de la communication. En 2015, les Journées d'Informatique Musicale se sont tenues du 7 au 9 mai pour la première fois en Amérique du Nord, à la colloque s'est inscrit dans le cadre des activités du Laboratoire d'intégration des technologies en musique (LITEM), à la Faculté de musique de l'Université de Montréal. Les thèmes proposés en 2015 ont concernés l'interprétation, les arts performatifs et la technologie ; les aspects historiques et la préservation des musiques électroacoustiques et mixtes ; les approches computationnelles de l'analyse et de la notation musicales ; la création musicale assistée par ordinateur et les outils pour la spatialisation et la diffusion sonores. Ces thèmes ont été explorés durant l'ensemble des présentations et des ateliers, mais aussi mis en oeuvre à travers les concerts présentés au cours du programme.
Les Cahiers De La Societe Quebecoise De Recherche En Musique, 2013
Instrumental timbre (general) by Caroline Traube
Guitar timbre by Caroline Traube
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2008
ABSTRACT
This dissertation proposes an interdisciplinary approach for the study of the timbre of the class... more This dissertation proposes an interdisciplinary approach for the study of the timbre of the classical guitar. We start by identifying the static control parameters of timbre, relating to the structural components of the guitar and the dynamic control parameters of timbre, relating to the gestures applied by the performer on the instrument. From the plucked string physical model (obtained from the tranverse wave equation), we derive a digital signal interpretation of the plucking effect which is a comb filtering. Then we investigate how subjective characteristics of sound, like timbre, are related to gesture parameters. The starting point for exploration is an inventory of verbal descriptors commonly used by professional musicians to describe the brightness, the colour, the shape and the texture of the sounds they produce on their instruments. An explanation for the voice-like nature of guitar tones is proposed based on the observation that the maxima of the comb-filtershaped magnitude spectrum of guitar tones are located at frequencies similar to the formant frequencies of a subset of identifiable vowels. These analogies at the spectral level might account for the origin of some timbre descriptors such as open, oval, round, thin, closed, nasal and hollow, that seem to refer to phonetic gestures. In a experiment conducted to confirm these analogies, participants were asked to associate a consonant to the attack and a vowel to the decay of guitar tones. The results of this study support the idea that some perceptual dimensions of the guitar timbre space can be borrowed from phonetics. Finally, we address the problem of the indirect acquisition of instrumental gesture parameters. Pursuing previous research on the estimation of the plucking position from a recording, we propose a new estimation method based on an iterative weighted least-square algorithm, starting from a first approximation derived from a variant of the autocorrelation function of the signal.
… of 8th International Conference on Music …, Jan 1, 2004
We discovered that a set of verbal timbre descriptors commonly used by guitarists refer to phonet... more We discovered that a set of verbal timbre descriptors commonly used by guitarists refer to phonetic gestures : open, oval, round, thin, closed, nasal, hollow, ... Indeed, the magnitude spectrum of guitar tones is comb-filter shaped, and we propose to consider the local maxima of this comb filter structure as vocal formants. When guitarists describe a guitar sound as round, it would mean that it sounds like a vowel produced with a round-shaped mouth, such as the vowel [O]. In this paper, we report an experiment that was conducted in order to verify the perceptual analogies between guitar sounds and vocal sounds, based on the analogies that we found at the spectral level. In the experiment, participants were asked to associate a consonant to the attack and a vowel to the release of guitar tones. These analogies support the idea that some perceptual dimensions of the guitar timbre space can be borrowed from phonetics.
Acoustics, Speech, and Signal …, Jan 1, 2004
Classical guitarists vary plucking position to achieve different timbres from nasal and metallic ... more Classical guitarists vary plucking position to achieve different timbres from nasal and metallic -closer to the bridge -to round and mellow -closer to the middle of the string. An interesting set of timbre descriptors commonly used by guitarists seem to refer to phonetic gestures : thin, nasal, round, open, ... The magnitude spectrum of guitar tones being comb-filter shaped, we propose to see the local maxima of that comb filter structure as vocal formants. When guitarists talk about a guitar sound as being round, it would mean that it sounds like a round-shaped-mouth sound such as the vowel /O/. Although the acoustical systems of the guitar and of the voice mechanism are structurally different, we highlight the fact that guitar tones and a particular set of vowels display similar formant regions. We also investigate the possibility of applying some distinctive features of speech sounds to guitar sounds.
8th International Conference on Digital Audio …, Jan 1, 2005
The guitar is an instrument that gives the player great control over timbre. Different plucking t... more The guitar is an instrument that gives the player great control over timbre. Different plucking techniques involve varying the finger position along the string, the inclination between the finger and the string, the inclination between the hand and the string and the degree of relaxation of the plucking finger. Guitarists perceive subtle variations of these parameters and they have developed a very rich vocabulary to describe the brightness, the colour, the shape and the texture of the sounds they produce on their instrument. Dark, bright, chocolatey, transparent, muddy, wooly, glassy, buttery, and metallic are just a few of those adjectives. The aim of this research is to conceive a computer tool producing the synthesis of the vocal imitation as well as the graphical representation of phonetic gestures underlying the description of the timbre of the classical guitar, as a function of the instrumental gesture parameters (mainly the plucking angle and distance from the bridge) and based on perceptual analogies between guitar and speech sounds. Similarly to the traditional teaching of tabla which uses onomatopeia to designate the different strokes, vocal imitation of guitar timbres could provide a common language to guitar performers, complementary to the mental imagery they commonly use to communicate about timbre, in a pedagogical context for example.
Actes du Colloque interdisciplinaire de musicologie (CIM05) Montréal (Québec) Canada, 10-12/03/2005
Proceedings of the COST G-6 Conference on …, Jan 1, 2000
This paper presents a frequency-domain technique for estimating the plucking point on a guitar st... more This paper presents a frequency-domain technique for estimating the plucking point on a guitar string from an acoustically recorded signal. It also includes an original method for detecting the fingering point, based on the plucking point information.
… of the 2003 conference on New …, Jan 1, 2003
In this paper, we describe a multi-level approach for the extraction of instrumental gesture para... more In this paper, we describe a multi-level approach for the extraction of instrumental gesture parameters taken from the characteristics of the signal captured by a microphone and based on the knowledge of physical mechanisms taking place on the instrument. We also explore the relationships between some features of timbre and gesture parameters, taking as a starting point for the exploration the timbre descriptors commonly used by professional musicians when they verbally describe the sounds they produce with their instrument. Finally, we present how this multi-level approach can be applied to the study of the timbre space of the classical guitar.
… of Signal Processing to Audio and …, 2001
This paper presents a signal processing technique for extracting the plucking point on a guitar s... more This paper presents a signal processing technique for extracting the plucking point on a guitar string from an acoustically recorded signal. It also includes an original method for detecting the fingering point, based on the plucking point information.
This paper focuses on the extraction of the excitation point location on a guitar string by an it... more This paper focuses on the extraction of the excitation point location on a guitar string by an iterative estimation of the structural parameters of the spectral envelope. In a simple digital physical model of a plucked-string instrument, the resonant modes translate into an all-pole structure while the initial conditions (a triangular shape for the string and a zero-velocity at all points) result in a FIR comb filter structure. The delay D of the comb filter can be expressed as the product of the relative plucking position R and the fundamental period To. We propose a general method to estimate the plucking point location, working into two stages: starting from a measure related to the autocorrelation of the signal as a first approximation, a least-square estimation is used to refine the comb filter delay value to better fit the measured spectral envelope.
Piano timbre by Caroline Traube
Uploads
Journal special issues (as guest editor) by Caroline Traube
Instrumental timbre (general) by Caroline Traube
Guitar timbre by Caroline Traube
Piano timbre by Caroline Traube
MATLAB toolbox for exploring the most subtle features
of piano touch and gesture. From high-sample-rate, highprecision
precision key, hammer and pedal tracking data
about a performance gathered thanks to the Bösendorfer
grand piano-embedded CEUS digital recording system,
the toolbox main functions can extract exhaustive features
detailing the pianist’s touch as a thorough account of nuances
in articulation, timing, dynamics, attack and pedalling.
Each performance and gestural control thereof is
thus described over each of its notes and chords. By comparing
several performances, it is possible to characterize
the gestural control of expression in piano performance, as
the correlations among piano touch features towards one
examined expressive parameter. The analytic functions
in the toolbox — with piano touch feature visualization
and comparison, chords and notes selection tools, scoreperformance
matching and advanced, automated statistical
analyses and visualization thereof — allow for rigorous,
quantitative exploration of expressive performance
and its gestural control, which here is especially applied
towards investigating the use of timbre as expressive device
in piano performance. With these tools, we thus intend
to build a gestural mapping of piano timbre.