A Tristimulus Analysis-Based Approach for Tonic-Note Selection and Voice Range Determination for Music Singers

Abstract

In this work, we consider the problem of tonic note selection and voice range determination for Indian music singers. A tonic note is a reference note of a singer that decides the pitches of the other notes used by the singer. The ratios of various notes to the tonic note are fixed by the scale used by the singer. A novel graphical method for tonic note selection is proposed. In this method, tristimulus diagrams are used to represent notes in the Aroh and Avroh. The notes are represented by a point in the tristimulus diagram. The locations of the notes in the tristimulus diagram represent their perceptual attributes. The tristimulus diagram is divided into grey and white areas. The notes going in the grey area are designated as perceptually inferior and accordingly, a tonic note is suggested such that all the notes remain in the white region of the tristimulus diagrams. As compared to state-of-the-art, the proposed method is more convenient to use.

KEYWORDS:

• Singer’s voice analysis
• Tonic note
• Tonic note selection
• Tristimulus analysis
• Voice range

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chandrakant J. Gaikwad

Chandrakant J Gaikwad received a BE degree in electronics engineering with distinction from Shivaji University in 1997. He completed the M Tech and PhD degrees both in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 2005 and 2015, respectively. He served as lecture and assistant professor at Konkan Gyanpeeth College of Engineering, University of Mumbai during 1997–2010. He was graduate teaching assistant at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur during 2010–2015. Presently, he is professor of the Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering department at Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology, DY Patil Deemed to be University, Nerul, Navi-Mumbai. His research interests are in the areas of signal processing applications of higher-order cumulants and spectra, time–frequency representations, music and singer’s voice analysis.

Pradip Sircar

Pradip Sircar received a BSc degree in physics from Calcutta University in 1974, a B Tech degree in instrumentation and electronics engineering from Jadavpur University, Calcutta in 1978, and MS and PhD degrees both in electrical engineering from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, in 1983 and 1987, respectively. He was awarded the National Science Talent Search scholarship in 1970. He was appointed assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Syracuse University in 1987. He joined the department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1988, where presently he is professor. He was visiting professor at Télécom Paris-Tech (also known as ENST or École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications), Paris during 1998–99, and at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS in 2010. His research interests are in the areas of signal processing, computations and communications. He served the Journal of the Franklin Institute as Associate Editor during 2007–11. He is the author of the book Mathematical Aspects of Signal Processing published by Cambridge University Press in 2016. Email: [email protected]