Re: Intermediate representation for music analysis

[Rachel van Besouw <rmvb101@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ilya,

>Human ear is able to distinguish pitch differences at least twice less than
>a semitone which implies that for the analysis of musical piece that spans
>4 octaves the number of filters should be of the order of couple hundreds.
>Nevertheless front-ends commonly used for music analysis usually use not
>more than couple of dosens of filters (Fourier bins), sometimes even
non->logarithmically spaced.

I've previously made the mistake of assuming that the Difference Limen for
Frequency and the Equivalent Rectangular Bandwidths (or frequency
selectivity) of auditory filters covary, but they do not - if they did we
could assume a place model of pitch perception. Below 5 kHz it is believed
that our ability to discriminate very fine differences in frequency can be
attributed to the temporal patterns of nerve firings. I recommend Chapter 6:
Pitch Perception of 'An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing' by Brian
Moore.

Rachel :-)

_______________________________________________________________________

Rachel van Besouw| PhD Researcher | Audio Lab, Intelligent Systems Group 
Department of Electronics | University of York 
Heslington | York | UK | YO10 5DD 
rmvb101@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx | +44 (0) 1904 432407