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2017 | Book

Signal Analysis of Hindustani Classical Music

Authors: Asoke Kumar Datta, Sandeep Singh Solanki, Ranjan Sengupta, Soubhik Chakraborty, Kartik Mahto, Anirban Patranabis

Publisher: Springer Singapore

Book Series : Signals and Communication Technology

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About this book

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
Murmur of trees, singing of the birds, tinkling streams, patter of rain drops on tin roof, strumming the strings, ringing of cow bells of returning herds under the evening sun—all these soothe us. Add to these products of nature, the art of humans producing songs and instrumental tunes. We all perceive these as music. Natural sounds existed before human beings appeared on earth.
Asoke Kumar Datta, Sandeep Singh Solanki, Ranjan Sengupta, Soubhik Chakraborty, Kartik Mahto, Anirban Patranabis
Chapter 2. Music Information Retrieval
Abstract
Music is a very interesting topic in our society as almost everyone enjoys listening to it and many wants to create. Broadly speaking, the research in Music Information Retrieval (MIR) is one of the upcoming research interest with the extraction and inference of meaningful features from music (from the audio signal), indexing of music using these features, and the development of deferent search and retrieval schemes (for instance, content-based search, music recommendation systems, or user interfaces for browsing large music collections), as defined by Downie (2003).
Asoke Kumar Datta, Sandeep Singh Solanki, Ranjan Sengupta, Soubhik Chakraborty, Kartik Mahto, Anirban Patranabis
Chapter 3. Scales and Shruti Concept
Abstract
Music of modern days transcended the simplicity of early human music and its practical needs. The artistic and the aesthetic aspects began to emerge through its entertainment potential during the medieval times. Its beauty and serenity along with its potential to touch the emotional chord evoked intense interest among the earliest thinkers in every civilization and India is no exception. The recorded evidence of musical activities in India dates back to more than 2000 years.
Asoke Kumar Datta, Sandeep Singh Solanki, Ranjan Sengupta, Soubhik Chakraborty, Kartik Mahto, Anirban Patranabis
Chapter 4. Tonic Detection and Shruti Analysis from Raga Performance
Abstract
The technological advances of modern times make it possible to have an in-depth analysis of songs of renowned singers of North Indian Classical music to objectively assess the vexing questions related to shrutis and swaras. Not only this, the issues related to musical scales in India are many, and to say the least, not simple.
Asoke Kumar Datta, Sandeep Singh Solanki, Ranjan Sengupta, Soubhik Chakraborty, Kartik Mahto, Anirban Patranabis
Chapter 5. Pitch Transition and Pitch Stability
Abstract
The pitch is the fundamental parameter for understanding objectively various aspect of melodic music. A pitch contour describes a series of relative pitch transitions adjoining the abstractions of a sequence of steady states called notes. While the quasi stationary states in the dynamics of pitch in Indian music have been elaborately discussed in other chapters it is also necessary to pay attention to the transitory movements.
Asoke Kumar Datta, Sandeep Singh Solanki, Ranjan Sengupta, Soubhik Chakraborty, Kartik Mahto, Anirban Patranabis
Chapter 6. Raga Identification
Abstract
The definition of a raga is somewhat nebulous and verbose. In Indian musical system, raga is defined as a melodic structure with fixed notes and a set of rules that characterizes a particular mood conveyed by performance.
Asoke Kumar Datta, Sandeep Singh Solanki, Ranjan Sengupta, Soubhik Chakraborty, Kartik Mahto, Anirban Patranabis
Chapter 7. Gharana Identification
Abstract
Indian classical music resulted from the fusion of various cultural styles. The basic musical structures or Ragas have been divided into various Thaats traditionally and, ragas have specific ascent (arohana) and descent (awarohana) sequences that may not necessarily be identical.
Asoke Kumar Datta, Sandeep Singh Solanki, Ranjan Sengupta, Soubhik Chakraborty, Kartik Mahto, Anirban Patranabis
Chapter 8. Production, Perception and Cognition
Abstract
This chapter is devoted to muse over the basic principles behind the making of music instead of presenting a synopsis of techniques and technologies used in modern day music production. In the introductory chapter we attempted a comprehensive definition of music. Let us add further that music as an acoustical emotive (except for the emotion of anger, disgust) communication, generally universal in nature. The simultaneity of the three elements acoustics, emotion, and universality (not in the absolute sense) is integral to the definition.
Asoke Kumar Datta, Sandeep Singh Solanki, Ranjan Sengupta, Soubhik Chakraborty, Kartik Mahto, Anirban Patranabis
Chapter 9. Automatic Musical Instrument Recognition
Abstract
This chapter deals with analysis of musical instruments especially the Indian musical instruments by analyzing its sound. Sections 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3 concerns the automatic recognition of musical instruments with the idea that extract the perceptually relevant features from acoustic musical signals that a computer system “listen” to musical sounds and recognize which instrument is playing. For this, timbre of the sound of those musical instruments needs to be studied extensively. Only five musical instruments which are popularly adopted in Hindustani music were chosen for study.
Asoke Kumar Datta, Sandeep Singh Solanki, Ranjan Sengupta, Soubhik Chakraborty, Kartik Mahto, Anirban Patranabis
Chapter 10. Vadi-Samvadi Controversy and Statistics
Abstract
There is a concept of alankar in Indian music, meaning a musical ornament. The shastras talk about shabdalankars and varnalankars. The varnas include sthayi (stay on a note), arohi (ascent), awarohi (descent) and sanchari (mixture of ascent and descent). The rising and falling transitions can be further classified into convex, concave and linear. We also have hats and valleys. A hat may be interpreted as an ascent followed by immediate descent, and a valley as a descent followed by immediate ascent. By making a count of all the above, we can study the transitory as well as non-transitory pitch movements between the notes.
Asoke Kumar Datta, Sandeep Singh Solanki, Ranjan Sengupta, Soubhik Chakraborty, Kartik Mahto, Anirban Patranabis
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Signal Analysis of Hindustani Classical Music
Authors
Asoke Kumar Datta
Sandeep Singh Solanki
Ranjan Sengupta
Soubhik Chakraborty
Kartik Mahto
Anirban Patranabis
Copyright Year
2017
Publisher
Springer Singapore
Electronic ISBN
978-981-10-3959-1
Print ISBN
978-981-10-3958-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3959-1