NewScientist: Software to name that tune

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: Grab
Date: 13 Feb 01 - 10:20 AM

Geordie and co: maybe you would get a lot of hits. But maybe that's a good thing. Think of "Yesterday" as an example of something the author thought was an old song and didn't realise they'd written something new. Me, I've got a fiddle tune I found myself whistling one day, so I wrote it down. I'm sure it's trad but I can't find anyone who recognises it - everyone says "It sounds familiar, but I can't place it". Things like that, it'd be great to be able to enter the tune and find out if it is genuinely new or if it's just something else whose name you can't remember.

Grab.

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: LR Mole
Date: 13 Feb 01 - 09:25 AM

I think this would only be fun if it worked in reverse: P.D.Q.Bach played here recently and combined "Ode To Joy" with "The Eyes of Texas", simultaneously. Now that would be a machine.

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: GUEST,Old Scientist
Date: 12 Feb 01 - 10:36 PM

Nonsense!

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: John Routledge
Date: 12 Feb 01 - 10:13 PM

How many other N.S readers. We are entitled to know. GB

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: Micca
Date: 12 Feb 01 - 04:53 PM

I am a NS reader too i am afraid

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Feb 01 - 03:57 PM

I subscribe - oooer.

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Feb 01 - 03:55 PM

In my experience of such databases it isn't or wasn't in the charts it won't be recognised. If they only included a portion of Eng Trad they could destroy the tenuous notion of original music. Who whispered Bob Dylan just then????

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: Helen
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 10:12 PM

Ditto, Bat Goddess. I don't get to read it every week, but I enjoy the ones I do read.

Helen

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 11:47 AM

Cool. Sombody else who reads New Scientist.

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Feb 01 - 08:55 PM

there was some software awhile back that claimed to identify tunes you'd sing or whistle...I think Alan of OZ or John in Brisbane looked at it,,,it just took too much precision and fiddling

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: John Routledge
Date: 10 Feb 01 - 08:35 PM

DON - In the UK the Late Duke of Windsor ( ex-King) wrote a lovely tune called Mallorca. The first EIGHT notes are identical to a traditional Northumbrian tune that I play.You are right! Cheers Geordie Broon

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: Don Firth
Date: 10 Feb 01 - 07:58 PM

This little project might not be as easy as they think it's going to be. When they finally assemble a data-base large enough to be anywhere near useful to anybody, I think they'll find that a half-dozen notes or a few rhythmic taps will come back with as many hits as if you were to type "sex" into the window of google.com (believe it or not, I haven't done it, but I think you get my point).

I recall a television show that Leonard Bernstein did several decades ago explaining music to kids. I learned a lot from that program. One whole hour was devoted to the opening four notes of How Dry I Am (in the key of C for example, G C D E). Vary the rhythm a bit and you can come up with hundreds of classical pieces that start with those same four notes.

Give yourself an interesting exercise, and see how many folk song tunes you can think of that start that same way. Here's one right off -- not a folk song, but sung by a lot of folksingers -- Plaisir d'Amour or The Joys of Love. Here's a folk song: Down it the Valley. Or Barbara Allen (tune sung by Burl Ives, Richard Dyer-Bennet, and lots of others). Off you go now. . . .

It would be nice if they can actually develop something useful, but I'm kinda skeptical.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 09 Feb 01 - 10:53 PM

Frankly I'm more than a bit skeptical. I've been working on what is obviously a different approach for over a year now. Even using a code of 8 stressed notes that's not always enough to single out a tune as unique. There's a database of a little over 6500 tunes in file COMBCOD2.TXT on my website, but that's just a drop in the bucket, and I now think a reasonable sized one would be 20 to 40 times that many tunes.

The ABC player there will stressed note, mode, and key code tunes now from an ABC, and will play in 12TET or just intonation. I've recently added highland pipe notation capability and playing grace notes that follow as well as preceed a main note.

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 09 Feb 01 - 11:07 AM

I doubt if it would be able to cope with my "fuzziness" of key and tempo!
RtS

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: Grab
Date: 09 Feb 01 - 10:59 AM

Hmm, I missed that, Morty. Time to beat up on the NewScientist ppl then!

Grab.

Subject: RE: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: Morticia
Date: 09 Feb 01 - 09:05 AM

So we're not a database of relevant musical information, huh? Dick, go punch him!

Subject: NewScientist: Software to name that tune
From: Grab
Date: 09 Feb 01 - 08:32 AM

From this NewScientist article:

If you have ever had a song in your head but don't know what it is, you'll soon be able to get the answer just by whistling to your PC.

Bjørn Olstad, research and development chief at Fast Search and Transfer (FAST) in Oslo, Norway, says their new search software can find a tune and name it with as few as five notes to go on. Users can sing, whistle or play a few notes on a musical instrument into their PC's microphone.

If that stretches your musical talent too far, "simply tapping a rhythm can be enough to locate the right file", says Olstad.

The key to the software is its ability to digitise your ditty and then extract a sequence of pitch and timing data that can be usefully compared with actual musical pieces. The idea is that after you've entered your tune, the search engine scours a database of tunes, looking for matching pitch and timing information.

"Timing is a non-precise parameter. Even a pianist cannot play a piece the same way twice. And the pitch of different singers can vary widely," says Olstad. "Our algorithm has been designed to accommodate this fuzziness."

But there's another problem. At the moment there are not any databases of relevant musical information. So FAST, which runs the search engine at www.alltheweb.com, is negotiating with other dotcoms who might want to set up commercial music databases to catalogue tracks they have for sale.

Olstad sees great potential for the program but not just for tracing half-forgotten tunes. He predicts that scholars will use it to compare compositions, and lawyers to settle copyright battles.