and application to estimating the left-hand fingering (automatic tabulature generation) Caroline Traube Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics May 2000

Plucking points Fingering points x The fingering point determines the fundamental frequency of the note. The plucking point has an effect on the timbre of the note. For example, if the string is plucked in its middle, all the even harmonics are missing. x

Effect of the plucking point on the timbre/spectrum Shape taken by the ideal string over time after being plucked at 1/4 of its length from the bridge Illustration of the filtering effect of the plucking point position, here at 1/5 of the string length: harmonics with indices that are multiples of 5 are missing. In general... If the plucking point is closer to the bridge, the resulting sound is brighter, sharper, more percussive. If the plucking point is closer to the middle of the string, the resulting sound is duller, mellower, warmer.

Application to automatic tabulature generation Fourier Analysis Attack Detection Peak detection Pitch detection Calculation of peaks for an ideal string and for different values of plucking point Search for the closest spectrum Plucking Point Generation of a frequency table Soundfile Tuning Number of frets Number of strings Search for all possible string/fret combinations Search for closest plucking point value Fingering point

Peak detection and estimation of the plucking point Spectrum with detected peaks Error curve for a range of plucking point distances Comparison of the ideal and the measured spectra

Performance of the plucking point estimation algorithm Test on 18 plucks on open A-string and open D-string of a classical guitar

Generation of a frequency table based on the tuning, the number of strings and the number of frets Standard tuning: String 6 (E)  Hz String 5 (B)  Hz String 4 (G)  196 Hz String 3 (D)  Hz String 2 (A)  110 Hz String 1 (E)  82.4 Hz (Fret 0 = open string) This figure illustrates that one particular note can be played in different ways (same color = same note)

Example: from recording of 3 notes (D-2, D-4, G-2) (1) attack detection

(2) pitch detection

(3) Search for all possible string/fret combinations Note 1 Note 2 Note 3

Automatic tabulature generation String 3 (D) Fret 2 String 3 (D) Fret 4 String 4 (G) Fret 2