Music Technologist, Percussionist, Researcher
Shashank Aswathanarayana
RESEARCH PROJECTS
Effect of a known environment on the estimation of sound source distance
The estimation of sound source distance has been a topic of research interest for a number of decades now. Humans are good at localizing sound in the azimuth and elevation, but are poor at estimating the sound source distance. This project looks at examining the effect of a known environment on the estimation of sound source distance. The project aims at initially testing the subjects perception of sound source in an unknown environment and then examining the effect of training the subject to the environment to see if training/learning the acoustics of the environment improves the estimation of the source distance.
An automatic music performance analysis system
The key to learning a new art form is to practice, perform and rectify your mistakes. The presence of an instructor is to help you take the right steps forward by identifying your weak areas and help you strengthen them. Automating such process carried out by humans has often been the focus of research in computer science. In conjunction with this approach, this Master’s thesis proposes and builds a new software for singers to practice and get feedback in the absence of an instructor. The approach taken here is novel in that it is a semi-guided tutorial system wherein the singer gets to select a score from a large databse to practice and get feedback on. The scores are grouped in different categories that can guide a novice through a practice session.
Emotion in Indian classical music: A cross cultural study
This paper addresses the question, “Will western listeners be able to successfully identify the subtleties in Indian Classical Music?” Western listeners listened and rated the emotion present in excerpts of Indian Classical Music at different times of the day. Analysis was then done to see how the ratings to the same excerpts differed with time. It was found that, listeners gave higher ratings to the morning raga in the morning session as compared to the evening session. This relationship was found to be true with the evening raga as well. Therefore, the findings seem to suggest that the raga-time relation does manifest in listeners unfamiliar to the musical style. Thus, we can say that sensitivity to emotion transcends acoustic cues, psychophysical cues and cultural boundaries.