Pitch detection - for a newbi

EagerToLearn wrote:
> Your point about real vs. computer generated is a good one.  Oh how
> lucky the person who could obtain an ear training teacher for their
> daily practice sessions!!  For many people, myself included, ear
> training is not trivial and takes many months or years of daily
> practice to master.  
> 
> My experience of learning to play by ear involved a teacher in a group
> fiddle class who would play a phrase repeatedly untill all the members
> of the group had figured out how to play it by trail and error.  He
> would then move on to the next phrase and graduallly add phrases until
> he worked through the whole tune.  This process would take would take
> about an hour for the group to 'get' the whole tune.  From my
> observations, it would take students about a year of these weekly
> sessions like this to gain a fair degree of skill.
> 
> Not everyone has access to 'carbon' based instructors.  So why not
> ustilize a computers capability to perform the same type task and use
> it daily??
> 
> 

Ear training is part and parcel of music training, and indeed does take 
years of daily practice. There are really no shortcuts. A pitch training 
machine can complement carbon-based learning, but can  never substitute 
for it.

Music is a lot like sex - you could rely on books and machines to 
"learn" all sort of things, but when suddenly presented with a real 
person of the relevant gender for the first time, all that "knowledge" 
will likely evaporate in seconds. On the other hand, if you learn first 
from humans, ~then~ supportive learning resources of all kinds may 
indeed be valuable.

What about a local choir? Church/school/community/whatever. The best 
start any child can get. But it is important to find someone (not 
necessarily a "professional") who has some idea how to teach.

Of course this is all rather OT for comp.dsp, who really want to talk 
dirty about the algorithm, and who's got the best one!


Richard Dobson

fizteh89 wrote:
> Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote:
> >Yes. We can also compare the 1040s and some parts of the body. Any questions?
>
> US 20050035878 ?
>
> Didn't work out ?

lessee, Dmitry, Vladimir's application is dated February 17, 2005.
your patent took 4 1/2 years to go from application to issuance.

so why (other than arrogance) would you suggest it didn't work out?

> Well, next time,

what "next time"?  his patent is in process at this time and may very
well take less time than yours to be issued.

r b-j

EagerToLearn wrote:
> Well, so much for answering a newbie's question.
>
> I guess we're really not welcome here.  Seems like the infighting is
> more important than sharing the knowlege.
>

listen, comp.dsp is a newsgroup with very high S/N ratio.  this is
normally not a group where we sit around and call each other stupid or
such.  (but we do occasionally have spirited fights about content about
such notions as the nature of the dirac delta function, the Sampling
Theorem, or circularity of the Discrete Fourier Transform.)

if you go to Google Groups and clich on fizteh89's profile, you'll see
his previous name is Dmitry Terez and, from the beginning, his posts
here on comp.dsp are all about only one thing:  his pitch detection
algorithm is the final word, the be-all and end-all of pitch detection
algorithms and, if you don't use his PDA, you're PDA must be shit.
he's been saying this (and "patent pending") on comp.dsp ever since he
made the patent application (May 2002) and last October the patent was
*finally* issued.  ("finally" from the standard he uses to judge the
status of others' patent applications.  if Vladimir's application is
less than 2 years old and already judged to "didn't work out", i dunno
what that meant for Dmitry's patent last summer. )

my attitude is that we should talk about and help each other do DSP.
we should, when applicable, cite our own work (as well as others'), but
to salesmanship is discouraged.

r b-j

Robert,

You should really stick to subjects you do understand when posting in
this  "very high S/N ratio" newsgroup and those subjects include
neither US Patent System nor the current "state-of-the-art" in pitch
detection...

As far as US patents and patent applications are concerned, you should
really learn about Public PAIR and how to use it to get to the patent
file wrapper... (ask on misc.int-property - they have some very
knowlegable patent attorneys there to answer all of your questions for
free...)

As far as pitch detection is concerned, you promized to produce some
waveform to fool my method.. Still searching for that waveform ?

Do you really think I would make such sweeping claims back in 2002
without thoroughly testing the new method on all possible kinds of
waveforms ?
Most of this research was presented at two major international
conferences back in 2002.

I do post mostly pitch detection-related comments in this newsgroup, so
what's you problem ?
At least my answers are correct and useful to all people (Can't argue
with verified mathematical truth and working software source code, can
you ?)

robert bristow-johnson wrote:
> fizteh89 wrote:
> > Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote:
> > >Yes. We can also compare the 1040s and some parts of the body. Any questions?
> >
> > US 20050035878 ?
> >
> > Didn't work out ?
>
> lessee, Dmitry, Vladimir's application is dated February 17, 2005.
> your patent took 4 1/2 years to go from application to issuance.
>
> so why (other than arrogance) would you suggest it didn't work out?
>
> > Well, next time,
>
> what "next time"?  his patent is in process at this time and may very
> well take less time than yours to be issued.
> 
> r b-j

On Wed, 9 Jan 2007, fizteh89 wrote:

> As far as pitch detection is concerned, you promized to produce some
> waveform to fool my method.. Still searching for that waveform ?

     Try any sound with a missing fundamental.

> Do you really think I would make such sweeping claims back in 2002
> without thoroughly testing the new method on all possible kinds of
> waveforms ?
> Most of this research was presented at two major international
> conferences back in 2002.
>
> I do post mostly pitch detection-related comments in this newsgroup, so
> what's you problem ?
> At least my answers are correct and useful to all people (Can't argue
> with verified mathematical truth and working software source code, can
> you ?)

     The mathematical truth is that SVD embedding with n->oo is
nothing but the SVD of a circulant matrix which is equivalent to
an FFT.  Yet you claimed that we should ``FORGET ABOUT FFT AND
OTHER CONVENTIONAL LINEAR METHODS''.  Is this a contradiction?

Tak-Shing

fizteh89 wrote:


1. What is new in your method compared to AMDF (which was used in the 
LPC10 vocoder designed in 80x) ?

2. How does your method perform in comparison with the very common way 
of pitch detection by normalized autocorrelation?

3. How much of computation it takes?

4. What will happen with your method if the waveform does not have the 
fundamental frequency, only the harmonics of it?

5. Who (besides you) does care about your patent?



> Robert,
> 
> You should really stick to subjects you do understand when posting in
> this  "very high S/N ratio" newsgroup and those subjects include
> neither US Patent System nor the current "state-of-the-art" in pitch
> detection...
> 
> As far as US patents and patent applications are concerned, you should
> really learn about Public PAIR and how to use it to get to the patent
> file wrapper... (ask on misc.int-property - they have some very
> knowlegable patent attorneys there to answer all of your questions for
> free...)
> 
> As far as pitch detection is concerned, you promized to produce some
> waveform to fool my method.. Still searching for that waveform ?
> 
> Do you really think I would make such sweeping claims back in 2002
> without thoroughly testing the new method on all possible kinds of
> waveforms ?
> Most of this research was presented at two major international
> conferences back in 2002.
> 
> I do post mostly pitch detection-related comments in this newsgroup, so
> what's you problem ?
> At least my answers are correct and useful to all people (Can't argue
> with verified mathematical truth and working software source code, can
> you ?)
> 
> robert bristow-johnson wrote:
> 
>>fizteh89 wrote:
>>
>>>Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote:
>>>
>>>>Yes. We can also compare the 1040s and some parts of the body. Any questions?
>>>
>>>US 20050035878 ?
>>>
>>>Didn't work out ?
>>
>>lessee, Dmitry, Vladimir's application is dated February 17, 2005.
>>your patent took 4 1/2 years to go from application to issuance.
>>
>>so why (other than arrogance) would you suggest it didn't work out?
>>
>>
>>>Well, next time,
>>
>>what "next time"?  his patent is in process at this time and may very
>>well take less time than yours to be issued.
>>
>>r b-j
> 
> 

I believe that spirited discussions are great, in fact, essentail to
the advancement of knowlege.  However, I get the felling that what's
going on  here is 'mine is better (bigger) than yours'.  I would think
that he who has the biggest and best would be able to simply and
logically  explain the steps required to get to DSP for someone with
inadequate or rusty Math & Physics skills.  I'm sure that most readers
here have advanced degrees and that there are many academics.
Precisely the people who should have a good understanding of how they
got to where they are.  All I want is someone to share that info with
me so I don't waste time  on bacjground stuff I don't need.



On 9 Jan 2007 16:45:26 -0800, "robert bristow-johnson"
<rbj@audioimagination.com> wrote:

>
>EagerToLearn wrote:
>> Well, so much for answering a newbie's question.
>>
>> I guess we're really not welcome here.  Seems like the infighting is
>> more important than sharing the knowlege.
>>
>
>listen, comp.dsp is a newsgroup with very high S/N ratio.  this is
>normally not a group where we sit around and call each other stupid or
>such.  (but we do occasionally have spirited fights about content about
>such notions as the nature of the dirac delta function, the Sampling
>Theorem, or circularity of the Discrete Fourier Transform.)
>
>if you go to Google Groups and clich on fizteh89's profile, you'll see
>his previous name is Dmitry Terez and, from the beginning, his posts
>here on comp.dsp are all about only one thing:  his pitch detection
>algorithm is the final word, the be-all and end-all of pitch detection
>algorithms and, if you don't use his PDA, you're PDA must be shit.
>he's been saying this (and "patent pending") on comp.dsp ever since he
>made the patent application (May 2002) and last October the patent was
>*finally* issued.  ("finally" from the standard he uses to judge the
>status of others' patent applications.  if Vladimir's application is
>less than 2 years old and already judged to "didn't work out", i dunno
>what that meant for Dmitry's patent last summer. )
>
>my attitude is that we should talk about and help each other do DSP.
>we should, when applicable, cite our own work (as well as others'), but
>to salesmanship is discouraged.
>
>r b-j

EagerToLearn wrote:
> I believe that spirited discussions are great, in fact, essentail to
> the advancement of knowlege.  However, I get the felling that what's
> going on  here is 'mine is better (bigger) than yours'.

good insight.  that is precisely what's going on.  but, as far as i can
read, there is one party saying that.

>  I would think
> that he who has the biggest and best would be able to simply and
> logically  explain the steps required to get to DSP for someone with
> inadequate or rusty Math & Physics skills.  I'm sure that most readers
> here have advanced degrees and that there are many academics.
> Precisely the people who should have a good understanding of how they
> got to where they are.  All I want is someone to share that info with
> me so I don't waste time  on background stuff I don't need.

okay, what specifically are the technical questions?

r b-j

Sorry, I just noticed that this topic had moved.

I too share some of your regrets about my early childhood music
experience.  Until my teen age years the only music we had in our
house was a 78 RPM player with a half dozen 78s from the war years. My
sister and I would sit around the player and play a song titled
"Praise the Lord and Pass the Amunition".

When you look at some of the most successful musicians you typically
see a long history of music in their early years.  I regret not having
that myself and have taken it as my special project to provide the
boys ( 2 1/2 yrs and 6 mo) with good early music experiences.  The
oldest and I spent a year at a program called Wiggleowrms at the Old
Town School of Folk Music in Chicago which is a early childhood music
program that meets weekly.  We had a wonderful and I wouldn't trade
the relationship we've developed during that period for anything.  

I am just starting the same with the younger one.  I hope our
experience will be as good as with the older one. When the time comes,
I will certainly lobby with their parents, for formal music education
for both of them.  I am even considering Suzuki at 4 or 5.  I am aware
of the cognitive benefits of early music and that is part of my
motivation.  They both listen to Mozart (certainly not by their own
choice yet).

I wonder if 'play seriously' isn't an oxymoron.  :-)   I agree that
formal music education is wonderful.  However, I believe that music
has to be first and foremost PLAYED, not studied or learned or
performed.  It has to touch your heart and soul and only then can you
be a real musician.  Thus my preference for folk and traditional music
(people music) over art and popular music (commercial music).  As I
get oloder it seems harder and harder to preserve the traditional.  I
guess I have a little bitterness too when I see traditional music
being replaced by commercial music.

As an adut I learned to play fiddle (I'm careful not to say violin)
from a teacher who taught strictly by ear.  After playing  self-taught
guitar for 35+ years, the experience gave me a whole new perspective
on music.  My sense of timing is better, my sense of harmony is
better, I can sing better and given sufficient time, I can learn to
play just about any fiddle tune I hear.  I don't need a teacher to
learn a new fiddle tune.

My teacher had an uncanny sense of just how much of a phrase to
present at a time.  He was also able to identify that point in time
when most the people in the group class 'got' the melody and he could
move on to the next phrase.  Using him as a model, I think it would be
a fun challange to try to computerize that process. (That of course is
what I'm good at - the computer part not the music part)

I can spend time with the boys each week and provide them some sort of
music experience including ear training but it would be great if they
had grandpa's special computer that did special things and they could
play with it even when he wasn't there. 


On Sat, 06 Jan 2007 18:12:20 -0500, Carlos Moreno
<moreno_at_mochima_dot_com@mailinator.com> wrote:

>EagerToLearn wrote:
>
>>>Get them to *real music classes* --- have them learn to
>>>*read* music and play seriously!!
>>>
>>>:-)
>> 
>> Warning:  the following is sort of off-topic, so proceed at your own
>> risk!
>
>Ok, let's continue with the off-topic yet interesting discussion...
>
>Notice above, how I quoted my :-) ...   In a sense, despite some
>touch of seriousness and of being convinced of what I was claiming,
>I tried to make it clear that there was a little bit of kidding in
>my comment --- that is, I'm no one to decide or try to dictate even
>in the slightest way, what your grand kids do with their lives and
>what you do about guiding them.
>
>There is maybe a bit of bitterness from my part in that, as a kid,
>I was kind of good with music in the informal sense (more or less
>what you say you'll try to do with your grand kids --- at least the
>way I understand it).  But I never had the luck of having any formal
>training in music --- it was only as an adult (at age 25) that I
>decided to take up on it;  I did ok, all things considered, but it
>was nowhere nearly enough I would have liked for my life, as it was
>too late for my brain to adapt to it  (not that my brain was utterly
>unable to learn --- again, I think I did very good, given the
>circumstances).
>
>Formal training in music is wonderful, and I believe (and read) that
>it can greatly contribute to the mental development of a kid ---
>astonishingly enough, it greatly develops the ability to deal with
>math, and also the artistic and creative skills.
>
>You are absolutely right that there are many aspects to music, and
>one should not dismiss some of the aspects just because there are
>other aspects that may appear "better" (for a suitable definition
>of "better")...  But you know, it sounded like an intentionally
>missed opportunity, when I initially read your post  (again, with
>the touch of "kidding, more than seriously asking you to do
>this-or-that instead")
>
>Either way, I wish you good luck with your project (both the
>technical part of pitch detection that you were asking about, and
>the "personal" part --- that is, hope your grand kids appreciate
>what you are doing and develop a taste for music --- formal or
>informal).
>
>Cheers,
>
>Carlos

Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote:
> 1. What is new in your method compared to AMDF (which was used in the
> LPC10 vocoder designed in 80x) ?

Problems with elementary math ?

Here is "periodicity histogram":

  hist(k)=sum H(r - |x(i) - x(i+k)|)    (where H is Heaviside, or unit
step, function)


Here is AMDF function:

  amdf(k)=sum |x(i) - x(i+k)|


and here is autocorrelation:

  corr(k) = sum x(i) * x(i+k)


Why don't you start calling AMDF function an autocorrelation and vice
versa, cause they sorta look the same to you ?

And BTW, you CANNOT reduce "periodicity histogram" to AMDF. Period.