Raga Recognition through Tonic Identification using Flute Acoustics

Abstract

Tonic identification is traditionally approached using pitch histogram. Acoustic characteristics of musical instruments have not been used for the purpose. The conventional tonic identifiers are either knowledge-based or multi-pitch analysis-based. These methods either directly or indirectly depend on the drone sound. The efficiency of these systems drastically decreases in the absence of the later. In this paper, a tonic identification method which is independent of drone sound is proposed for flute signals which makes use of acoustic characteristics of the instrument. In addition, tonic identification is utilised for real-time raga recognition.