Tonic Comprehension and Modeling of Analog Transmissions

Tonic comprehension is the ability to interpret music as notation and therefore the ability to reproduce it on any given instrument of choice. However, this is in an art that takes long years of practice to develop, if at all; clearly it is the threshold that marks a novice musician from an expert. Smart Music is a mobile application that seeks to bridge this gap and thus ease the learning process for an amateur musician. It can allow anybody with even a little knowledge of music to play a song of their choice, on an instrument of their choice. The app correlates a musical note with the respective frequency and records all such frequencies that are being played at an instant. It takes as input the recording of the music piece and creates a log of frequencies played with respect to time. It then uses algorithms to prune out mismatching frequencies resulting from ambient noise, overtones or recording errors. These algorithms compare inputs with chord structures and popular musical overtures to determine music from noise. It finally re-creates the song in standard musical notation, or tablature, as the user chooses. Version 2 of the app will allow the user to pick an instrument that will be shown being played on the device's screen. Thus, a tuned instrument and a recording of the song are all that the user needs to play it. This paper aims to discuss various frequency analysis techniques and pattern matching algorithms used in the making of the Smart Music mobile app. Keywords—Music, Frequency analysis.