From Audio to Music Notation

Abstract

The field of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) focuses on creating methods and practices for making sense of music data from various modalities, including audio, video, images, scores and metadata [54]. Within MIR, a core problem which to the day remains open is Automatic Music Transcription (AMT), the process of automatically converting an acoustic music signal into some form of musical notation. The creation of a method for automatically converting musical audio to notation has several uses including but also going beyond MIR: from software for automatic typesetting of audio into staff notation or other music representations, to the use of automatic transcriptions as a descriptor towards the development of systems for music recommendation, to applications for interactive music systems such as automatic music accompaniment, for music education through methods for automatic instrument tutoring, and towards enabling musicological research in sound archives, to name but a few.