An Auditory Model Based Approach for Melody Detection in Polyphonic Musical Recordings

We present a method for melody detection in polyphonic musical signals based on a model of the human auditory system. First, a set of pitch candidates is obtained for each frame, based on the output of an ear model and periodicity detection using correlograms. Trajectories of the most salient pitches are then constructed. Next, note candidates are obtained by trajectory segmentation (in terms of frequency and pitch salience variations). Too short, low-salience and harmonically-related notes are then eliminated. Finally, the melody is extracted by selecting the most important notes at each time, based on their pitch salience. We tested our method with excerpts from 12 songs encompassing several genres. In the songs where the solo stands out clearly, most of the melody notes were successfully detected. However, for songs where the melody is not that salient, the algorithm was not very accurate. Nevertheless, the followed approach seems promising.