Explicit modeling of temporal dynamics within musical signals for acoustical unit similarity

Timbre is a major cue for the human auditory system to recognize musical sounds. Timbral patterns can be decomposed in the widely used spectral envelope and the less considered temporal dynamics. In this paper, we present new temporal dynamics similarity measures, which will prove valuable for the recognition of timbral patterns. These similarity measures are evaluated, first alone, then in conjunction with spectral envelope similarity measures, for both single tones and solo recordings. Results are provided, showing that the new temporal dynamics features improve significantly timbral pattern recognition.