TO THE human ear, the robust tenor sax sound of Sonny Rollins is not easily mistaken for the ethereal quality of a flute. But the differences in sound between woodwind instruments can be quite subtle.
Now Judy Brown of Wellesley College in Massachusetts has trained a computer to distinguish one woodwind instrument from another. Her system can correctly identify the instrument about 80 per cent of the timewhich is about as good as trained musicians.
One important future application of the technique, says Brown, will be to allow Internet search engines to find music that features particular instruments (
Working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's media lab, Brown and her colleagues at the Paris-based Institute for Musical and Acoustic Research analysed the timbreor sound qualityof the clarinet, flute, ...
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