Study of the spectral inharmonicity of musical sound by the algorithms of pitch extraction

The algorithms of pitch extraction are widely used in the studies of signals and, specifically, speech signals for the determination of the fundamental frequency. From the previous studies performed by Galembo and the calculations and experiments described in this paper, it follows that these methods can be adapted for the analysis and evaluation of the factors which form the sound property called "pitch strength," "pitch salience," or "intonation clarity." Although this property plays an important role in music, it is quite poorly investigated. One of the aforementioned factors is represented by the distributed spectral inharmonicity which is typical of sounds produced, e.g., by strings. This paper presents a method of visualization, evaluation, and measurement of the inharmonicity of the spectrum of a musical sound with the help of the well-known algorithms of pitch extraction, namely the cepstrum and the harmonic product spectrum. (C) 2000 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica".