Tonara has developed a suite of highly robust music recognition algorithms, which provide new dimensions to music education, rehearsal and performance.

Score Following with Automatic Page Turning

Score-following is the ability to follow a performer’s exact position in the musical score in real-time.  Tonara has developed the world’s first polyphonic score follower, a goal that has eluded algorithm designers since the 1980s, and the world’s most robust monophonic score follower.  Using these technologies, performers can see their exact position in sheet music displayed on-screen, and continue to play while the software automatically turns the pages for them.  The algorithms are robust enough to continue tracking the musicians’ position even if they change their tempo, make mistakes, repeat a section, etc., and also in the presence of external noise.  The algorithms support both audio and MIDI input, and have been demonstrated to successfully handle highly complex musical works.

Automatic Accompaniment

Based on its score following algorithm, Tonara has developed technology which automatically accompanies musicians by playing the scores of additional instruments in the piece.  Today there are some “minus one” playback pieces, which include all the instrument tracks of a certain piece without the solo, and enable musicians to practice solo playing with an accompaniment.  But using this solution, the musician is tied to the fixed tempo of the playback, and has to start the playback over or move it manually to a different part of the piece if he makes a mistake or wants to repeat a section.  Using Tonara’s technology, the accompaniment automatically follows the musician’s tempo and his position in the score, so when the musician jumps to another location or starts a certain section over, the accompaniment just follows him.  In addition, Tonara’ s technology enables “minus one” accompaniment for any instrument in the score (not only the solo instrument), and even “minus two” or “minus three” accompaniment if several musicians want to practice together.

Performance Quality Analysis and Grading

Tonara’s performance quality analysis and grading algorithms provide feedback to musicians and music students on the quality of their playing.  Feedback can be given as an overall grade, as separate grades for tempo, pitch and dynamics, and also by marking on the score the exact places where the musician has made mistakes.  For the first time, this technology enables musicians and music students to practice and rehearse on their own, while receiving exact feedback on their performance quality which helps them improve.

Acoustic Browsing

Tonara’s acoustic browsing technology simplifies digital sheet music playback even further, by eliminating the need to select a musical piece on the computer using menus or buttons.  All the musician has to do is play a few notes from a piece which exists in the library, and the piece is automatically recognized and loaded into the digital sheet music display.  The musician’s current position in the score is immediately highlighted, and using Tonara’s score following technology the musician can smoothly continue to play while the score is displayed, pages are turned, and the accompaniment of additional instruments is played.

Implementation

Tonara has implemented its technologies in a cross-platform C++ library which supports polyphonic and monophonic audio and MIDI inputs, and packaged it as demo software for the Windows platform.  Video demonstrations of Tonara’s technology can be viewed on the company’s home page.  The company is now developing an iPad application based on its technologies – for further details, see the products page.