Robust and efficient pitch tracking for query-by-humming

Several query-by-humming techniques have been proposed for content-based music retrieval. Reliable pitch extraction is critical for such music retrieval systems to work well. Previous pitch detection methods are based on music note with silence or hum with specific syllables; otherwise the segmentation errors can seriously deteriorate pitch detection. This paper presents a pitch tracking using a region growing approach, which does not rely on note segmentation. A novel harmonic analysis technique is proposed to efficiently group the partials of a harmonic in the power spectrum. The pitch tracking method operates by initially finding the frames with reliable pitch and subsequently finalizing the pitch detection by growing the pitch region. Experimental results show that the proposed method has high robustness and accuracy for continuous pitch contour extraction.