Analysis and Estimation of Acoustical Properties of Sitar

S.N. Gunasekera+, J.V. Wijayakulasooriya*, P.C. Perera#

+
Open University of Sri Lanka, Department of Mechanical Engineering
*
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
#
Department of Engineering Mathematics
University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Abstract

The performance of a sitar is measured by richness of the attributes of its timbre. However,
the amount of research carried out in exploring the relative quality of timbre of sitar is quite
insignificant, possibly due to the uniqueness of its timbre and the complexity arising from its
multidimensional behaviour in contrast to other musical instruments. In this effort, our
attention is focused on the extraction of the time variant acoustical features of timbre of a
sitar by means of quantitative analysis of sound spectrum obtained under different
combinations of the physical parameters of the sitar. Once the correlation between the
physical parameters of a sitar and the attributes of its timbre are at our disposal, the relative
quality of timbre of another sitar or a computer based sitar synthesizer can be quantified. This
quantification can be employed to adjust a sitar required quality of timbre. Further, a sitar
synthesizer can be automatically adopted by using this information in a feedback loop.
Pertaining to a sitar, formulations are devised to relate the attributes of timbre such as
Brightness, Buzzing effect and Richness of harmonicity together with the shape of the
envelope by using the spectral properties of the tone generated. Through experimental and
analytical results, it can be established the fact that Brightness, Buzzing effect, Richness of
harmonicity and shape of the envelop are correlated with Spectrum centroid, Zero crossing,
spectrogram and RMS energy respectively.

Keywords: Timbre of Sitar, Brightness, Buzzing effect, Richness of harmonicity