Abstract
Many different methods for the detection of note onsets in music recordings have been proposed and applied to tasks such as music transcription, beat tracking, tempo estimation, and music synchronization. Most of the proposed onset detectors rely on the fact that note onsets often go along with a sudden increase of the signal’s energy, which particularly holds for instruments such as piano, guitar, or percussive instruments. Much more difficult is the detection of onsets in the case of more fluent note transitions, which is often the case for classical music dominated by string instruments. In this paper, we introduce improved novelty curves that yield good indications for note onsets even in the case of only smooth temporal and spectral intensity changes in the signal.We then show how these novelty curves can be used to significantly improve the temporal accuracy in music synchronization tasks.