A Hierarchical Modular Classifier for Musical Instruments

A hierarchical modular classifier is proposed for the classification of musical instruments out of the sound they produce. In order to increase the classification performance each module of our classifier operates on a distinct subset of input feature. Each module is a fuzzy inference system with the capability of learning fuzzy rules from data: in the training it encodes the knowledge learned from data in the form of fuzzy if-then rules. Before the classification process, sound data are pre-processed and a compact time-frequency representation is extracted. Preliminary experimental results compare favorably with human performance on the same classification task and demonstrate the utility of both the modular architecture and the hierarchical classification process.