
Xinyue Ma
MSc Integrated Program in Neuroscience
BLUE Residency
2023
Using machine learning to separate and transcribe vocals in acapella songs
BLUE Residency
Winter
2023

Background
Of all the different types of music, a cappella is special because there's no instrumental accompaniment; it is the voice that matters. It exemplifies the beauty of simplicity, but learning an a cappella song can be challenging, especially when the new song from your favorite singer has no sheet music available to learn. To distinguish each voice part is mostly a manual process that requires expertise in music, while the task is prone to mistakes and time-consuming. At Building 21, I proposed to use machine learning to automatically separate and transcribe voice parts in acapella songs. Ideally, such a tool can make learning a capella much easier and encourage more people to have a taste of the beauty of a capella.