This is not your regular metronome or harmonium. The Swar Taal and Swar Alap applications, developed by musician and PwC’s former tech consulting partner Mohan Verma and his team, go beyond the conventional offerings.
Both applications are designed to add value to musicians, specifically in western classical and Hindustani music. “I am a music composer and a technology buff. I have also been a tech professional. Marrying music with technology was always on my plate,” says Verma. The free time that he got during the pandemic was the trigger to fully pursue this idea and create a venture called Bollywood Raagas. “I identified the two app concepts based on the need I myself felt as a musician,” he reveals.
The technology behind these applications utilizes the open-source library called Fast Fourier Technology (FFT), which converts sounds to signals. The Swar Alap application, in particular, is designed to provide musicians with a highlighted view of their pitch and singing. The FFT is integrated with a Java code that detects the dominant frequency produced by a person or a musical instrument. Another Java code is embedded to visually display all the sound waves on a graph, helping musicians gauge their accuracy.
Switching genres on the Swar Alap is as simple as tapping on the Y-axis of the screen. Moreover, the algorithm is trained to detect vibrations in the human voice, making it different from other electronic harmoniums in the market, according to Verma.
The application also caters to instrumentalists who want to tune their instruments. It can help detect frequencies up to seven octaves, similar to a full-sized piano. All users need to do is set the required note and tune their instrument accordingly.
To validate the generated frequencies and the mapping of sounds, the Swar Alap team compared the application’s functionality with existing tuning tools like Flexi Pitch. “Recording is done for various pitches and octaves, and then the graphs generated in these tools (Flexi Pitch and Melodyne) as well as in Swar Alap are mapped and compared,” Verma explains.
The team also mapped the exact frequency generated from steady sound generators, such as a synthesizer, to Swar Alap readings for further comparison.
“The only feature we do not have is the ability to correct or manipulate the pitch or sound, like high-end Melodynes do. Those are used in Bollywood and can cost hundreds of dollars,” Verma acknowledges.