This paper presents our research efforts to synthesize complex instrumental gestures using a score-based control scheme. Our specific goal is to simulate the rasgueado technique that is popular especially in flamenco music. This technique is also used in the classical guitar repertoire. Rasgueado is especially challenging as ordinary music notation is not adequate to represent the dense stream of notes required for a convincing simulation. We will take two approaches to realize our task. First, we use the practical knowledge of how the actual performance is accomplished by the human player. A second, complementary, approach is to analyze an excerpt from real guitar playing. Our main focus here is to extract the onset times and the amplitudes of the recoded gesture. Next we combine the results from the two analysis steps using a constraintbased approach to find possible pitch and fingering sequences. Finally we translate the findings to our macro-note scheme that allow us to fill algorithmically a musical score.

The 13th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects (DAFx10), held in Graz, Austria, 6th-10th September 2010.

DAFx10.

Recorded Sound
• Recorded rasqueado roll for all open strings.
• Highpass filtered and slower rasqueado roll. The corner frequency of the highpass filter was 11 kHz and the playback speed is 80% slower than the original speed.

Synthesized examples
• Single plucks - Normal style. Synthesis of open strings with an excitation signal derived from normal plucks.
• Rasqueado roll synthesis - Normal pluck excitation. Synthesis of a rasqueado roll using excitation signals derived from normal plucks.
• Single rasqueado/hard plucks - Rasqueado style. Synthesis of open strings with excitation signals derived from single rasqueado/hard plucks.
• Rasqueado roll synthesis - Rasqueado/hard pluck excitation. Synthesis of a rasqueado roll using excitation signals derived from single rasqueado/hard plucks.
• Fast rasqueado roll synthesis - Rasqueado/hard pluck excitation. Synthesis of a fast rasqueado roll using excitation signals derived from single rasqueado/hard plucks.
• Continuous rasqueado roll synthesis - Rasqueado/hard pluck excitation. Synthesis of a continuous rasqueado roll using excitation signals derived from single rasqueado/hard plucks.

Rasgueado (also called Rajeo, Rasgueo or Rasgeo in Andalusian dialect and Flamenco jargon) is a guitar finger strumming technique commonly associated with flamenco guitar music. It is also used in classical and other fingerstyle guitar picking techniques. The rasgueado is executed using the fingers of the strumming hand in rhythmically precise, and often rapid, strumming patterns. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasgueado for more details)