Choral Singing Dataset

Choral Singing Dataset

This dataset was presented at the 15th ICMPC/10th ESCOM conference together with the paper: 

Cuesta, H., Gómez, E., Martorell, A., Loáiciga, F. (2018). Analysis of Intonation in Unison Choir Singing. In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition.

It contains the individual audio recordings of 16 singers of the Anton Bruckner Choir from Barcelona (Spain) performing 3 different pieces a cappella, together with their associated MIDI files.

Singers were recorded in groups of four (4 singers per choir section), with individual close microphones with cardioid polar pattern for directivity purposes. The performance was virtually conducted by the conductor of the choir through a video, which was displayed in all the recording sessions for synchronization purposes. Singers also had the possibility to hear a piano reference (through headphones) for tuning purposes.

Three pieces were selected based on the choir repertoire and on the specific needs of the study, which were basically related to the language of the lyrics. These are the pieces we chose:

• Locus Iste, written by Anton Bruckner (Latin).
• Niño Dios, written by Francisco Guerrero (Spanish).
• El Rossinyol, popular Catalan song.

Overall, this dataset contains, for each of these pieces, the tracks of each individual singer (16 singers), together with the synchronized MIDI files of each choir section. Having the individual tracks also allows researchers to create the unison mix for each section, as well as the whole choir performance. The dataset covers the frequency range between 87 Hz and 783 Hz and is especially dense between 150 and 450 Hz. The notes have durations that range between 0.15 and 6.21 seconds, with an average of 0.84 seconds. 

If using this data in your research, please cite the aforementioned paper. For any question or comment, please contact the first author.

The dataset is compressed into a zip file. After decompression, data is organized in folders (one folder for each piece).