SOUND EVENT DETECTION: A TUTORIAL

Imagine standing on a street corner in the city. With your eyes closed you can hear and recognize a succession of sounds: cars passing by, people speaking, their footsteps when they walk by, and the continuous falling of rain. The recognition of all these sounds and interpretation of the perceived scene as a city street soundscape comes naturally to humans. It is, however, the result of years of "training": encountering and learning associations among the vast varieties of sounds in everyday life, the sources producing these sounds, and the names given to them.