A tremolo produced by irregular plucking of a mandolin is characterized by the average plucking rate, as well as the onset and amplitude deviations. The fluctuation of a tremolo elicited by only the average plucking rate is called the "1st fluctuation," and that elicited by onset and amplitude deviations is called the "2nd fluctuation." The procedure for estimating the fluctuation strength, which represents the sensation of hearing fluctuation from sounds, such as amplitude-modulated or

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... y-modulated sounds with only the 1st fluctuation, has been developed. However, a procedure for a tremolo with both 1st and 2nd fluctuations has not been investigated. Therefore, we developed a procedure for estimating fluctuation strength from a tremolo produced by irregular plucking of a mandolin. We calculated the feature parameters of a tremolo, and estimated fluctuation strength from the tremolo using the calculated parameters. We found that this procedure that is based on not only the 1st fluctuation but also the 2nd fluctuation approximately represents the sensation of hearing fluctuation (adjusted R 2 ¼ 0:76), and is better than the representation obtained using a procedure based on conventional methods (R 2 ¼ 0:58). Thus, we developed a procedure for estimating fluctuation strength from a tremolo produced by irregular plucking of a mandolin.