12. The method of claim 9 wherein step d) includes computing a score for the impulses at each of a plurality of frames in time.
9. A method for performing speech processing comprising steps of: a) receiving a signal including speech; b) accessing a database of keyword models, wherein the database of keyword models includes an ensemble of filters describing an evolution of phonetic events associated with each keyword in the database; c) decomposing, with an electronic system, the signal including speech into a sparse set of impulses; d) accessing, with an electronic system, the database of keywords and process the sparse set of impulses with information from the database of keyword models; e) identifying, with an electronic system, keywords within the signal including speech based on step d); and f) controlling operation the electronic system based on the keywords identified in step e).