Systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and playing musical compositions

• US 20070186752A1
• Filed: 01/26/2007
• Published: 08/16/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Medialab Solutions LLC
• Original Assignee: Medialab Solutions LLC
• Inventors: Georges, Alain, Damevski, Voit
• Granted Patent: US 7,655,855 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 84/609
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/165 Management of the audio stream, e.g. setting of volume, audio stream path
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/0025 Automatic or semi-automatic music composition, e.g. producing random music, applying rules from music theory or modifying a musical piece automatically producing a series of tones G10H1/26
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/0041 in coded form
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/365 the accompaniment information being stored on a host computer and transmitted to a reproducing terminal by means of a network, e.g. public telephone lines
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2210/145 Composing rules, e.g. harmonic or musical rules, for use in automatic composition; Rule generation algorithms therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2210/151 using templates, i.e. incomplete musical sections, as a basis for composing
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2220/101 for graphical creation, edition or control of musical data or parameters
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2220/315 for joystick-like proportional control of musical input; Videogame input devices used for musical input or control, e.g. gamepad, joysticks
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2230/015 PDA [personal digital assistant] or palmtop computing devices used for musical purposes, e.g. portable music players, tablet computers, e-readers or smart phones in which mobile telephony functions need not be used
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/056 MIDI or other note-oriented file format
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/061 MP3, i.e. MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, lossy audio compression
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/071 Wave, i.e. Waveform Audio File Format, coding, e.g. uncompressed PCM audio according to the RIFF bitstream format method
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/091 Info, i.e. juxtaposition of unrelated auxiliary information or commercial messages with or between music files
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/145 Sound library, i.e. involving the specific use of a musical database as a sound bank or wavetable; indexing, interfacing, protocols or processing therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/165 Memory card, i.e. removable module or card for storing music data for an electrophonic musical instrument
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/241 Telephone transmission, i.e. using twisted pair telephone lines or any type of telephone network
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/285 USB, i.e. either using a USB plug as power supply or using the USB protocol to exchange data
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2250/211 Random number generators, pseudorandom generators, classes of functions therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2250/595 ADPCM [adaptive differential pulse code modulation]

Abstract

Systems and methods for creating, modifying, interacting with and playing music are provided, particularly systems and methods employing a top-down process, where the user is provided with a musical composition that may be modified and interacted with and played and/or stored (for later play). The system preferably is provided in a handheld form factor, and a graphical display is provided to display status information, graphical representations of musical lanes or components which preferably vary in shape as musical parameters and the like are changed for particular instruments or musical components such as a microphone input or audio samples. An interactive auto-composition process preferably is utilized that employs musical rules and preferably a pseudo random number generator, which may also incorporate randomness introduced by timing of user input or the like, the user may then quickly begin creating desirable music in accordance with one or a variety of musical styles, with the user modifying the auto-composed (or previously created) musical composition, either for a real time performance and/or for storing and subsequent playback. In addition, the present invention makes use of node-based music generation as part of a system and method to broadcast and receive music data files, which are then used to generate and play music. By incorporating the music generation process into a node/subscriber unit, the bandwidth-intensive systems of conventional techniques can be avoided. Consequently, the bandwidth can preferably be also used for additional features such as node-to-node and node-to-base music data transmission. The present invention is characterized by the broadcast of relatively small data files that contain various parameters sufficient to describe the music to the node/subscriber music generator.

Claims

1. A method for generating broadcast music comprising the steps of:

generating a music data file;

broadcasting the music data file from a base station to a plurality of nodes;

receiving the music data file at one or more of the plurality of nodes;

extracting musical definition data from the music data file, wherein the musical definition data provides information regarding a song data structure and data for musical parameters in accordance with the song data structure;

processing the musical definition data, wherein a song in accordance with the song data structure and the musical parameters is generated by the one or more of the plurality of nodes; and

playing the generated song at the one or more of the plurality of nodes.

2. A system for generating a musical composition based on received music data file, comprising:

a transmitter/receiver, wherein the transmitter/receiver transmits and receives data from/to one or more second systems remote from the system, wherein the data received by the system includes at least a music data file;

a music generation device, wherein the music generation device executes at least a music generation algorithm, wherein musical rules are applied to musical data in accordance with the music generation algorithm to generate music output for a musical composition;

a memory, wherein at least the received music data file is stored in the memory;

wherein, musical data is generated based on data from the received music data file, wherein the music generation device generates the musical composition based on the received music data file.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, further comprising a user input, wherein activation of the user input by a user causes data in the received music data file to be modified, wherein a modified music data file is created, wherein the music generation device generates a modified musical composition based on the modified data file.

4. The apparatus of claim 3, wherein the modified data file is transmitted by the transmitter/receiver for reception by one or more remote systems, wherein the one or more remote systems may generate the modified musical composition based on the modified data file.