System and methodology of coordinated collaboration among users and groups

• US 20080060499A1
• Filed: 11/01/2007
• Published: 03/13/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/1996
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bama Gaming LLC (Equitable IP Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Bassilic Technologies LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Sitrick, David
• Granted Patent: US 8,692,099 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 84/477R
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 15/002 Electrically operated systems
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 15/023 Electrically operated
• CPC Class Codes: G10G 1/00 Means for the representation of music
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/0008 Associated control or indicating means
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2220/015 Musical staff, tablature or score displays, e.g. for score reading during a performance

Abstract

A musical workstation system produces a display presentation in one of a musical composition responsive to musical composition data and responsive to one or both of input variables and a selected operating mode. The system is comprised of (1) means to provide the musical composition data (such as local storage (ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, hard disk etc.), or via a communications interface to an external device (such as another music workstation, a master controller, a computer), a memory, a selection subsystem, a controller, and a display subsystem. The memory selectively stores the received original musical compositions. The selection subsystem determines a selected operating mode and display format. The controller, responsive to the selection subsystem, provides means for selectively controlling the storing of the musical composition data in memory and selectively processing (e.g. altering) the stored musical composition data responsive to the selected operating mode and the input variables to produce a particular one of a plurality of processed results, such as external communications, operating, mode, transformation to derivative musical compositions, etc. The music workstation can coordinate communications, or be a slave device, with one or more external devices, such as other music workstations, a master workstation, a controller, etc. The display system provides for selection of original compositions, creation of derivative compositions, distribution of compositions, monitoring of each performer'"'"'s performance, group virtual performances, and also allows for local and distributed retrieval and editing of musical compositions.

Claims

27. A method of providing a display presentation among a plurality of computing workstations, said method comprising:

providing communications with a respective first computing workstation, of image data representative of at least one visual image;

providing local storage of the image data responsive to the communications;

providing locally generated data generated relative to a local visual display presentation of a respective portion of the visual image;

storing the locally generated data;

generating a display presentation output responsive to the image data and the locally generated data; and

providing a local visual display presentation at the respective first computing workstation, representative of a combined visual image responsive to the display presentation output;

communicating said locally generated data from the first computing workstation to at least one other of a plurality of computing workstations,

providing a local visual display presentation at the respective at least one other of a plurality of computing workstations, representative of the communicated locally generated data and the image data.

28. The method as in claim 27, further comprising:

an input device generating an output of user performance data providing the locally generated data responsive to an input by a respective user provided concurrent to the respective local visual display presentation at the respective one of the individual workstations.

29. The method as in claim 28, wherein the system provides a display presentation of differences between an expected output of user performance data based upon the local visual presentation as compared to the output of the respective user performance data for the first one of the individual workstations.

30. The method as in claim 28,

wherein the system provides combining logic, responsive to the user performance data output from each of the plurality of individual workstations, to provide a combined output of composite virtual performance data;

wherein the combining logic synchronizes and combines the user performance data from the plurality of individual workstation to generate the composite virtual performance data and provides communicating of said composite virtual performance data to at least one the plurality of individual workstation; and

wherein at least one of the plurality of individual workstation s provides a local presentation representative of at least one of an audio display, a visual display, and an audiovisual display, representative of the combination of the user performance data of all of the communicating plurality of individual workstations, responsive to the composite virtual performance data.

31. The method as in claim 27,

wherein the image data is music data;

wherein the input apparatus provides changes to create modified music data; and

wherein the first one of the individual workstations provides communicating of the modified music data to at least one other of the plurality of other individual workstations, wherein said at least one other of the plurality of other individual workstations provides a local display presentation representative of a visual image of the selected musical composition along with the changes, responsive to the modified music data.

32-1. The method as in claim 32,

wherein selected ones of the plurality of the individual workstations are associated into defined subsets;

and

wherein each of the selected plurality of the individual workstations is associated with at least one of the defined subsets;

wherein communication is provided among the selected ones of each said defined subset, of the respective edit data and is communicated to the individual workstations of said respective associated defined subset from each respective selected one of the individual workstations, wherein each said respective selected one of the individual workstations provides a respective local display presentation responsive to the communication of the respective edit data.

33. The method as in claim 33, wherein at least one of the individual workstation is a master that communicates its respective edit data to all other ones of the plurality of individual workstations.

34. The method as in claim 34,

wherein the master is for use by at least one of a conductor, band leader, teacher, manager, group leader, librarian, group member, and composer.

35. A method of displaying, the method comprising:

providing a plurality of display subsystems;

communicating data representative of a visual display presentation;

storing the data in a database;

processing the data for visual display;

displaying a visual presentation on at least one of the display subsystems, responsive to processing of the data;

providing user input data responsive to a user input provided in response to the displaying of a respective portion of the visual presentation, to create associated user data representative of the user input;

storing the associated user data;

displaying a visual representation of a modified video presentation on the at least one display subsystem responsive to the data and the associated user data;

communicating the associated user data from the at least one of the display subsystems to the at least one of the other display subsystems; and

displaying a visual representation of the data and the associated user data on the at least one other of the display subsystems responsive to the communicated associated user data.

36. The method as in claim 35, further comprising:

processing the user input data of each of the a plurality of display subsystems to create discrete time samples;

communicating the discrete time samples;

synchronizing the discrete time samples from the communicating communicated to provide synchronized communicated time samples;

combining the synchronized communicated time samples into combined virtual user data;

communicating the combined virtual user data utilized to provide a respective local presentation comprised of at least one of an audio presentation, a visual presentation, and an audiovisual presentation, responsive to the combined virtual user data;

providing communications interface by each of the display subsystems of the data representative of the respective visual presentation at said respective one of the plurality of display subsystems; and

providing the respective local presentation at each of the display subsystems responsive to the communicating of the combined virtual user data.

37. The method as in claim 36, wherein the visual display presentation is representative of notation for a user performance, comprised of at least one of musical notation conveying performance information to the user and non-musical notation conveying performance information to the user.

38. The method as in claim 36,

wherein the display subsystems are individual music workstations,

wherein the combined virtual user data represents combined individual musical performances.

39. A display system providing a visual display presentation, the system comprising:

a plurality of display subsystems each comprised of;

memory for storing and retrieving display data utilized to generate a visual representation of a respective associated image;

a communications subsystem providing an interface for communication of data for storage in and retrieval from the memory;

input apparatus responsive to a user input to provide user data responsive to the user input and further providing making of specific changes associated with respective portions of the visual display presentation, to create a modified visual display presentation,

wherein the user data is selectively stored in the memory as representative of the specific changes and is associated with the respective portions;

a processing subsystem, coupled to the memory, providing processing of at least one of the display data and the user data to provide presentation data;

a presentation apparatus providing a visual display presentation of a visual image corresponding to the display data and to the user data, responsive to the presentation data;

a communications interface providing communications of the associated user data from a first one of the plurality of display subsystems to at least one other one of the plurality of display subsystems;

wherein the at least one other one of the plurality of display subsystems provides a visual display presentation of the modified visual display presentation, responsive to the communicated communications interface.

40. The system as in claim 39,

wherein the processing subsystem provides a sequencing of a plurality of sub-portions of the respective visual display presentation responsive to the user input.

41. The system as in claim 39, wherein the input apparatus is at least one of:

a touch-screen video display, a hands-free interface, a footswitch, an instrument input, a keyboard, a mouse, an audio input, a source of an analog signal, a source of a digital data, a switch, a touch input device, a motion sensor, a source of motion capture data, and a microphone.

42. The system as in claim 39,

wherein each of the plurality of the display subsystems is physically located at a separate one of a plurality of locations,

wherein each of the display subsystems provides integrating of simultaneous user input as provided from the plurality of locations of the display subsystems, into a combined data,

wherein each of the display subsystems provides accepting of the respective input data from each of the other plurality of music display workstations;

wherein each of the display subsystems provides processing of the its input data into respective discrete time samples;

wherein each of the display subsystems provides communication of its respective said discrete time samples to the other plurality of display subsystems;

wherein each of the display subsystems provides synchronizing of the respective discrete time samples communicated from each of the other of the plurality of display subsystems to provide synchronized communicated time samples;

wherein each of the display subsystems provides a combining of the synchronized communication time samples into combined virtual data; and

wherein each of the display subsystems provides a presentation of a display presentation corresponding to the at least one of an audio presentation, a visual video presentation, and an audiovisual presentation, responsive to the combined virtual data.

43. The system as in claim 42, wherein the synchronizing is further comprised of providing a common time reference signal, and utilizing the common time reference signal to synchronize the discrete time samples from each of the plurality of display subsystems.

44. The system as in claim 39, wherein the input apparatus provides multiple different signals, wherein the visual display presentation changes over time to display each respective one of a plurality of locations, wherein the multiple different signals provide control of movement of the visual display presentation as among and within the plurality of locations to provide at least one of forward movement to a respective one of the plurality of locations, backward movement to a respective one of the plurality of locations, and movement to a marked location of a respective one of the plurality of locations.

45. The system as in claim 39,

wherein each of the display subsystems provides controlled addressable communications for selectively receiving the user data.

46. The system as in claim 45,

wherein the addressable communications of the user data is selectably addressable to defined subgroups of defined ones of the plurality of the display subsystems from within the plurality of the display subsystems;

and

wherein the addressable communications provides a mapping to each of the defined ones of the plurality of the display subsystems within each of the subgroups.