Music search engine

• US 6,678,680 B1
• Filed: 01/06/2000
• Issued: 01/13/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 01/06/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Concert Technology Corporation
• Original Assignee: Mark Woo
• Inventors: Woo, Mark
• Primary Examiner(s): LE, UYEN T
• Application Number:
  US09/478,696
• Time in Patent Office: 1,468 Days
• Field of Search: 707/6, 707/3, 707/1, 707/100, 707/104.1, 846/09, 846/45, 846/02, 846/18, 846/49, 846/56
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/634 Query by example, e.g. query by humming
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/683 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99933 Query processing, i.e. searching
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99936 Pattern matching access

Abstract

A music search method for finding a desired song in a song database. The method comprises generating a difference sequence for each song in the song database by determining the relative difference between adjacent notes. Next, a note sequence is chosen for the song to be found within the song database. A difference argument is generated for the note sequence by determining the relative difference between adjacent notes. The difference argument for the note sequence and the difference sequence for each song in the song database is compared. The desired song is found if the difference argument for the note sequence corresponds to a portion of the difference sequence for the desired song, or if the net difference at the closest match position is within a set difference threshold.

Claims

1. A computerized music search method, comprising:

generating a song database of a plurality of songs;

assigning an index value for each note of each song in the song database;

generating a difference sequence by calculating a quantitative difference of the index values between every two successive notes of each song;

inputting a sequence of notes;

assigning an index value for each note of the input sequence;

generating an input difference argument by calculating a quantitative difference of the index value between every two successive notes of the input sequence;

adding a first symbol to any of the quantitative relative differences of index value when the quantitative relative difference of the index value is larger than one octave, and adding a second symbol to any of the quantitative relative differences of the index value when the difference is smaller than one octave; and

searching the database to find the song with the difference sequence matching the difference argument.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising assigning a fraction of an octave as the index value to each note of each song in the database and assigning a fraction of an octave as the index value to each note of the input sequence.