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

• US 7,655,855 B2
• Filed: 01/26/2007
• Issued: 02/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Medialab Solutions LLC
• Original Assignee: Medialab Solutions LLC
• Inventors: Georges, Alain, Damevski, Voit
• Primary Examiner(s): Donels, Jeffrey
• Application Number:
  US11/698,796
• Publication Number:
  US 20070186752A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,103 Days
• Field of Search: 846/09, 846/34, 846/45
• 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 joysticks per se G06F3/033, G05G9/047, A63F13/20
• 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 touch-screen interfaces G10H2220/096
• 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 metadata G10H2240/075
• 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 musical processes using white noise or nonwhite noise generators G10H2250/295; noise formant generator G10H2250/495; magnetic or electromagnetic noise shielding G10H2220/565
• 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 system for generating a musical composition based on received music data, 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 the received music data, wherein the received music data comprises seed information to enable a music piece to be faithfully recreated;

a music generation device, wherein the music generation device executes at least a music generation algorithm;

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

wherein, musical data is generated based on the seed information from the received music data, wherein the music generation device generates the musical composition based on the received music data using the music generation algorithm.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a user input, wherein activation of the user input by a user causes data in the received music data to be modified, wherein modified music data is created, wherein the music generation device generates a modified musical composition based on the modified music data.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the modified music data 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 music data.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the music generation device generates an audio output for an entertainment device.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the received music data comprises timing loop information used by the music generation device to generate the music output.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the music generation device comprises a video game system, and wherein the audio output comprises an audio output of the video game system.

7. The system of claim 6, further comprising:

a modular flash memory card for saving video game data, wherein the video game data comprises the seed information.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the musical composition comprises an audio component to a video game, wherein the musical composition varies in part based on action development of the video game.

9. A method for generating audio comprising the steps of:

generating first music data that corresponds to a music piece, wherein the first music data is generated at a first entertainment device;

transmitting the first music data from the first entertainment device to a second entertainment device via a network;

receiving the first music data at the second entertainment device;

extracting first musical definition data from the first music data, wherein the first musical definition data provides information regarding first musical parameters;

processing the first musical definition data at the second entertainment device, wherein a first music portion is composed in accordance with the first musical parameters;

playing the first music portion at the second entertainment device;

generating second music data that corresponds to the music piece, wherein the second music data is generated at the second entertainment device; and

transmitting the second music data from the second entertainment device to the first entertainment device via the network.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising the steps of:

receiving the second music data at the first entertainment device;

extracting second musical definition data from the second music data, wherein the second musical definition data provides information regarding second musical parameters;

processing the second music definition data at the first entertainment device, wherein a second music portion is composed in accordance with the second musical parameters; and

playing the second music portion at the first entertainment device.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the first entertainment device comprises a video game system, and wherein the first music data is generated during execution of a video game.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the first and second entertainment devices each comprise a video game system, and wherein the first music data is generated during video game execution on the first entertainment device, and the second music data is generated during video game execution on the second entertainment device.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the second music data comprises timing loop information used during the video game execution on the first entertainment device to generate the second music portion.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the second musical definition data comprises music component information associated with one or more video game characters.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the music component information is processed by a composition functional block based in part upon a proximity of the one or more video game characters.

16. A system comprising:

a first music data generation functional block that generates first music data corresponding to a music piece to be composed at a remote station, wherein the first music data is comprised of first music definition parameters;

a music data transmission functional block that transmits the first music data to the remote station via a network;

a music data reception functional block that receives second music data from the remote station via the network, wherein the second music data is comprised of second music definition parameters;

a music composition algorithm that generates a first music output based in part on the first and second music definition parameters.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the first and second music definition parameters comprise loop timing information used by the music composition algorithm to generate the first music output.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the remote station comprises a video game system and wherein the first music output is generated during execution of a video game.

19. The system of claim 16, wherein the music composition algorithm is located in a video game system.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising:

a modular flash memory card for saving video game data, wherein the video game data comprises the first music definition parameters.