Music composition

Claim 1

A method of composing music, comprising: receiving a first series of musical notes defining a first melody having a first harmony; analyzing the first harmony within the first melody, by forming examples from the first series of musical notes, and deriving, in real-time, at least first and second rules relating to the first melody, the second rule conflicting with the first rule, and each of said first and second rules including a weight associated therewith; receiving additional notes of said melody and forming additional examples from said additional notes; determining ones of said additional examples that agree with said first rule and increasing a weight of said first rule when an example agrees with said first rule, and determining ones of said additional examples that agree with said second rule and increasing a weight of said second rule when an example agrees with said second rule; receiving another melody to which a harmony is to be formed; evaluating said another melody using both of said first and second rules; and when both said first and second rules each apply to said another melody, applying the one of said rules which has the higher weight to said melody, in real-time.

Claim 2

A method of composing music, comprising: receiving a first series of musical notes defining a first melody having a first harmony; analyzing the first harmony within the first melody, by forming examples from the first series of musical notes, and deriving, in real-time, at least first and second rules relating to the first melody, the second rule conflicting with the first rule, and each of said first and second rules including a weight associated therewith; receiving additional notes of said melody and forming additional examples from said additional notes; determining ones of said additional examples that agree with said first rule and increasing a weight of said first rule when an example agrees with said first rule, and determining ones of said additional examples that agree with said second rule and increasing a weight of said second rule when an example agrees with said second rule; receiving another melody to which a harmony is to be formed; evaluating said another melody using both of said first and second rules; and when both said first and second rules each apply to said another melody, applying the one of said rules which has the higher weight to said melody, in real-time.

Claim 3

A method of analyzing musical information, comprising: converting the musical information from MIDI format to figured bass format; generating an example table from the figured bass musical information; determining a plurality of rules, each rule determined from two distinct examples within said example table, which are different than one another, one property of each rule relating to statistics of musical information in the examples; and applying filtering, segmentation, and subsumption pruning to the rule; and generating dependency data using the rule.

Claim 4

A method of analyzing musical information, comprising: converting the musical information from MIDI format to figured bass format; generating an example table from the figured bass musical information; determining a plurality of rules, each rule determined from two distinct examples within said example table, which are different than one another, one property of each rule relating to statistics of musical information in the examples; and applying filtering, segmentation, and subsumption pruning to the rule; and generating dependency data using the rule.

Claim 5

A method of analyzing musical information, comprising: converting the musical information from MIDI format to figured bass format; generating an example table from the figured bass musical information; determining a plurality of rules, each rule determined from two distinct examples within said example table, which are different than one another, one property of each rule relating to statistics of musical information in the examples; wherein said determining a rule using the example table comprises calculating a hash value for an example; forming a preliminary rule linking the hash value to an attribute to be inferenced; and subjecting the preliminary rule to a quality test.

Claim 6

A method of analyzing musical information, comprising: converting the musical information from MIDI format to figured bass format; generating an example table from the figured bass musical information; determining a plurality of rules, each rule determined from two distinct examples within said example table, which are different than one another, one property of each rule relating to statistics of musical information in the examples; wherein said determining a rule using the example table comprises calculating a hash value for an example; forming a preliminary rule linking the hash value to an attribute to be inferenced; and subjecting the preliminary rule to a quality test.

Claim 12

A method of producing a database of rules for producing musical sounds, comprising: using first musical sounds as examples to derive a plurality of rules; organizing the rules in a rulebase; and removing a first rule from the rulebase if: the first rule and a second rule predict a same value of a same attribute, the first rule has more attributes than the second rule, all of the attributes of the first rule are present with substantially the same values in the second rule, and the second rule is correct at least as often as the first rule.

Claim 13

A method of producing a database of rules for producing musical sounds, comprising: using first musical sounds as examples to derive a plurality of rules; organizing the rules in a rulebase; and removing a first rule from the rulebase if: the first rule and a second rule predict a same value of a same attribute, the first rule has more attributes than the second rule, all of the attributes of the first rule are present with substantially the same values in the second rule, and the second rule is correct at least as often as the first rule.

Claim 17

A method of converting musical information of a musical piece from MIDI format to figured bass format, comprising transposing the musical piece to a standard key; segmenting the transposed musical piece into chords by beginning a new chord whenever a voice changes pitch; attempting to match each chord with a known chord to produce identified chords each having a root and a type; determining a position for each voice of each identified chord by comparing each voice's pitch with pitches allowed in the voice's matching known chord; and attempting to match each identified chord with a known function by comparing each identified chord's root and type with a table of common functions.

Claim 18

A method of converting musical information of a musical piece from MIDI format to figured bass format, comprising transposing the musical piece to a standard key; segmenting the transposed musical piece into chords by beginning a new chord whenever a voice changes pitch; attempting to match each chord with a known chord to produce identified chords each having a root and a type; determining a position for each voice of each identified chord by comparing each voice's pitch with pitches allowed in the voice's matching known chord; and attempting to match each identified chord with a known function by comparing each identified chord's root and type with a table of common functions.

Claim 30

A system which converts musical information of a musical piece from MIDI format to figured bass format, comprising a key transposer transposing the musical piece to a standard key; a segmenter segmenting the transposed musical piece into chords by beginning a new chord whenever a voice changes pitch; a chord matcher attempting to match each chord with a known chord to produce identified chords each having a root and a type; a position determiner determining a position for each voice of each identified chord by comparing each voice's pitch with pitches allowed in the voice's matching known chord; and a function matcher attempting to match each identified chord with a known function by comparing each identified chord's root and type with a table of common functions.

Claim 31

A system which converts musical information of a musical piece from MIDI format to figured bass format, comprising a key transposer transposing the musical piece to a standard key; a segmenter segmenting the transposed musical piece into chords by beginning a new chord whenever a voice changes pitch; a chord matcher attempting to match each chord with a known chord to produce identified chords each having a root and a type; a position determiner determining a position for each voice of each identified chord by comparing each voice's pitch with pitches allowed in the voice's matching known chord; and a function matcher attempting to match each identified chord with a known function by comparing each identified chord's root and type with a table of common functions.

Claim 32

A method of composing music, comprising: obtaining a sample of music whose style is to be analyzed; producing a plurality of examples from said sample of music; generating a plurality of rules from the plurality of examples, said rules predicting certain examples which follow other examples, and each said rule including weights associated therewith, said weights defining a statistical likelihood that said rule will be followed, increasing a weight of a rule when a particular example agrees with the rule; and decreasing a weight of the rule when a particular example does not agree with the rule.

Claim 33

A method of composing music, comprising: obtaining a sample of music whose style is to be analyzed; producing a plurality of examples from said sample of music; generating a plurality of rules from the plurality of examples, said rules predicting certain examples which follow other examples, and each said rule including weights associated therewith, said weights defining a statistical likelihood that said rule will be followed, increasing a weight of a rule when a particular example agrees with the rule; and decreasing a weight of the rule when a particular example does not agree with the rule.

Claim 36

A method of generating rules from a musical piece, comprising: obtaining musical information; converting said musical information to examples; determining a minimum number parameter, indicating a minimum number of agreements before a rule can be formed; comparing said examples to generate a prediction of attributes that will follow one another; determining if each said prediction has occurred before within said set of examples by a number of times having a predetermined relationship with said minimum number parameter; establishing a rule of the form "If (a) Then (b)" if said prediction has occurred said number of times having said predetermined relationship with said minimum number parameter; and establishing a weight associated with said rule, said weight indicative of a number of times that (a) correctly predicts (b).

Claim 37

A method of generating rules from a musical piece, comprising: obtaining musical information; converting said musical information to examples; determining a minimum number parameter, indicating a minimum number of agreements before a rule can be formed; comparing said examples to generate a prediction of attributes that will follow one another; determining if each said prediction has occurred before within said set of examples by a number of times having a predetermined relationship with said minimum number parameter; establishing a rule of the form "If (a) Then (b)" if said prediction has occurred said number of times having said predetermined relationship with said minimum number parameter; and establishing a weight associated with said rule, said weight indicative of a number of times that (a) correctly predicts (b).

Claim 47

A method of composing music, comprising: obtaining a sample of music whose style is to be analyzed; producing a plurality of examples from said sample of music; generating a plurality of rules from the plurality of examples, said rules predicting certain examples which follow other examples, and each said rule including weights associated therewith, said weights defining a statistical likelihood that said rule will be followed; storing all of said rules into a rulebase; analyzing a melody which using said rules in said rulebase to form a harmony accompanying said melody to provide an accompaniment to said melody according to said rulebase; listening to said accompaniment; and either taking no action based on said accompaniment in which case a weight which produced the harmony is unchanged, taking an action to indicate dislike of the result in which case said weight which produced the harmony is decreased, or taking an action to indicate like of the result in which case said weight is increased.

Claim 48

A method of composing music, comprising: obtaining a sample of music whose style is to be analyzed; producing a plurality of examples from said sample of music; generating a plurality of rules from the plurality of examples, said rules predicting certain examples which follow other examples, and each said rule including weights associated therewith, said weights defining a statistical likelihood that said rule will be followed; storing all of said rules into a rulebase; analyzing a melody which using said rules in said rulebase to form a harmony accompanying said melody to provide an accompaniment to said melody according to said rulebase; listening to said accompaniment; and either taking no action based on said accompaniment in which case a weight which produced the harmony is unchanged, taking an action to indicate dislike of the result in which case said weight which produced the harmony is decreased, or taking an action to indicate like of the result in which case said weight is increased.

Claim 53

A method of composing music, comprising: obtaining a sample of music whose style is to be analyzed; producing a plurality of examples from said sample of music; generating a plurality of rules from the plurality of examples, said rules predicting certain examples which follow other examples, and each said rule including weights associated therewith, said weights defining a statistical likelihood that said rule will be followed; storing all of said rules into a rulebase; using said rulebase to analyze another melody, by evaluating taking all of the plurality of rules in the rulebase in parallel and then resolves any conflicts between rules based on the rule weights.

Claim 54

A method of composing music, comprising: obtaining a sample of music whose style is to be analyzed; producing a plurality of examples from said sample of music; generating a plurality of rules from the plurality of examples, said rules predicting certain examples which follow other examples, and each said rule including weights associated therewith, said weights defining a statistical likelihood that said rule will be followed; storing all of said rules into a rulebase; using said rulebase to analyze another melody, by evaluating taking all of the plurality of rules in the rulebase in parallel and then resolves any conflicts between rules based on the rule weights.