Patent ID: 8208643
Filing Date: 2012-06-26
Classification: G06F,G11B

Abstract:
1. A method of generating an audio thumbnail for a musical piece, comprising: inputting a musical piece; identifying locations of plural different repeating segments within the musical piece by identifying initial sets of repeating segments, each initial set including two repeating segments, and then performing, based on specified rules, combining and splitting operations including combining two initial sets that each have one repeating segment overlapping in time into a single set of three repeating segments; detecting a singing segment within the musical piece based on a calculated singing metric that indicates when singing is present; obtaining a thumbnail criterion that defines a location of an audio thumbnail by reference to generic musical structure; selecting a segment of the musical piece as the audio thumbnail based on the thumbnail criterion, together with the location of at least one of the plural different repeating segments and a location of at least a portion of the singing segment; and at least one of playing the audio thumbnail and storing the audio thumbnail for future playing.