Patent ID: 7164076

Claim:
A method of synchronizing a live musical performance with a reference performance, comprising: retrieving a set of records corresponding to a reference musical performance, the set of records including reference pitches and timestamps for determining positions of the reference pitches in the reference performance; sampling the live musical performance to produce a sequence of samples, each sample having an associated sample time and pitch value, wherein the sample times of successive samples in the sequence of samples are independent of the timestamps of the records of the reference musical performance; comparing the sample times of a sequence of respective samples of the live musical performance with the timestamps of the records of the reference performance, including, for each of a plurality of respective samples in the sequence of respective samples, comparing the sample time of the respective sample with a plurality of the timestamps of the records, including a timestamp that is earlier than the sample time of the respective sample and a timestamp that is later than the sample time of the respective sample; for each respective sample in the plurality of respective samples: selecting a reference pitch from a record having a timestamp that most closely matches the sample time of the respective sample; comparing the pitch value of the respective sample with the selected reference pitch; and scoring the live musical performance based on the results of the comparison.