Patent ID: 7304231

Claim:
An apparatus for designating several segment classes to which temporal segments are assigned due to segment similarities, wherein the segments represent an audio piece, which is structured into main parts repeatedly occurring in the audio piece, comprising: a provider for providing a representation of the audio piece, in which the segments of the audio piece are assigned to various segment classes, wherein one segment class each can be associated with a main part; and a segment class designator formed to perform the main part selection for a first first-order candidate segment class and for a second second-order candidate segment class, wherein the second order is lower than the first order regarding a similarity of segments of the second candidate segment class to segments of the audio piece, examine whether the first-order candidate segment class has the temporally later segment in the audio signal, and designate the first-order candidate segment class as refrain segment class when it has the temporally later segment and to designate the second-order candidate segment class as stanza segment class.