Patent ID: 8271112

Claim:
A music information retrieval system comprising: a voice timbre feature and musical timbre feature storage section for storing voice timbre features of singing voices included in a plurality of songs, musical timbre features of the plurality of songs and a plurality of identifiers for the respective songs; a song data storage section for storing a plurality of song data of the songs in connection with the identifiers; a voice timbre similarity calculation section for calculating voice timbre similarities between one song and the respective remaining songs based on the voice timbre features of the one song and the remaining songs when the one song is selected from among the songs; a musical timbre similarity calculation section for calculating musical timbre similarities between the one song or another song and the respective remaining songs based on the musical timbre features of the one song or another song and the remaining songs when the one song or another song is selected from among the songs; a similar song retrieval and display section for retrieving a plurality of identifiers for songs including a singing voice that have the voice timbre similar to the voice timbre of the singing voice included in the one song or another song and having a musical timbre similar to the musical timbre of the one song or another song, based on the voice timbre similarities calculated by the voice timbre similarity calculation section and the musical timbre similarities calculated by the musical timbre similarity calculation section; and a song data reproduction section for extracting from the plurality of song data stored in the song data storage section one or more song data corresponding to one or more identifiers which are selected from among the plurality of identifiers displayed on the display, and reproducing the one or more song data, wherein: the similar song retrieval and display section displays the plurality of identifiers for the songs on the display, using a display format that allows magnitude relations of both the voice timbre similarities and the musical timbre similarities to be recognized; the display format has vertical and horizontal axes, one of the vertical and horizontal axes indicating the voice timbre similarity and the other of the vertical and horizontal axes indicating the musical timbre similarity; and the identifier for the one song is displayed at or in the vicinity of a point of intersection of a first virtual line and a second virtual line, the first virtual line being orthogonal to the one of the vertical and horizontal axes at a point indicating a voice timbre similarity of the one song, the second virtual line being orthogonal to the other of the horizontal and vertical axes at a point indicating a musical timbre similarity of the one song.