Method and apparatus for interactively creating new arrangements for musical compositions

摘要

Methods and apparatus are provided for interactively creating new arrangements of prerecorded musical works. The musical work is represented on a digital medium in the form of a database comprising a plurality of fixed musical sequences, and a template comprising a plurality of sequence positions. Each sequence position may represent one track of a musical arrangement, such as the performance of one instrumental group, or a musical solo. The various tracks are intended to be played simultaneously, in parallel. In addition, some of the sequence positions may represent fixed-length, partial segments of a single track that are intended to be played serially. Using a menu- driven, graphical interface, a user interactively selects a plurality of the fixed musical sequences, as desired, and allocates the selected sequences among the various fixed sequence positions specified by the template. The musical sequences are then combined in accordance with the user's selections, thus creating a new arrangement of the musical work. In this way, users of varying levels of sophistication can be given a musically structured framework for interactively constructing new arrangements of recorded musical works.