A METHOD FOR SYNTHESIZING TIME-SENSITIVE RING TONES IN

COMMUNICATION DEVICES

BACKGROUND

FDELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the synthesis of melodic user-alerting tunes based on Indian classical music in personal and public communication devices. Principally, this invention can be applied to personal phones (landline as well as mobile) and public automated enquiry systems, as ring tones for incoming calls, call waiting, call holding and call transferring. Further, this invention may also find its application in products such as domestic doorbells, alarm clocks etc.

DISCUSSION OF PRIOR ART

In old styled telephonic instruments, the ring tone that is used to signal an incoming telephone call is usually produced by a ringer repeatedly striking one or two bells. In a mobile phone, the ringing tone is produced by an electronic buzzer, which produces a pitch of a given frequency or a combination of frequencies according to values in a data stream representative of a series of musical tones.

U.S. Patent 5,452,354 (Kyronlahti et al., issued on September 19, 1995) discloses a ringing tone apparatus, wherein subscriber identification information is used to generate the ringing tone. While this tone generation method is useful for producing different ringing tones for different subscribers, the ringing tones may sound too mechanical and may contain musical notes that are not pleasing when played together. Electronically producing music is well known in the art. For example, U.S. Patent 5,753,843 (Microsoft Corporation [Fay], issued on May 19, 1998) discloses a system and process for composing a musical section in response to a user's interaction with a multimedia presentation. As disclosed in Fay, the system includes a composition engine, a performance engine and an arbitrator. In order to carry out such a method, a large data

storage area is necessary. As disclosed in Fay, the required computer system has least an INTEL 386SX processor with at least two megabytes of RAM and at least five megabytes of disc storage space. Thus, while the selection of chords and the selection of personality are useful for a multimedia presentation, they are impractical for generating ringing tones in a small communication device, such as a telephone.

U.S. Patent 6,928,410 (Ichikawa et al., issued on August 9, 2005) discloses a method and apparatus for modification of a speech signal indicative of a stream of speech data having a plurality of syllables. The method comprises the steps of mapping the stream of speech data from the speech signal into a stream of tone data according to a linguistic rule regarding the syllables for providing a tone signal indicative of the stream of tone data forming a string of musical notes responsive to the tone signal for providing a carrier signal indicative of the string of musical notes; While this tone generation method is a random process and creates new ring tones with differences, the ringing tones may contain musical notes that are not pleasing when played together and may sound too dissonant

U.S. Patent 7,006,622 (Pauli Laine issued on February 28, 2006) discloses a method and apparatus for producing a ringing tone in a communication device, such as a mobile phone, an electronic organizer or a personal digital assistant, to signal an event in the communication device. The method includes the steps of generating a sequence of musical notes in a random fashion within a range of pitch and duration for defining the musical notes, modifying the sequence of musical notes based on a set of modification rules in order to produce a modified sequence, and repeating the modified sequence for forming a motif. This method also chooses the pitch and the duration of the note too randomly to fit them into any particular time signature or measure. The black key notes are also secluded from being used which in many cases, with other white notes, produce very pleasing musical scores. The music so generated also does not take into account the mood of the time and the ambiance.

A number of limitations present themselves with existing systems and methods, as elucidated below:

a) Monotony: In current systems, user-alerting tunes are predefined and set. For example, in the case of personal phones a tune is selected or downloaded (from the service providers' servers) and set as the alerting tune. The tune then is played every time an incoming call is placed. The tune is rendered monotonous. The situation is even worse in public domain systems like automated railway enquiry systems. When the user is put on hold, music is generally played. This tune remains the same over a long period of time. This sort of monotony might lead to an unsatisfactory user-experience.

b) Limitation of choice: Due to the limited memory capacities of the present systems only a limited number of tunes are available for the user to choose from. In addition, because the tunes are preset there is always a finite and a small range of tunes to select from. The current systems do not exploit the fact that the basic musical notes can be permuted and combined to produce almost an infinite combination of musical tunes, hi the present day mobile phones, the user generally has around 50 musical tunes to choose from. Though, the user can download new scores from the service provider's server, the choice still is limited and generally theses services come with a high price for each such download.

c) Inability of the users to compose musical tunes: Several of today's users alerting systems are provided with music composition engines using which the user can compose his/her preferred tunes. Besides having a substantial learning curve, on the user's part to acquire the knowledge and training required to compose melodic tunes, the work involved in composing individual melodies is expansive. Since most users are not be well versed with the subtleties and details of music (especially classical music), this prevents them from efficiently composing such sympathetic musical tunes. Although, the user may discern

between his/her likes and dislikes, they may not be able to compose a tune due to the aforementioned restrictions.

d) Constancy of tunes with respect to time: People in general, prefer different varieties of tunes at different times due to certain nuances about every tune

(Ragas in Indian classical music), that makes it especially appealing during a particular time-period of the day. Some tunes also are especially appealing during certain seasons (e.g. Raga Malhar during monsoon). Thus, with predefined tunes, there is no possibility of having the luxury of time-sensitive musical scores as user-alerting tunes.

d) Lack of responsiveness to users' mood: Apart from the notes in a musical tune, other attributes such as the pace, rhythm, beats, pitch (octave), etc. play an important role in making the tune appealing and suit the mood of the user. For example, the user might prefer a slow-paced and quietly rhythmic tune at nights.

The current systems of preset tunes cannot cater to the various moods of the user.

e) Lack of sufficient propagation of awareness about Indian classical music: An unfortunate aspect of the current systems is that the tunes are based on common, well-publicized music such as movie songs, popular symphonies, etc. This does not give the user an opportunity to explore and experience the vast and enriching possibilities of Indian classical music.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention proposes a method for synthesizing time-sensitive ring tones in communication devices. This invention puts forth a recursive method that generates a new tune associated with various functions of mobile devices, at user-defined time intervals. By making the generation of tunes dynamic and using a permutation of various classical notes, different tunes can be generated, thus ameliorating the problems

presented by prior art. This invention finds its application in the area of ring-tones for cellular phones, amongst several other applications.

By using the method of the present invention, the need for user-composed tunes is eliminated.

Since the proposed system is programmed to generate time-variant music, with predefined information about the selection of the time-sensitive Ragas and other dependent parameters, the user does not have to have a deep understanding of classical music and its nuances. Further, the proposed method composes music, while selecting the suitable time-dependent Raga, pace, rhythm and other parameters to ensure that sympathetic user-alerting tunes are generated. For example, in the aforementioned case, it would be preferable to have a ring tone based on a late-night based Raga such as Malkauns, say on a rhythmic pattern of "4/4' and at a slow pace, say with a metronome speed of 120, as opposed to loud invariant rock music, which the user might have selected as, a ring tone for their cellular phones, for use during, the day. The proposed invention is therefore capable of adapting to the needs of the user, as it varies in time and space.

The present invention further provides a one-button solution that allows the user to record whether they like or dislike a particular tune. The user, by putting a particular score in the

"Liked" or "Disliked" zone, gets the internal weighting matrix updated thereby making the future music more tuned to his/her choice. For example, if for a particular time period in a day, the system has been provided with 4 different Ragas, A, B, C and D. Initially, the probability of one of them being played during that time-period is equal, i.e. 0.25. After a while, if the user feels that Raga B is particularly appealing to him from among the four options, he may specify that he likes Raga B, the next time it is played (by means of a simple 'LIKED' or 'DISLIKED' input option in the system). This causes the probabilities of the playing of the 4 Ragas, to be modified slightly such the user preferred

Raga has a higher likelihood of being played earlier rather than later, say 0.3, and the probabilities of playing of the other 3 are correspondingly reduced.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

Figure 1 is a flowchart depicting the overall process of the music generation. Figure 2 depicts a sample musical score generated through the stochastic process proposed here based on the raga.

Figure 3 depicts a second sample of a musical score generated through the stochastic process proposed here based on the same raga. It shows the multiplicity of tunes available under the proposed method.

DETAILED DESCRD?TION OF THE INVENTION

The proposed system functions such that it generates a musical score based on a (time- dependent) Raga, once every preset or user-defined duration. If the user expects a more frequent innovation in the tunes, the duration can be reduced. Every time a tune is generated, it is stored (temporarily) in the memory of the device. The .device can be the * phones, public communication systems or the servers of the communication service providers in which case the tune has to be uploaded to the subscriber's personal devices. The stored tune can then be played back the next time the need arises and consequently the monotony of tunes is avoided.

The process of the proposed system is such that once in every preset or user-defined duration, a musical score is randomly generated (based on a time-dependent Raga), with certain pre-programmed restrictions to retain the randomness musical and adhere to the regulations of the Raga. This process is depicted in Fig. 1. Within a mobile device 1, a pre-set time is read 2. Following this, a preset Prάhara or time zone is chosen 3. This is followed by selecting a raga with a pre-defined probability p _r 4. After this, a time signature is selected with a pre-defined probability p _t 5. This is followed by choosing a rhythm with probability p _rh 6. This is succeeded by the step of selecting the notes according to the grammar of the Raga 7. Following this, a plurality of tracks is created 8 amongst which a sub-set corresponds to the raga, another subset corresponds to the percussion and the third subset corresponds to the taanpura (pitch). This is followed by

the creation of a multi-track, polyphonic digital file, recording the music in various formats, including the MIDI format 9. Each of the probabilities used in steps 4,5 and 6 can be varied based on user-response to the tunes generated.

Such restricted, yet random generation of musical scores translates into an almost infinite number of tunes that can be experienced by the user, with no two tunes ever being the same. Figures 2 and 3 show two such examples of musical scores based on the same Raga, generated using the scheme of the proposed system. It is evident that although the two scores are based on the same Raga, they generate completely different tunes. The differences are depicted in Figs. 2 and 3. The metronome speeds 1 are different making the two tunes dissimilar in tempo or pace. The Rhythms 2 are different and the types of notes chosen 3 (for example) are different. The rhythmic patterns based on the particular rhythm 4 (for example) are also chosen differently making the tunes sound completely dissimilar.