System and method for the creation and playback of animated, interpretive, musical notation and audio synchronized with the recorded performance of an original artist

Abstract

A music application guides a user with some musical experience through the steps of creating and editing a musical enhancement file that enhances and plays in synchronicity with an audio signal of an original artist's recorded performance. This enables others, perhaps with lesser musical ability than the original artist, to play-along with the original artist by following melodic, chordal, rhythmic, and verbal prompts. The music application accounts for differences in the timing of the performance from a standard tempo by guiding the user through the process of creating a tempo map for the performance and by associating the tempo map with MIDI information of the enhancement file. Enhancements may contain MIDI information, audio signal information, and/or video signal information which may be played back in synchronicity with the recorded performance to provide an aural and visual aid to others playing-along who may have less musical experience.