Abstract: The invention concerns a method for characterizing the timbre of a time-varying sound signal s(t) using at least one descriptor, where the at least one descriptor includes a harmonic spectral spread of the sound signal s(t). The sound signal s(t) may be compared to other sound signals using the at least one descriptor. The at least one descriptor may also include a harmonic spectral deviation of the sound signal s(t).

Abstract: A method of processing a sound sequence corresponding in particular to a piece of music includes a succession of subsequences from among at least an introduction, a verse, a refrain, a bridgeway, a theme, a motif, a movement, in which: a) a spectral transform is applied to said sequence to obtain spectral coefficients varying as a function of time in said sequence, b) at least one subsequence repeated in said sequence is determined by statistical analysis of said spectral coefficients, and c) start and end instants of a first subsequence, such as a verse, and of a second subsequence, such as a refrain, are evaluated so as to substantially concatenate the first subsequence with the second subsequence.

Abstract: The invention concerns a method for characterizing in accordance with specific parameters, a sound signal x(t) varying in time t in different frequency bands k, and referenced x(k, t). It consists in storing the signal x(t), calculating and storing the energy E(k, t) of said signal x(k, t) for each of said bands k, k varying from 1 to K and in accordance with a time window h(t) of duration 2N, and in a second step, calculating the energy variation and the signal phase E(k, t) in J frequency bands, the J values referenced F(j, k, t) and ?(j, k, t) thus obtained constituting the specific parameters of an extract of duration 2N of the sound signal x(t) and in repeating said calculation at every S time interval.

Abstract: The invention concerns a method for characterizing in accordance with at least a descriptor, the timbre of a time-variable sound signal (s(t) for a duration D, which consists in defining said descriptor by the harmonic spectral scope of the signal.