Three Apple patents have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office regarding GarageBand, the music creation component of Apple's iLife suite.

Patent 20100162878 is for a music instruction system. Per the patent a song audio is played and a graphical representation of a musical instrument contributing to the audio is displayed. A fingering display is overlayed on the graphical representation of the instrument during the playing of song. The fingering display is synchronized to the song audio. During the playing of the song audio, the tempo of the song is adjusted.

The pitch of the song is substantially preserved in real-time despite the tempo adjustment. In addition, the synchronization between the fingering display and the audio are maintained in real-time in view of the adjusted tempo. The inventors are Gerhard H. Lengeling, Alexander Soren, Jan-hinnerk Helms, Alexander H. Little, John Danty, Matthew C. Evans, Timothy B. Martin, Ole Lagemann and Stefan Pillhofer.

Patent 20100162880 is for a method and system for music instruction files. Per the invention, a graphical view of a file component associated with an audio that is displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI) is automatically switched during playback of the audio. The switching is based on a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) view-switching track associated with a project file for the audio. In various embodiments, a musical instrument displayed in the GUI is automatically switched during playback of the audio based on a MIDI instrument-switching track associated with the same project file.

Additionally, a metronome beat associated with the audio is automatically switched between on and off during playback of the audio based at least in part on a MIDI metronome-switching track associated with the song audio. The inventors are Oliver Helmut Luedecke, Gunter Udo Mensch and Stefan Pillhofer.

Patent 20100169775 involves an audio processing interface. Per the patent a graphical element resembling an instrument amplifier having audio control parameters is displayed through a graphical user interface (GUI). An additional graphical element resembling one or more instrument effects pedals is displayed. Each instrument effects pedal has separate audio control parameters.

An audio input is received from an instrument. The audio input is processed according to the audio control parameters associated with the one or more instrument effects pedals and the instrument amplifier. The audio resulting from the processing is provided as an output. The inventors are Thorsten K.S. Quandt and Jan-Hinnerk Helms.