Education and demonstration – Occupation
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-02
2001-09-11
Rovnak, John Edmund (Department: 3713)
Education and demonstration
Occupation
C434S118000, C434S156000, C434S227000, C434S30700R, C434S308000, C084S47000P
Reexamination Certificate
active
06287124
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to musical performance practicing devices and methods for assisting in manual performance practice on musical instruments, and more particularly to an improved musical performance practicing device and method which provide a variety of training menus to allow a trainee player to acquire a skill necessary for performance of a particular music piece or composition.
For people which want to practice performing on a musical instrument, particularly on the piano, it has been conventional to go to school where they are trained in a fundamental performance technique step by step in accordance with some instruction book (“Beyer” in the case of the piano). However, as generally appreciated today, it would take an enormous amount of time to acquire a sufficient ability or skill in playing the piano and thus practice on the piano has to be started in childhood and done continually; in this sense, the above-mentioned approach can not be suitably applied to those who start practicing on the piano only after having grown up to adulthood.
In recent years, musical instruments equipped with an automatic performance function have been used for practice on the natural piano and the like. In this case, each of such musical instruments automatically performs a designated target music piece, i.e., a composition which a trainee player aims to perform, so that the player can practice performing the entire music piece or repetitively performing only a selected partial phrase of the music piece with the instrument's automatic performance as a performance assistance or guide.
The above-mentioned conventional approach of mastering a performance skill step by step starting with the fundamental performance technique is not suitable for adults, because adults tend to feel it troublesome to go to school and it is often difficult for them to spare a practice time due to their busy schedule or the like. Although many adults may consider it unnecessary to do the fundamental practice at their age, not a few of them wish to become skillful or proficient enough to perform one to several music pieces, and these enthusiastic persons can practice by use of the above-mentioned musical instrument equipped with an automatic performance function. However, if they stick to the approach of practicing a predetermined music piece repetitively with the aid of the instrument's automatic performance, there would arise the problems that their skill acquired through the practice can not be applied to any other compositions than the predetermined music piece and they easily get tired of the stereotyped practice.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a musical performance practicing device and method which allows a trainee player to practice performing a predetermined training music piece without getting tired of the practice and also apply a skill acquired through the practice to performance of other music pieces.
In order to accomplish the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a musical performance practicing device which comprises: a designating section that designates a target music piece which a player aims to perform; a lesson information supplying section that supplies lesson information to be used for practice in performing the target music piece designated by the designating section, the lesson information being prepared by combining information descriptive of a plurality of training music pieces having particular relations to the target music piece; and a control section that controls player's performance practice on the basis of the lesson information supplied by the lesson information supplying section.
The target music piece is one which a trainee player aims to perform well through practice and which is selected, by a user or player operating the designating section, from among music pieces of various genres such as classical music, popular music and enka (Japanese popular ballads). Although an average performance skill may be acquired using an training music piece of a music genre other than that of the target music piece, the traditional style of musical performance practice would take great amounts of time and training effort to become proficient enough for performing the target music piece, because it was customary to repetitively practice performing the whole of such an other-genre training music piece or to practice performing only a portion of the training music piece. Further, because most of the persons who do this kind of practice have little knowledge of music, it is difficult for them to judge what kind of music piece and what kind of phrase of the music piece should be selected in order to achieve fruitful practice. Thus, to allow the player to acquire a skill necessary for performing the target music piece in a shorter time and with a smaller amount of training effort, the lesson information employed in this invention is constructed by appropriately combining information of a plurality of optimum training music pieces selected on the basis of various kinds of musical factors, such as a music genre, key, rhythm and beat, of the target music piece. It will be appreciated that the lesson information may be one previously made in accordance with the target music piece or may be constructed through software means using a database. Further, the lesson information may be formulated so as to allow training music pieces to be selected taking user's preference into account. In this manner, a performance skill acquired through the practice according to the present invention can be effectively applied to performance of other music pieces than the target music piece, and the trainee player can continue doing performance practice without getting tired of the practice.
In a preferred implementation of the invention, the training music pieces included in the lesson information are other than the designated target music piece but at least appear to be useful for the player to acquire a skill necessary for performing the target music piece. To allow the trainee player to acquire the necessary skill, such training music pieces are selected which require special fingering, such as overcross-fingering, undercross-fingering and successive depression of a same key, and the lesson information is constructed on the basis of the thus-selected training music pieces. Because the training music pieces included in the lesson information are different from the designated target music piece, the trainee player can continue practicing without getting tired of the practice, and it is possible for the player to acquire the skill necessary for performing the target music piece in a short time and with a small amount of training.
In a preferred implementation, the training music pieces included in the lesson information are classified into a plurality of groups according to levels of performance skill required for performance of the training music pieces. Players who aim to perform a particular target music piece may greatly vary in their performance ability; that is, some of the players may already have a certain level of performance skill in a musical instrument in question and other players may not have any experience in playing the musical instrument. By classifying the training music pieces included in the lesson information into a plurality of groups by the levels of required performance skill as proposed here, each of the players of different performance levels can start performance practice with an optimum training music (which fits his or her current level of performance skill) and then continue practicing up to higher levels on a step-by-step basis.
Each of the training music pieces included in the lesson information may comprise accompaniment information and melody information and at least a performance based on one of the accompaniment information and melody information can be muted depending on a desired content of training. Because each of the training music pieces in the le
Yamagishi Mikio
Yamaura Atsushi
Rossi & Associates
Rovnak John Edmund
Yamaha Corporation
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