Music – Accessories – Teaching devices
Reexamination Certificate
2000-12-26
2002-12-17
Witkowski, Stanley J. (Department: 2837)
Music
Accessories
Teaching devices
Reexamination Certificate
active
06495747
ABSTRACT:
RELATED APPLICATION
This application claims priority from Japanese Patent Applications Nos. 11-367326 and 2000-341530, filed Dec. 24, 1999 and Nov. 9, 2000, respectively, the contents of which are incorporated hereinto by this reference.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for evaluating a practice musical performance by the user in comparison with a reference performance provided at the apparatus end, a storage medium containing a program therefor, and a client/server system architecture therefor.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has conventionally been known in the art apparatuses for evaluating a user's manual performance of music comparing with a reference musical performance of which music piece data are stored in an appropriate memory. A type of such apparatus is a dedicated training apparatus exclusively designed for training a pupil or user, and is so structured that the data of the pupil's manual performance operations are instantaneously processed according to the installed program for training so as to instantaneously notify the evaluation to the pupil, so that the pupil cannot practice playing freely from the beginning till the end of a piece of music or at a particularly intended span without minding (i.e. being interrupted by) the evaluation results. Another type of such apparatus is an electronic musical instrument equipped with an evaluation faculty on which a pupil can freely practice a manual performance without interruption by the apparatus in the midst of the performance, but the pupil has to set the instrument at the mode for evaluation and designate whether an evaluation report is to be outputted with respect to the pupil's manual performance, before the playback of the music piece data of the reference performance is started.
However, in the latter type of apparatus, once the playback of the music piece data of the reference performance has been started, the user cannot change the setting for whether to output an evaluation report or not in the midst of the performance or after the end of the performance, even in the case where the user wants an output of the evaluation report during the actual manual performance or in the case where the user has once requested a performance evaluation but later gives up getting a performance evaluation. For this reason, when the user gives up getting an evaluation report after he/she has set the apparatus to output an evaluation report, and when the user wants to have an evaluation report output after he/she has started a manual performance with the setting of no evaluation report output, the user has to stop the playback of the music piece data in the middle way to restart the playback of the music piece data as well as his/her manual performance from the beginning, which is very inconvenient for the user. And even in the case of an apparatus on which a performance of a fractional portion of a music piece is acceptable, the evaluation report is on the whole length of the inputted performance. Therefore, after a length of manual performance has been inputted, the user cannot get the evaluation about a particular portion or portions within the non-chopped performance. That is, the user may not obtain a suitable evaluation report as wanted.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks involved in such conventional apparatuses and to provide an improved apparatus and method for evaluating a musical performance and a client/server system therefor as well as a storage medium containing a computer program executing processes therefor. According to the invention, a user can designate an output of an evaluation report at any arbitrary timing in the midst of the playback of a musical performance or after the playback of a musical performance. Further, a user can designate particular performance spans about which evaluation reports are to be outputted.
In order to accomplish the object of the present invention, a first aspect of the present invention provides a musical performance evaluating apparatus comprising: a reference performance data providing device which provides a reference performance data representing a musical performance as a reference for evaluation; a manual performance input device for inputting manual performance operations by a user and outputting manual performance data representing the inputted performance operations to be evaluated; an evaluation device which compares the manual performance data with the reference performance data; an evaluation report output device which outputs an evaluation report based on the comparison by the evaluation device; an evaluation report outputting condition designating device which designates a condition whether to output an evaluation report according to a control operation by the user; and an evaluation report output control device which controls the evaluation report output device to output the evaluation report after the performance operations have finished, when the evaluation report outputting condition designating device is designating the condition to output an evaluation report. In the above-mentioned structure of a performance evaluating apparatus, the reference performance data providing device may include a music piece data memory which stores music piece data including the reference performance data, and a music piece data readout device which reads out the music piece data including the reference performance data successively from said music piece data memory to play back the reference performance. The reference performance data providing device may includes a music piece data inputting device for inputting music piece data including the reference performance data so that the reference performance data can be inputted externally. In the latter case, the music piece data may be obtained via a communication network from a server machine in the network. The transmission may be a batch transmission or may be a real time transmission along with the playback of the performance.
According to the above-mentioned musical performance evaluating apparatus of the first aspect of the invention, the user can arbitrarily determine whether to output an evaluation report or not, by controlling the evaluation report outputting condition designating device very easily. The designation can be entered at any arbitrary time in the midst of the performance operations or after the performance operations have finished. The evaluation report outputting condition designating device may preferably hold the designated condition according to the control operation every time there is a control operation, so that the user is allowed to reconsider the designation, even during the performance is running.
A second aspect of the present invention provides a storage medium for use in an apparatus for evaluating a musical performance, the apparatus being of a data processing type comprising a computer, the medium containing a program that is executable by the computer, the program comprising: a module for providing a reference performance data representing a musical performance as a reference for evaluation; a module for inputting manual performance operations by a user and outputting manual performance data representing the inputted performance operations to be evaluated; a module for comparing the input performance data with the reference performance data; a module for outputting an evaluation report based on the comparison by the comparing module; a module for designating a condition whether to output an evaluation report according to a control operation by the user; and a module for controlling the function of the outputting module to output the evaluation report after the performance operations have finished, when the designating module is designating the condition to output an evaluation report.
As will be apparent from the above description, the computer programs are useful for realizing a musical performance evaluat
Shimaya Hideaki
Tozuka Akira
Rossi & Associates
Witkowski Stanley J.
Yamaha Corporation
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