Music – Instruments – Electrical musical tone generation
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-24
2001-06-12
Donels, Jeffrey (Department: 2837)
Music
Instruments
Electrical musical tone generation
C084S635000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06245984
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for composing music data, and a machine readable medium containing program instructions for realizing such an apparatus and a method using a computer system, and more particularly to an apparatus and a method capable of composing music data representing a piece of music or a tune without requiring a trained skill of playing a keyboard musical instrument or other musical instruments.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Among conventionally proposed apparatuses capable of composing music data for a piece of music or a melody (tune) by simple operations, there has been such a type of apparatus in which a user inputs a short melody motif, and then the apparatus extracts characteristic features of the given melody motif and imparts a chord progression for the entire music to be composed, thereby creating a melody based on the extracted motif characteristics and the imparted chord progression. With such a type of apparatus, the user can compose a melody by merely inputting a melody motif to the apparatus.
The device for inputting a motif melody may be a keyboard or other performance operation devices for performing music in a real-time manipulation of the device, or may be a device having switches to designate note pitches and note durations in a step-by-step manipulation. In the case of a keyboard or other performance operation devices, it is difficult for beginners to input (play) even a short melody of a motif by manipulating a performance operation device such as a keyboard in a real-time musical performance. In the case of a switch arrangement for designating note pitches and note durations to constitute a motif melody, the inputting operation will be easy but it would be hard for the user to reflect the melody image he/she has in mind into the switch manipulation.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to provide a novel type of music data composing apparatus and method, and a machine readable medium containing a program therefor capable of composing music data through easy operations by the user without requiring any high level skills such as keyboard manipulation, but easily reflecting the user's melody image in a music data to be composed.
In order to accomplish the object of the present invention, one aspect of the invention provides a music data composing apparatus which comprises: an input device for inputting a sequence of note time points representing a plurality of time positions of notes defining a rhythm pattern in a musical progression by means of a tapping switch with which the user inputs the note time points by tapping operation, thereby providing data representing the sequence of note time points; and a pitch establishing device which establishes pitches of the note time points and provides data representing the established pitches of the respective note time points.
According to the above aspect of the present invention, the user can first designate a sequence of the time points constituting a rhythm pattern for a melody to be composed, i.e. the time positions of the notes of the melody to be composed, by simply tapping the switch in the intended rhythm and thereafter the pitch is given to the respective notes aligned in the rhythmic sequence. Thus, it is easy for the user to compose a melody and it is also easy for the user to reflect the melody image which the user may have in mind into the melody composed.
In this aspect of the invention, the music data composing apparatus may further comprise an automatic accompaniment performing device which stores automatic accompaniment data for automatic accompaniments and plays back the stored automatic accompaniment data presenting an automatic accompaniment to perform the automatic accompaniment for defining beat positions in a musical progression at a given tempo. With this improvement, the user can catch the tempo for a musical progression in inputting the sequence of note time points representing a rhythm pattern by tapping the tapping switch referring to the performed automatic accompaniment. The music data composing apparatus may further comprise a reference data storing device which stores melody reference data representing conditions for various kinds of melodies and stores accompaniment reference data representing conditions for various kind of accompaniment performances, a condition selecting device for selecting a desirable condition for the user from among the listed conditions, a melody creating device which creates a temporary melody based on the melody reference data of the selected condition, an accompaniment creating device which creates an accompaniment based on the accompaniment reference data of the selected condition; and an output device which outputs the temporarily created melody and the created accompaniment performance in an audible and/or visible representation to the user. With this improvement, the user has only to designate a situation and intended feeling of the melody to obtain a temporary melody piece, and thereafter can edit the temporarily created melody to compose an intended melody by altering the time positions and/or the pitches of the notes in the temporarily presented melody.
In order to accomplish the object of the present invention, another aspect of the invention provides a music data composing apparatus which comprises: an input device for inputting a sequence of note time points representing a plurality of time positions of notes defining a rhythm pattern in a musical progression by means of a tapping switch with which the user inputs the note time points by tapping operation, thereby providing data representing the sequence of note time points; a display device which displays a picture window of a coordinate plane defined by a time axis for a musical progression and a pitch axis for note pitches, and exhibits the inputted sequence of note time points in an alignment of points in the direction of the time axis; and a pitch establishing device which establishes pitches of the note time points and provides data representing the established pitches of the note time points, the pitch establishing device including a dragging device which drags an intended one of the inputted note time points in the picture window in the direction of the pitch axis and places the dragged point at a position representing a pitch in the direction of the pitch axis, thereby giving the pitch represented by the position to the dragged point.
According to the above aspect of the present invention, the user can first visually recognize the time positions of the sequence of time points for a melody, and can easily establish the pitches of the respective notes by simply dragging the note time points in the picture window in an amount corresponding to the intended pitch alteration. The location of the note points in the picture window helps the user to have a clear image of the melody ups and downs so that the user can establish the pitches of the notes easily according to the melody image the user may have in mind.
In this aspect of the invention, the pitch establishing device is so designed as to establish the pitches of the note time points by giving an individual pitch to several of the plurality of note time points by manual operations and by creating the pitches of the remainder of the plurality of note time points automatically. The note time points to which pitches can be given may be predetermined from among the inputted note time points. Thus, the user may input several, and not all, time points for the melody notes, which alleviates the inputting tasks of the user. The predetermined note time points to which pitches can be given may preferably be exhibited in the picture window in a manner different from a manner in which other note time points are exhibited, such as in size, color or shape. Then, the user can easily recognize a note time point to which a pitch can be given manually. The pitches available to be given for the notes may be
Aoki Eiichiro
Koizumi Masami
Sugiura Toshio
Yoshihara Shinji
Donels Jeffrey
Rossi & Associates
Yamaha Corporation
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