Music – Instruments – Electrical musical tone generation
Reexamination Certificate
2000-03-01
2001-01-23
Donels, Jeffrey (Department: 2837)
Music
Instruments
Electrical musical tone generation
C084S609000, C084S610000, C084S634000, C084S649000, C084S650000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06177625
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for generating additive notes to commanded notes, and more particularly to a musical apparatus such as an electronic musical instrument capable of generating additive notes in harmony to the melody notes manually played on the keyboard to realize an automatic duet or trio or further polyphonic performance, and to a method conducted in such an apparatus and to a program and data storage medium for use in such an apparatus. Further specifically, the present invention relates to such an apparatus, a method and a storage medium which permit generation of harmony notes when the key touch strength for the melody note is greater than a predetermined threshold value or when the melody note is a constituent note of the accompaniment chord for the melody, thereby realizing a well harmonized polyphonic performance.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Electronic musical instruments capable of generating additive notes are known in the art. In such a conventional electronic musical instrument, when the player depresses an intended key, the instrument generates a musical tone signal as designated by the depressed key and an additive tone signal of a note having a predetermined interval relation (harmonious relation) to the designated musical tone. Under the additive tone generating mode, the apparatus produces additive tones for all the depressed melody keys, respectively.
Such a conventional electronic musical instrument is disadvantageous in the following aspects:
a) An additive tone will be generated in a normal volume even for a weak tone as designated by a weak depression of a key, for example, by some erroneous play on the keyboard, which may cause unintended generation of an additive tone that may not necessarily be harmonious with the played tone. Musical mode or atmosphere may thus be deteriorated by such an unintended bothersome tone.
b) An additive tone will be generated for every tone of the key depression during the performance under the additive tone generation mode, i.e. all the melody tones are accompanied by additive tones, which will be disadvantageous for presenting a musical performance having partial emphasis or a climax by generating additive tones at some intended part or parts in the melody progression.
c) Even in case a chord accompaniment is given to a melody progression, an additive tone will be determined for every tone of the key depression in the melody progression irrespective of the chord progression, and this may cause the generation of additive tones which do not fit the chord under progression thereby deteriorating musical mode or atmosphere.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is, therefore, a primary object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks involved in such a conventional electronic musical instrument by providing a novel type of musical apparatus and method for generating additive tones, and a machine readable medium containing a program therefor which are capable of generating additive tones selectively to the melody tones which are to be emphasized in the performance and which are eligible to be accompanied by additive tones from a harmonious point of view.
In order to accomplish the object of the present invention, one aspect of the invention provides a musical apparatus for generating additive notes in addition to commanded notes, the apparatus including: a played note commanding module which generates note command signals indicative of note pitches of played keys in a musical performance; a key intensity representing module which generates key intensity signals indicative of intensities of the played keys; a judging module which judges whether the key intensity signals are greater than a predetermined threshold value; an additive note designating module which generates, upon an affirmative judgment by the judging module, additive note designating signals indicative of note pitches of additive notes to be added to the note pitches of the played keys, each of the note pitches of the additive notes having a predetermined note interval relation to each corresponding one of the note pitches of the played keys; and a tone generator module which generates, upon receipt of the note command signals, tone signals having note pitches as indicated by the note command signals, and upon receipt of the additive note designating signals, tone signals having note pitches as indicated by the additive note designating signals.
In this aspect of the invention, the apparatus may further comprise a musical playing keyboard which includes keys to be depressed for a musical performance, and the played note commanding module may include a first key detector connected to the musical playing keyboard and delivering key data representing pitches of the depressed keys as the note command signals, and the key intensity representing module may include a second key detector connected to the musical playing keyboard and delivering intensity data representing depression intensities of the keys as the key intensity signals. The apparatus may further comprise a storage device which stores performance data representing pitches and intensifies of notes constituting a musical performance, and the played note commanding module may include a pitch data delivery processor which delivers from the storage device the data representing the pitches as the above note command signals, and the key intensity representing module may include an intensity data delivery processor which delivers from the storage device the data representing the intensities as the above key intensity signals. The apparatus may further comprise a receiving module which receives from an external device performance data representing pitches and intensities of notes constituting a musical performance, and the played note commanding module may include a pitch data delivery processor which delivers, upon receipt of the performance data, the data representing the pitches as the note command signals, and the key intensity representing module may include an intensity data delivery processor which delivers, upon receipt of the performance data, the data representing the intensities as the key intensity signals.
According to this aspect of the present invention where a musical playing keyboard and key detectors are provided, the user plays music by depressing intended keys on the keyboard, and then the key detectors delivers note command signals indicative of pitches of the played keys and key intensity signals indicative of intensities of the played keys. The judging module judges whether the key intensity signals are greater than a predetermined threshold value. The additive note designating module generates, upon an affirmative judgment by the judging module, additive note designating signals indicative of note pitches of additive notes to be added to the note pitches of the played keys, wherein each of the note pitches of the additive notes has a predetermined note interval relation to each corresponding one of the note pitches of the played keys. The tone generator module then generates, upon receipt of the note command signals, tone signals having note pitches as indicated by the note command signals, and upon receipt of the additive note designating signals, tone signals having note pitches as indicated by the additive note designating signals. Therefore, when the user touches a key or keys unintentionally, i.e. weakly, no additive tones will be generated. The user may intentionally depress the keys with a key touch greater than the predetermined threshold at any intended portions in the music progression for emphasizing such phrases to selectively generate additive tones at the intended portions, thereby obtaining partial climaxes or emphases in the musical performance.
In order to accomplish the object of the present invention, another aspect of the invention provides a musical apparatus for generating additive notes in addition to commanded notes, the apparatus comprising: a played note comma
Imaizumi Tsutomu
Ito Shin'ichi
Donels Jeffrey
Fletcher Marlon T.
Rossi & Associates
Yamaha Corporation
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