Music – Instruments – Electrical musical tone generation
Reexamination Certificate
1997-10-09
2001-04-03
Witkowski, Stanley J. (Department: 2837)
Music
Instruments
Electrical musical tone generation
C084S610000, C084S47700R
Reexamination Certificate
active
06211453
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a performance information making device and method which are capable of easily creating various variations of accompaniment patterns well suitable for a music piece melody and thereby allow even unexperienced users or beginners to fully enjoy composing a music piece.
There has been known a technique which, in making music piece data (performance information) by combining automatic performance patterns on an automatic performance device or the like, greatly facilitates editing and modification of the music piece data. Such a technique is disclosed in, for example, Japanese patent Laid-open Publication No. HEI-7-104744 that corresponds to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/312,776. The technique disclosed in the HEI-7-104744 publication is characterized primarily by visually displaying a plurality of display elements (e.g., icons) corresponding to a plurality of performance patterns as well as lines specifying order of the performance patterns to be played. The disclosed technique allows a user to designate a desired combination of the visually displayed performance patterns and thereby facilitates user's editing of music piece data.
The performance information making technique disclosed in the HEI-7-104744 publication has the advantage that it provides for easier editing operations to, for example, change the order of the performance patterns. However, the editing requires considerable musical knowledges, which would limit the application of the disclosed technique to relatively experienced users. Therefore, with the disclosed technique, it was difficult for inexperienced users to enjoy composing a music piece.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 5,406,024 discloses a technique which uses a bar code scanner to select performance patterns in correspondence with time-varying phases of a performance.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a performance information making device and method which are capable of generating various variations of accompaniment patterns well suitable for a a music piece melody and thereby allow even unexperienced users or beginners to fully enjoy composing a music piece.
In order to accomplish the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a performance information making device which comprises: a storage device having prestored therein information representative of a plurality of accompaniment patterns suitable for a given music piece; and a pattern selecting device that, for each of predetermined performance sections of the given music piece, randomly selects a particular accompaniment pattern from among the plurality of accompaniment patterns suitable for the given music piece, so that accompaniment performance information for the given music piece is provided by combining the accompaniment patterns randomly selected for individual ones of the performance sections.
In the performance information making device, the storage device may also has prestored therein melody information of the given music piece, and there may be further provided a reproducing device that reproductively performs a melody and accompaniment of the given music piece on the basis of the melody information prestored in the storage device and accompaniment performance information comprising a combination of the accompaniment patterns selected by the pattern selecting device.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a performance information making method which comprises the steps of: prestoring information representative of a plurality of accompaniment patterns suitable for a given music piece; and for each of predetermined performance sections of the given music piece, randomly selecting a particular accompaniment pattern from among the plurality of accompaniment patterns suitable for the given music piece, so that accompaniment performance information for the music piece is provided by combining the accompaniment patterns randomly selected for individual ones of the performance sections.
The performance information making method may further comprise the steps of: prestoring melody information of the given music piece; and reproductively performing a melody and accompaniment of the given music piece on the basis of the prestored melody information and accompaniment performance information comprising a combination of the accompaniment patterns selected for the individual performance sections.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a machine-readable recording medium containing a control program executable by a computer. The control program comprises: a program code mechanism that, for each of predetermined performance sections of a given music piece, randomly selects a particular accompaniment pattern from among a plurality of accompaniment patterns provided in advance and suitable for the given music piece; and a program code mechanism that generates a series of pieces of accompaniment performance information for the given music piece by combining the accompaniment patterns selected for individual ones of the performance sections.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a machine-readable recording medium containing, in a data storage area thereof, data representative of a melody of a given music piece and a plurality of accompaniment patterns suitable for the given music piece and also containing, in a program storage area thereof, a control program executable by a computer. The control program comprises: a program code mechanism that, for each of predetermined performance sections of the given music piece, randomly selects a particular accompaniment pattern from among a plurality of accompaniment patterns provided in advance and suitable for the given music piece; a program code mechanism that reads out, from the data storage area, the data representative of the accompaniment pattern randomly selected for each of the performance sections; and a program code mechanism that reads out the data representative of the melody from the data storage area; and a program code mechanism that reproductively performs the melody and accompaniment of the given music piece on the basis of the read-out data representative of the melody and accompaniment pattern.
According to the essential feature of the present invention, accompaniment patterns corresponding to a plurality of melody performance sections (each having two measures) of a music piece are randomly selected from among a plurality of predetermined accompaniment patterns suitable for the music piece, and the randomly selected accompaniment patterns are arranged in predetermined order (e.g., the order of the performance sections) to provide performance information, which is reproduced along with the melody.
Because the randomly-selected accompaniment patterns correspond to the patterns prestored as suitable for the melody, the reproduced accompaniment information can become suitable for the melody even where the specific nature of the melody and accompaniment patterns are not taken into consideration. Besides, such a random selection easily provides various variations of accompaniment patterns. The accompaniment patterns may be reproduced after being converted in tone pitch on the basis of a chord progression accompanying the melody. Such a tone pitch conversion permits shared use of a general-purpose accompaniment pattern of a predetermined key such as C major.
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patent: 5679913 (1997-10-01), Bruti et al.
patent: 5698804 (1997-12-01), Mizuno
patent: 5712436 (1998-01-01), Sakama et al.
patent: 07104744 (1995-04-01), None
Rossi & Associates
Witkowski Stanley J.
Yamaha Corporation
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