Telephonic communications – Supervisory or control line signaling – Signal reception at substation
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-20
2003-09-16
Weaver, Scott L. (Department: 2645)
Telephonic communications
Supervisory or control line signaling
Signal reception at substation
C379S088010, C379S373040, C455S567000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06621903
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a portable telephone set(a cellular phone), and a method for inputting an incoming call reporting melody, and more particularly to a portable telephone set which can inform the user of the portable telephone set of an incoming call through a melody tone, and a method for inputting the incoming call reporting melody.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In conventional portable telephone sets which report an incoming call through a melody tone, when the input of a favorite melody by the user himself or herself is contemplated, it is a common practice to key all information such as scales and note durations. In these conventional portable telephone sets, however, a very large number of key entry operations are necessary, and, thus, enormous time is required for completing the input of all melodies.
In order to overcome this problem, a portable telephone set has been proposed wherein a melody tone is prepared by inputting a voice through a microphone without keying (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 88211/1999). In this conventional portable telephone set, a singing voice of a humming person through a microphone is sampled by an A/D converter, and the sampled data is stored in a memory. Upon an incoming call, a CPU reads the data stored in the memory, and an original melody call tone is produced by a musical scale tone source signal generator. This call tone is sounded through a speaker.
Further, a proposal has been made on another portable telephone set which enables a desired scale to be input without key entry (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 220518/1999). According to this conventional portable telephone set, the user of the portable telephone set hums a melody toward a microphone, and the melody vocalized by the user is converted to a voice signal through the microphone which is then converted to a digital signal. The digital signal is then input into a computing section, where arithmetic means extracts a frequency component equivalent to a scale from the digital signal to obtain scale information. A scale signal is then produced based on the extracted scale information, and a voice output device is driven by this scale signal.
In both the above-described conventional portable telephone sets, the time necessary for the input of a melody tone to be completed can be shortened because the scale is not input by key entry. In these portable telephone sets, however, since the user performs voice input of a melody through a microphone, the melody tone output varies depending upon a sense of pitch and vocalization of individual users. This leads to a possibility that, for some users, a melody having a different scale is output despite the fact that the original melody is identical. This poses a problem that an incoming call reporting melody cannot be accurately input.
An additional problem involved in the conventional portable telephone sets is that, due to the input of a melody which has been hummed toward a microphone by the user, it is impossible to input an incoming call reporting melody containing chords.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Under the above circumstances, the invention has been made, and it is an object of the invention to provide a portable telephone set which enables an incoming call reporting melody to be accurately input in a short time, and to provide a method for inputting the incoming call reporting melody.
It is another object of the invention to provide a portable telephone set which can input an incoming call reporting melody containing a chord, and to provide a method for inputting the incoming call reporting melody.
According to the first feature of the invention, a portable telephone set comprises:
voice input means for inputting, through a voice, pitch names of an incoming call reporting melody in the order of musical notes;
speech recognition means which, every time when pitch name information is input through a voice by the voice input means, compares data representing the pitch name, produced from the voiced pitch name information, with previously cataloged pitch name data to find out pitch name data which matches the data representing the pitch name, thereby performing speech recognition;
a display unit for displaying a musical staff, a pitch name, and a musical note;
display control means for displaying as a character the pitch name based on the pitch name data selected by the speech recognition means, on a screen of the display unit with the musical staff displayed thereon;
key entry means which, every time when the character corresponding to the pitch name is newly displayed on the display unit, permits the keying of the note duration of the pitch name displayed as the character together with the musical staff on the display unit;
musical note data production means which produces musical note data based on the note duration data keyed by the key entry means and the pitch name corresponding to the note duration and, in addition, displays on the musical staff a musical note corresponding to the musical note data;
storage unit for storing score data of the incoming call reporting melody, said score data comprising a plurality of musical note data which have been successively produced by the musical note data production means; and
incoming melody sounding means which, upon call incoming, converts the score data stored in the storage unit to a melody waveform signal which is then sounded through a speaker.
According to the invention, out of pitch names and durations of musical notes constituting a desired call coming reporting melody to be input, the pitch names are input through a voice to provide pitch name data with an accurate tone height through speech recognition, while, regarding note duration, data representing accurate note duration is input by key entry means. One musical note data is then produced from the pitch name data and the note duration input by the key entry means. Therefore, as compared with the conventional portable telephone sets wherein all the pitch names and the note durations are keyed, the number of key operations can be reduced. Further, as compared with the conventional portable telephone sets wherein the whole incoming call reporting melody tone is input through a voice, musical note data having more accurate pitch name and note duration can be provided.
In the portable telephone set according to the first feature of the invention, at the time of inputting a chord, a construction may be adoption wherein
the voice input means permits the plurality of pitch names of a plurality of respective musical notes constituting the chord to be successively input trough a voice,
the display control means successively displays, on the display unit, a plurality of pitch names as characters based on a plurality of successive pitch name data selected by the voice recognition means, together with the musical staff,
the key entry means, when the pitch names as the characters have been successively displayed together with the musical staff on the display unit, permits the note durations of the respective pitch names to be successively keyed, and
the musical note data production means produces musical note data on one chord based on the plurality of note durations input successively by the key entry means and the plurality of pitch names corresponding respectively to the note durations.
According to this construction, the pitch names of a plurality of respective musical notes are successively input through a voice, and, when the plurality of pitch names are successively displayed as characters together with a musical staff on the display unit, note durations corresponding respectively to the pitch names are successively keyed to produce musical note data for one chord comprising a plurality of musical notes. By virtue of this construction, as compared with the conventional portable telephone sets wherein all the pitch names and the note durations are keyed, the number of key entry operations can be reduced. Further, as compared with the conventional portable telephone sets wherein the whole incoming call reporting
NEC Corporation
Weaver Scott L.
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