Storage medium having music playing program stored therein and music playing apparatus therefor

• US 20070256546A1
• Filed: 10/04/2006
• Published: 11/08/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nintendo Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Nintendo Company Limited
• Inventors: Osada, Junya, Hikino, Mitsuhiro
• Granted Patent: US 7,491,879 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 84/615
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/1006 having additional degrees of freedom
• CPC Class Codes: A63F 2300/8047 Music games
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/348 Switches actuated by parts of the body other than fingers
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2220/206 Conductor baton movement detection used to adjust rhythm, tempo or expressivity of, e.g. the playback of musical pieces
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2220/395 Acceleration sensing or accelerometer use, e.g. 3D movement computation by integration of accelerometer data, angle sensing with respect to the vertical, i.e. gravity sensing

Abstract

Acceleration data outputted from an acceleration sensor provided in an input device is acquired and a magnitude of an acceleration is calculated. Next, based on the calculated magnitude of the acceleration, at least one piece of track data representing a target music to play is selected from music piece data including a plurality of pieces of track data stored in memory means. Then, based on the selected track data, data for controlling a sound generated from a sound generation device is outputted.

Claims

1. A storage medium having stored therein a music playing program to be executed in a computer of an apparatus operated in accordance with an acceleration detected by an input device including an acceleration sensor for detecting the acceleration in at least one axial direction, causing the computer to execute:

an acceleration data acquisition step of acquiring acceleration data outputted from the acceleration sensor;

an acceleration calculation step of calculating a magnitude of the acceleration by using the acquired acceleration data;

a track data selection step of selecting at least one piece of track data representing a target music to play from music piece data including a plurality of pieces of track data stored in memory means, based on the calculated magnitude of the acceleration; and

a music performance step of outputting data for controlling a sound generated from a sound generation device, based on the track data selected in the track data selection step.

2. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 1, causing the computer to further execute an acceleration peak value detection step of detecting a peak value of the magnitude of the acceleration by using a history of the magnitude of the acceleration calculated in the acceleration calculation step, wherein,

in the track data selection step, the track data representing the target music to play is selected based on the peak value, of the magnitude of the acceleration, detected in the acceleration peak value detection step.

3. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 1, wherein

the acceleration calculation step includes a difference calculation step of calculating a difference between an acceleration calculated by using the acceleration data previously acquired and an acceleration calculated by using the acceleration data currently acquired, and,

in the track data selection step, the track data representing the target music to play is selected based on the difference of the acceleration calculated in the difference calculation step.

4. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 3, causing the computer to further execute an acceleration difference peak value detection step of detecting a peak value of the difference of the acceleration by using a history of the difference of the acceleration calculated in the difference calculation step, wherein,

in the track data selection step, the track data representing the target music to play is selected based on the peak value, of the difference of the acceleration, detected in the acceleration difference peak value detection step.

5. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 1, wherein

the music piece data includes a plurality of track data groups each having different track data,

in the acceleration calculation step, the magnitude of the acceleration calculated from the acceleration data currently acquired, and the difference between the acceleration calculated by using the acceleration data previously acquired and the acceleration calculated by using the acceleration data currently acquired are calculated,

the music playing program causes the computer to further execute:

an acceleration peak value detection step of detecting a peak value of the magnitude of the acceleration by using a history of the magnitude of the acceleration calculated in the acceleration calculation step; and

an acceleration difference peak value detection step of detecting a peak value of the difference of the acceleration by using a history of the difference of the acceleration calculated in the acceleration calculation step, and

in the track data selection step, a track data group representing a target music to play is selected based on the peak value of the difference of the acceleration detected in the acceleration difference peak value detection step, and, based on the peak value of the magnitude of the acceleration detected in the acceleration peak value detection step, the track data representing the target music to play is selected from the track data group representing the target music to play.

6. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 1, wherein

the acceleration sensor detects the acceleration in each of a plurality of axial directions perpendicular to each other with respect to the input device, and,

in the acceleration calculation step, a magnitude of a resultant vector for which acceleration vectors in the plurality of axial directions are respectively combined is calculated by using the acquired acceleration data.

7. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 3, wherein

the acceleration sensor detects the acceleration in each of a plurality of axial directions perpendicular to each other with respect to the input device, and,

in the difference calculation step, the difference between the acceleration calculated by using the acceleration data previously acquired and the acceleration calculated by using the acceleration data currently acquired is calculated for each of the plurality of axial directions, and a magnitude of a difference resultant vector for which difference vectors in the plurality of axial directions are respectively combined is calculated as the difference of the acceleration.

8. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 1, wherein

each of the plurality of pieces of track data is allocated a different musical instrument, and

the computer is caused to further execute a display processing step of arranging the musical instrument allocated to each of the plurality of pieces of track data in a virtual game world, and displaying on a display device an action representing only the musical instrument allocated to the track data selected in the track data selection step being played.

9. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of pieces of track data is allocated music data of a different musical instrument.

10. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 5, wherein music data allocated to the track data group and music data allocated to another track data group are different in at least one of a style of playing music, a number of beats, and a tonality.

11. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 1, wherein

the apparatus includes a sound source for generating the sound from the sound generation device,

each of the plurality of pieces of track data included in the music piece data includes control data of the sound source, and

in the music performance step, the control data written in the track data selected in the track data selection step is outputted for controlling the sound source.

12. A music playing apparatus for being operated in accordance with an acceleration detected by an input device including an acceleration sensor for detecting the acceleration in at least one axial direction, comprising:

acceleration data acquisition means for acquiring acceleration data outputted from the acceleration sensor;

acceleration calculation means for calculating a magnitude of the acceleration by using the acquired acceleration data;

track data selection means for selecting at least one piece of track data representing a target music to play from music piece data including a plurality of pieces of track data stored in memory means, based on the calculated magnitude of the acceleration, and

music performance means for outputting data for controlling a sound generated from a sound generation device, based on the track data selected by the track data selection means.