Electronic musical instruments having automatic ensemble function

• US 4,499,808 A
• Filed: 02/25/1983
• Issued: 02/19/1985
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/1979
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha
• Original Assignee: Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha
• Inventors: Aoki, Eiichiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Isen, Forester W.
• Application Number:
  US06/469,956
• Time in Patent Office: 725 Days
• Field of Search: 84/1.01, 84/1.03, 84/DIG. 22, 84/1.24
• US Class Current: 84/649
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/38 Chord
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2210/261 Duet, i.e. automatic generation of a second voice, descant or counter melody, e.g. of a second harmonically interdependent voice by a single voice harmonizer or automatic composition algorithm, e.g. for fugue, canon or round composition, which may be substantially independent in contour and rhythm
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2210/565 Manual designation or selection of a tonality

Abstract

One or a plurality of tones having a predetermined interval relation in terms of degrees with reference to tones produced by depressed keys of a keyboard are automatically selected from among diatonic scale tones of a performed tonality and the selected tones are produced as musical tones concurrently with the depressed key tones. To this end there are provided a tonality designator for producing an information representing the performed tonality, a duet note data forming circuit for forming pitch data of an ensemble note to be automatically produced necessary to realize a duet performance effect based the designated tonality and the depressed key tone, and a duet musical tone signal generator for producing a duet musical tone signal in accordance with the pitch data thus formed.

Claims

1. An electronic musical instrument of the type including a keyboard, and musical tone generating means for generating a musical tone corresponding to a depressed key of said keyboard, said depressed key being represented by certain depressed key information, said electronic musical instrument further comprising:

tonality designating means that designate the tonality of a musical piece to be performed independent of said depressed key information;

ensemble interval designating means for providing an ensemble interval designating information which determines an interval between the note of said depressed key and a note to be provided as an ensemble note;

ensemble tone data forming means for forming pitch data of an ensemble note in accordance with the designated tonality, the ensemble interval designating information and said depressed key information, said pitch data representing a scale tone of the designated tonality which is spaced from the depressed key tone by an interval of a degree number as is determined according to said ensemble interval designating information; and

ensemble musical tone generating means for generating a musical tone signal in accordance with the ensemble pitch data thus formed.

2. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 1 wherein said ensemble tone data forming means comprises:

memory means which prestores ensemble interval data representing intervals between depressed key tones and said ensemble tones; and

a calculating circuit for calculating the ensemble pitch data based on said depressed key information and said ensemble interval data read out from said memory means according to the designation by said ensemble interval designating information.

3. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 1 wherein said ensemble tone data forming means comprises:

memory means which prestores data representing ensemble note pitches, and

means for selectively reading out said ensemble note pitch data in accordance with the designated tonality, the ensemble interval designating information and a depressed key information.

4. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 1 wherein said ensemble interval designating means includes:

a degree designator for providing a degree information as said ensemble interval designating information which degree information designates one of a plurality of musical interval degrees, the pitch data of an ensemble not being determined according to said designated degree.

5. A keyboard electronic musical instrument having a melody keyboard portion and an accompaniment keyboard portion, and having musical tone generating means for generating musical tones corresponding to depressed keys on said keyboard portions, said instrument further comprising:

tonality designating means for designating the tonality of a musical piece to be performed,

chord determination means, cooperating with said tonality designating means, for detecting wheether a chord of the designated tonality has been played on said accompaniment keyboard portion, and

ensemble tone production means, cooperating with said tonality designating means, said chord determination means and said keyboard portions, and operative in response to detection of a chord and to the playing of a note of the designated tonality on said melody keyboard portion, for producing an ensemble tone determined in accordance with the designated tonality, the detected chord and the not played on said melody keyboard portion,

musical end detecting means, cooperating with said chord determination means and with said melody keyboard portion, for detecting the change of chords played on said accompaniment keyboard portion from a chord of dominant seventh to a root triad chord, and for detecting a concurrent change of the note played on said melody keyboard portion from a tone of the fourth degree with respect to the designated tonality to a tone of the third degree or from a seventh degree tone to a first degree tone, and for producing a signal indicative of such concurrent change, and

wherein said ensemble tone production means cooperates with said musical end detecting means and is responsive to said signal to produce as the ensemble tone, during playing of said root triad chord, and third degree tone if the fourth degree tone was produced as the ensemble tone during the dominant seventh chord production or a first degree tone if a seventh degree tone was produced during the dominant seventh chord production.

6. An electronic musical instrument of the type including a keyboard and musical tone generating means for generating a musical tone corresponding to a depressed key of said keyboard, said depressed key being represented by certain depressed key information, said electronic musical instrument further comprising:

tonality designating means that designates the tonality of a musical piece to be performed, said tonality designator including means for designating a root note of a tonality, and means for designating one out of a major tonality and a minor tonality,

ensemble tone data forming means for forming pitch data of an ensemble note in accordance with the designated tonality and said depressed key information, said pitch data representing a scale tone of the designated tonality which is spaced from the depressed key tone by a predetermined degree number; and

ensemble musical tone generating means for generating a musical tone signal in accordance with the ensemble pitch data thus formed, including;

memory means which prestroes ensemble interval data representing intervals between depressed key tones and said ensemble tones; and

a calculating circuit for calculating the ensemble pitch data based on said ensemble interval data read out from said memory means and said depressed key information, and wherein said memory means comprises;

a fundamental memory device for prestoring pitch data of ensemble notes in the form of data representing pitches of notes in a scale of a predetermined certain tonality which defines a fundamental tonality;

a data modifying device for modifying values of data read out of said fundamental memory device in accordance with an interval between the root note of the designated tonality and the root note of the fundamental tonality;

a data memory device for storing the modified values; and

means for reading out the modified value stored in said data memory device in accordance with depressed key information.

7. An electronic music instrument according to claim 6 wherein said fundamental memory device includes:

memory means for storing pitch data of notes in a major scale of a reference tonality; and

memory means for storing pitch data of notes in a minor scale of a reference tonality, whereby one of said memory means is utilized according to the designated tonality.

8. A keyboard electronic musical instrument having a melody keyboard portion and an accompaniment keyboard portion, and having musical tone generating means for generating musical tones corresponding to depressed keys on said keyboard portions, said instrument comprising:

tonality designating means for designating the tonality of a musical piece to be performed,

chord determination means, cooperating with said tonality designating means, for detecting whether a chord of the designated tonality has been played on said accompaniment keyboard portion, and

ensemble tone production means, cooperating with said tonality designating means, said chord determination means and said keyboard portions, and operative in response to detection of a chord and to the playing of a note of the designated tonality on said melody keyboard portion for producing an ensemble tone determined in accordance with the designated tonality, the detected chord and the scale note played on said melody keyboard.

9. An electronic musical instrument of the type including first and second keyboards, and a musical tone generator for producing musical tones corresponding to keys depressed on said first and second keyboards, said electronic musical instrument further comprising:

tonality designating means for designating the tonality of a musical piece to be performed;

ensemble tone data forming means for forming ensemble note pitch data corresponding to a melody tone designated by a depressed key of said first keyboard and to the designated tonality;

ensemble musical tone generating means for generating a musical tone signal in accordance with said formed pitch data, and wherein said ensemble tone data forming means comprises;

chord detecting means for identifying a chord from the depressed key state of said second keyboard; and

data forming means for forming an ensemble pitch data in accordance with said designated tonality, the identified chord and said melody tone designated by said depressed key of said first keyboard.

10. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 9 wherein said ensemble tone data forming means comprises:

first means for forming a pitch data representing a tone which is a scale tone of said designated tonality and is spaced a predetermined number of degrees from said depressed key tone of said first keyboard; and

second means for forming another pitch data instead of said pitch data formed by said first means when a certain relation among said designated tonality, said identified chord, and said depressed key tone of said first keyboard is established.

11. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 10 wherein said second means comprises:

means which, when said identified chord is constituted by the diatonic scale notes of said designated tonality and when depressed key tone of said first keyboard is the same note as one of the tones constituting said chord, forms pitch data of a tone having the same note name as one of the constituent tones of said chord and being closest to said depressed key tone.

12. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 10 wherein said second means comprises:

means which, when among the tones constituting said identified chord there is a tone which is not a diatonic note of the designated tonality, forms pitch data of a tone having the same note name as one of the constituent tones of said chord and being closest to the depressed key tone of said first keyboard.

13. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 11, wherein said second means comprises:

means which forms a pitch data of a tone having the same note name as one of the constituent tones of said chord, and which is closest to but spaced more than two degrees from the depressed key tone of said first keyboard.

14. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 10 wherein said second means comprises means which detects a chord progression for an end of a musical piece based on a relation between the designated tonality and the identified chords and also detects that an ensemble tone of a scale degree has appeared immediately before said end, which selects for the end a tone of a predetermined scale degree from amongst the scale tones of said designated tonality, and which forms a pitch data of said selected tone.

15. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 10 wherein said second means comprises:

a first circuit for storing, at an instance when a key is presently being depressed, information of a tone of a key of said first keyboard depressed immediately before said presently depressed key;

a second circuit for storing an ensemble note pitch data which is formed corresponding to the tone of the key depressed immediately before said presently depressed key, and

a third circuit which, when the now-being-depressed key tone of said first keyboard is not a diatonic scale tone of the designated tonality, shifts the pitch data of the ensemble note stored in said second circuit by a value representing an interval which is the same as a melodic interval between a previously depressed key tone and the presently depressed key tone thereby forming a present ensemble note pitch data.

16. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 15 wherein said third circuit comprises a circuit which, only when the melodic interval between the tone of the key depressed immediately before the presently depressed key and the tone of the presently depressed key is within an interval range of predetermined degrees, shifts the pitch data of the ensemble note stored in said second circuit by a value representing an interval which is the same as said melodic interval for forming a present ensemble note pitch data, whereas, when said melodic interval exceeds the interval range of said predetermined degrees, forms pitch data having the same note as the chord constituting tone and closest to the presently depressed key tone.

17. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 10 wherein said second means comprises:

means which, when said identified chord is constituted by diatonic scale tones of the designated tonality and when the depressed key tone of said first keyboard is a non-diatonic scale tcne and is adjacent to one of said chord constituting tones, forms a pitch data having the same note as said chord constituting tone and closest to said depressed key tone.

18. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 9 wherein said tonality designating means comprises:

memory means for storing tonality designation codes each being made up of a data representing a root note of the tonality and a data representing a major/minor kind of the tonality; and

means for storing in said memory means as said tonality designation code a data representing a root note and a major/minor kind of the chord identified by said chord detecting means.

27. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 9 further comprising:

ensemble interval designating means for providing an ensemble interval designating information which determines an interval between the note of said depressed key on said first keyboard and a note to be provided as an ensemble note; and

wherein said ensemble tone data forming means forms said ensemble note pitch data corresponding to said ensemble interval designating information as well as to said designated melody tone and said designated tonality.

19. A keyboard electronic musical instrument having a melody keyboard portion and an accompaniment keyboard portion, and having musical tone generating means for generating musical tones corresponding to depressed keys on said keyboard portions, said instrument further comprising:

tonality designating means for designating the tonality of a musical piece to be performed,

chord determination means, cooperating with said tonality designating means, for detecting whether a diatonic chord of the designated tonality has been played on said accompaniment keyboard portion, and

ensemble tone production means, cooperating with said tonality designating means, said chord determination means and said keyboard portions, and operative in response to the detection of a diatonic chord and to the playing of a diatonic scale note of the designated tonality on said melody keyboard portion, for producing as an ensemble tone a tone that is spaced by a predetermined number of degrees from said played diatonic scale note.

20. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 19 wherein:

said chord determination means includes means for detecting that a non-diatonic chord of the designated tonality has been played on said accompaniment keyboard portion, and wherein;

said ensemble tone production means is operative, in response to the detection of a non-diatonic chord and to the playing of any note on said melody keyboard portion, for producing as an ensemble tone a tone which corresponds in note name to one of the constituent tones of said detected non-diatonic chord and which is lower than and closest to the note played on said melody keyboard portion, but which is spaced therefrom by greater than a major second.

21. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 19 wherein:

said ensemble tone production means is operative in response to the detection of a diatonic chord and to the playing on said melody keyboard portion of a note which corresponds to one of the chord constituting tones, for producing instead as said ensemble tone the tone from among the chord constituting tones which is lower than said melody tone and closest thereto.

22. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 20 wherein, if the ensemble tone currently intended to be produced by said production means differs greatly from the immediately preceding ensemble tone, then said ensemble tone production means will produce instead as the current ensemble tone that tone, from among the tones constituting said non-diatonic chord which is closest to said preceding ensemble tone and which lies between said preceding ensemble tone and said ensemble tone currently intended to be produced, or if no such chord constituting tone lies therebetween, will produce as the current ensemble tone that chord constituting tone closest to said preceding ensemble tone.

23. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 21 wherein, if the ensemble tone currently intended to be produced by said production means differs greatly from the immediately preceding ensemble tone, then said ensemble tone production means will produce instead as the current ensemble tone that tone from among the tones constituting said diatonic chord which is closest to said preceding ensemble tone and which lies between said preceding ensemble tone and said ensemble tone currently intended to be produced, or if no such chord constituting tone lies therebetween, will produce as the current ensemble tone that chord constituting tone closest to said preceding ensemble tone.

24. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 22 wherein, if the tone to be produced as said current ensemble tone is a perfect interval with respect to the note played on said melody keyboard portion, so that the frequency ratio therebetween is expressed by a simple integer, said production means will produce instead as the ensemble tone that chord constituting tone which is adjacent to said perfect interval tone.

25. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 23 wherein, if the tone to be produced as said current ensemble tone is a perfect interval with respect to the note played on said melody keyboard portion, so that the frequency ratio therebetween is expressed by a simple integer, said production means will produce instead as the ensemble tone that chord constituting tone which is adjacent to said perfect interval tone.

26. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 19 and operative when said chord determination means detects that a diatonic chord is played on said accompaniment keyboard portion and when a non-diatonic tone of the designated tonality is played on said melody keyboard portion, said instrument further comprising:

melody motion determination means for determining the melodic interval between the tone presently being played on said melody keyboard portion and the immediately preceding tone played on said melody keyboard portion,

said ensemble tone production means cooperating with said motion determination means to produce instead as the current ensemble tone a tone which is of an interval with respect to the immediately preceding ensemble tone that is the same as the melodic interval determined by said melody interval determining means, in the event that said melodic interval is equal to or shorter than a major second, and

to produce instead, when said determined melodic interval is longer than a major second, as the currrent ensemble tone a tone which is one of the tones constituting the chord being played on said accompaniment keyboard portion and which is closest to but more than a major second interval apart from and lower than the tone presently being played on said melody keyboard portion.