Electronic musical instrument with semi-automatic playing function

• US 5,777,250 A
• Filed: 09/27/1996
• Issued: 07/07/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/1995
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Company Limited
• Inventors: Fujimoto, Satoshi, Aoyama, Toru, Sato, Yasushi, Kitamura, Mineo
• Primary Examiner(s): Shoop, Jr., William M.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Fletcher, Marlon T.
• Application Number:
  US08/720,298
• Time in Patent Office: 648 Days
• Field of Search: 84/601-606, 84/609-613, 84/615, 84/616, 84/634-637
• US Class Current: 84/609
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/0033 Recording/reproducing or transmission of music for electrophonic musical instruments
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 1/383 Chord detection and/or recognition, e.g. for correction, or automatic bass generation

Abstract

In an electronic musical instrument, playing data are produced by depressing a key in a keyboard, and divided into plural groups. At least one of the semi-automatic playing channels processes sound data of a musical piece read out of a memory to generate musical tones in synchronism with the playing data of at least one group. The sound data may be corrected according to sound correcting data before being used to generate musical tones.

Claims

1. An electronic musical instrument comprising:

playing data generating means for production of playing data in response to an action on a playing controller;

musical piece data memory means for storing musical piece data comprising a series of musical sound data units;

separating means for dividing the playing data into a plurality of groups according to a predetermined reference; and

at least one semi-automatic playing means responsive to each said production of playing data in at least one of the plurality of groups, for reading a sequence of sound data units of the musical piece data out of the musical piece data memory means, said sound data units which are read out being determined by the group that the playing data belongs to, and for generating musical tones on the basis of said sound data units which are read out in synchronism with the production of playing data.

2. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 1, wherein the musical piece data includes at least one of a melody part and an accompaniment part of a musical piece.

3. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 2, wherein accompaniment data is read out in response to a first said group of the playing data and melody data is read out in response to a second said group of playing data.

4. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 1 further comprising a disabling means operative, when said production produces playing data of one said group, for disabling subsequent said playing data of said one group received within a given guard time.

5. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 1, wherein the semi-automatic playing means comprises:

a first semi-automatic playing means responsive to the production of playing data of a first group for reading, in a sequence, the sound data units out of the musical piece data memory means and for generating musical tones based thereon; and

a second semi-automatic playing means including a chord detecting means responsive to the production of playing data of a second group for detecting a chord and correcting means for correcting a pitch of the sound data corresponding to the chord detected.

6. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 1, wherein the playing controller is a keyboard of which playing data is separated into two groups according to the predetermined reference.

7. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 6, wherein the predetermined reference is that the playing data is related to either a white or a black key of the keyboard.

8. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 6, wherein the predetermined reference is that the playing data is related to either a treble or a bass part key of the keyboard.

9. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 5, wherein the first and second semi-automatic playing means perform respective semi-automatic playing in response to the production of playing data of each of two different said groups independently.

10. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 1, further comprising:

sound correcting data entry means for entering a sound correcting data; and

correcting means for correcting the sound data unit read out according to the sound correcting data, whereby musical tones are generated on the basis of the corrected sound data.

11. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 10, wherein the sound correcting data corrects at least one of tone, volume, pitch, cut-off frequency, and depth of each musical effect in the sound data.

13. An electronic musical instrument according to claim 6 wherein the production of playing data is produced in synchronism with the playing of keys on the keyboard and the generation of said musical tones for said sound data units that are read out is generated in synchronism with the playing of the keys.

12. An electronic musical instrument according to claim I wherein the sound data units which are read out are decided independently of the production of playing data.