Musical tone-generating method

• US 6,872,877 B2
• Filed: 11/30/2001
• Issued: 03/29/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 11/27/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
• Original Assignee: Yamaha Corporation
• Inventors: Suzuki, Hideo, Isozaki, Yoshimasa, Sakama, Masao
• Primary Examiner(s): FLETCHER, MARLON T
• Application Number:
  US10/008,768
• Publication Number:
  US 20020053273A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,215 Days
• Field of Search: 84601-606, 84609-612, 84615-616, 846/19, 84622-633, 84649-650, 84653-654, 846/57, 84659-666, 84634-636
• 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 1/24 for selecting plural preset register stops
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2210/061 for extraction of musical phrases, isolation of musically relevant segments, e.g. musical thumbnail generation, or for temporal structure analysis of a musical piece, e.g. determination of the movement sequence of a musical work
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2210/221 Glissando, i.e. pitch smoothly sliding from one note to another, e.g. gliss, glide, slide, bend, smear, sweep; "discrete glissando" on instruments not permitting continuous glissando, like the xylophone or the piano, e.g. arpeggio G10H2210/185
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 2240/311 MIDI transmission G10H2240/056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G10H 7/02 in which amplitudes at successive sample points of a tone waveform are stored in one or more memories

Abstract

A method of generating musical tones and a storage medium storing a program for executing the method are provided. Musical piece data is decomposed into phrases, the musical piece data being formed of pieces of performance data arranged in the order of performance. The pieces of performance data of the musical piece data are analyzed for each of the phrases obtained by the decomposing step. Tone color control data is prepared for each of the phrases according to results of the analyzing. The pieces of performance data of the musical piece data are reproduced by sequentially reading the pieces of performance data at timing at which the pieces of performance data are to be performed to the order of performance. Tone color characteristics of musical tones to be generated based on selected ones of the pieces of performance data which are reproduced by the reproducing step, are controlled according to the tone color control data prepared for ones of the phrases to which the selected ones of the pieces of performance data belong, respectively.

Claims

1. A method of processing musical performance data, comprising the steps of:

receiving a sequence of pieces of musical performance data representing a sequence of musical notes, said musical performance data comprising event data;

selecting at least one tone color for each of the received pieces of musical performance data;

designating a performance method for each of the received pieces of musical performance data by a player in real time from among a plurality of performance methods peculiar to the selected at least one tone color; and

forming musical tone data based on inserting performance method data indicative of the designated performance method at a predetermined location corresponding to event data of the musical performance data for said each of the received pieces of musical performance data.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

displaying performance methods to be selected corresponding to each of the selected tone colors on a display; and

selecting one of the displayed performance methods.

3. A method of forming musical tone waveform data, comprising the steps of:

reproducing musical performance data;

generating a plurality of performance method codes during the reproduction of said musical performance data, each performance method code indicative of a performance method; and

forming musical tone waveform data based on said musical performance data and said performance method codes, each of said musical tone waveform data corresponding to each of said performance method codes.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein said generation of the plurality of performance method codes is carried out based on performance methods designated by a player in real time, and said formation of musical tone waveform data is carried out by attaching each of said performance method codes to said musical performance data.

5. The method according to claim 3 wherein a performance method is trill and said step of forming musical tone waveform data is based on pulling-off waveform data or hammering-on waveform data cut from a sampled trill waveform.

6. The method according to claim 5 wherein said step of forming musical data comprises forming a group of said pulling-off waveform data and selecting randomly pieces of pulling-off waveform data from the group.

7. The method according to claim 5 wherein said step of forming musical data comprises forming a group of said hammering-on waveform data and selecting randomly pieces of hammering waveform data from the group.

8. The method according to claim 3 wherein a performance method is trill and said step of forming musical tone waveform data is based on down waveform data or up waveform data cut from a sampled trill waveform.

9. The method according to claim 8 wherein said step of forming musical data comprises forming a group of said down waveform data and a group of said up waveform data and selecting randomly pieces from at least one of the down waveform data group and the up waveform data group.

10. A method of generating musical tones, comprising the steps of:

providing a plurality of tone colors, each tone color based on tone color data comprising a plurality of performance methods;

selecting at least one tone color for a musical piece;

displaying performance methods to be selected corresponding to each of the selected tone colors on a display;

selecting one of the displayed performance methods; and

generating musical tones in accordance with the selected performance method.

11. A method according to claim 10, wherein said selection is made by a user.

12. A method according to claim 11, wherein a desired performance method is selected from the displayed performance methods by using a switch.

13. A method of making a medium which stores data prepared using the steps of:

analyzing a progression manner of at least one note in musical performance data, said musical performance data comprising event data;

decomposing said musical performance data into a plurality of pieces according to results of said analyzing;

determining a performance method for each of said plurality of pieces;

inserting performance method data indicative of the performance method for each of said plurality of pieces at a predetermined location corresponding to event data of the musical performance;

providing a storage medium; and

storing data of said inserted performance method data and corresponding event data for each of said plurality of pieces in the storage medium.

14. A method of making a medium which stores data prepared using the steps of:

selecting tone color data for musical performance data, said musical performance data comprising event data;

analyzing at least one piece of said musical performance data in a manner corresponding to the selected tone color data;

forming musical tone data based on inserting performance method data indicative of a performance method corresponding to a result of said analyzing to said musical performance data, said performance method data inserted at a predetermined location corresponding to event data of the musical performance data;

providing a storage medium; and

storing data representative of said formed musical tone data in the storage medium.

15. A method of making a medium which stores data prepared using the steps of:

reproducing musical performance data;

generating a plurality at performance method codes during the reproduction of said musical performance data, each performance method code indicative of a performance method;

forming musical tone waveform data based on said musical performance data and said performance method codes, each of said musical tone waveform data corresponding to each of said performance method codes;

providing a storage medium; and

storing data representative of said formed musical tone waveform data in the storage medium.

16. A method according to claim 15, wherein said generation of the plurality of performance method codes is carried out based on performance methods designated by a player in real time, and said formation of musical tone waveform data is carried out by attaching each of said performance method codes to said musical performance data.