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

• US 7,491,879 B2
• Filed: 10/04/2006
• Issued: 02/17/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 04/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nintendo Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Nintendo Company Limited
• Inventors: Osada, Junya, Hikino, Mitsuhiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Donels; Jeffrey
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chan; Kawing
• Application Number:
  US11/542,243
• Publication Number:
  US 20070256546A1
• Time in Patent Office: 867 Days
• Field of Search: 846/09, 846/15, 846/49, 846/53
• 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. conductor baton movement sensing G10H2220/206, angle sensing without reference to gravity G10H2220/391; player body joint angle sensing G10H2220/321

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:

acquiring acceleration data outputted from the acceleration sensor;

calculating a magnitude of the acceleration by using the acquired acceleration data;

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 a computer readable memory, based on the calculated magnitude of the acceleration; and

outputting data for controlling a sound generated from a sound generation device, based on the selected track data;

detecting a peak value of the magnitude of the acceleration by using a history of the magnitude of the calculated acceleration, wherein, in the selection of the at least one piece of track data, 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 detecting of the peak value of the magnitude of the acceleration.

2. 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 calculation of the magnitude of the acceleration, 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.

3. 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 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 selected track data.

4. 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:

acquiring acceleration data outputted from the acceleration sensor;

calculating a magnitude of the acceleration by using the acquired acceleration data;

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 a computer readable memory, based on the calculated magnitude of the acceleration; and

outputting data for controlling a sound generated from a sound generation device, based on the selected track data;

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

5. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 4, causing the computer to further execute detecting a peak value of the difference of the acceleration by using a history of the calculated difference of the acceleration, wherein, in the selection of the track data, the track data representing the target music to play is selected based on the detected peak value, of the difference of the acceleration.

6. The storage medium having stored therein the music playing program according to claim 4, 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 calculation of the difference, 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.

7. 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:

acquiring acceleration data outputted from the acceleration sensor;

calculating a magnitude of the acceleration by using the acquired acceleration data;

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 a computer readable memory, based on the calculated magnitude of the acceleration; and

outputting data for controlling a sound generated from a sound generation device, based on the selected track data;

wherein

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

in the calculation of the magnitude of the acceleration, 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;

detecting a peak value of the magnitude of the acceleration by using a history of the calculated magnitude of the acceleration; and

detecting a peak value of the difference of the acceleration by using a history of the difference of the calculated acceleration, and

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

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

9. A music playing apparatus operable 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 programmed logic circuitry for acquiring acceleration data outputted from the acceleration sensor;

acceleration calculation programmed logic circuitry for calculating a magnitude of the acceleration by using the acquired acceleration data;

track data selection programmed logic circuitry 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 a machine readable memory, based on the calculated magnitude of the acceleration, and

music performance programmed logic circuitry for outputting data for controlling a sound generated from a sound generation device, based on the track data selected by the track data selection programmed logic circuitry;

an acceleration peak value detection programmed logic circuitry for 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 programmed logic circuitry, wherein the track data representing the target music to play is selected based on the peak value, of the magnitude of the acceleration, detected by the acceleration peak value detection programmed logic circuitry.