Music training apparatus
First Claim
1. A music training apparatus for teaching a student correct pitch and other musical skills by reference to a stored or pre-recorded musical sequence, comprising:
- display means for presenting a live image visible to the student,means for receiving a monophonic reference source and sending a variable signal in accordance therewith to the visual display means, so that the display means shows a sequence of pitch values, the monophonic reference source comprising desired pitches to be achieved by the student,means for providing an audible tone reference to the student in unison with the monophonic reference source and sharing the same fundamental sequence of tones as the monophonic reference source,pickup means for picking up intonations made by the student in attempting to follow the audible tone reference,tunable filter means to attenuate harmonics of a signal from the pickup means,filter control means, responsive to the droop of the output of the filter means, for setting the frequency of the filter means substantially near the frequency of the signal from the pickup means,pitch tracker means receiving a signal from the tunable filter means, for analyzing and tracking the pitch of the student'"'"'s intonations and for generating a pitch track signal, andcomputer means for receiving pitch track signals from the pitch tracker means and for generating a signal to the display means, to display visually a temporal history of the series of intonations made by the student, superimposed with the desired sequence of pitch values as represented by the monophonic reference source and shown on the display.
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Abstract
An apparatus to assist the musical instruction of a student including one or more tone sources (e.g., flute, human voice, violin) playing monophonically as inputs, means to quantify aural parameters of pitch, amplitude, duration, and timbre of inputs, means to visually store and represent temporal history of said, means to store and playback audio signal of inputs, and means to arrive at and display musical related pitches. A waveform analyzer is used to control a tunable low-pass filter in the pitch tracker and preform spectral estimation of timbre. Pre-recorded music instruction and a karaoke player are used as examples of reference tone sources. Visual representation of aural parameters can provided as video output.
113 Citations
40 Claims
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1. A music training apparatus for teaching a student correct pitch and other musical skills by reference to a stored or pre-recorded musical sequence, comprising:
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display means for presenting a live image visible to the student, means for receiving a monophonic reference source and sending a variable signal in accordance therewith to the visual display means, so that the display means shows a sequence of pitch values, the monophonic reference source comprising desired pitches to be achieved by the student, means for providing an audible tone reference to the student in unison with the monophonic reference source and sharing the same fundamental sequence of tones as the monophonic reference source, pickup means for picking up intonations made by the student in attempting to follow the audible tone reference, tunable filter means to attenuate harmonics of a signal from the pickup means, filter control means, responsive to the droop of the output of the filter means, for setting the frequency of the filter means substantially near the frequency of the signal from the pickup means, pitch tracker means receiving a signal from the tunable filter means, for analyzing and tracking the pitch of the student'"'"'s intonations and for generating a pitch track signal, and computer means for receiving pitch track signals from the pitch tracker means and for generating a signal to the display means, to display visually a temporal history of the series of intonations made by the student, superimposed with the desired sequence of pitch values as represented by the monophonic reference source and shown on the display. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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29. Apparatus for determining the pitch of an audio input signal, comprising:
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filter means for attenuating the harmonics of the audio input signal, means for converting the output of the filter means into a pulse train of frequency substantially equal to the output of the filter means, a control means, responsive to the droop of the output of the filter means, for maintaining the cutoff frequency of the filter means substantially near the frequency of the audio input signal. - View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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35. A music training apparatus for teaching a student correct pitch and other musical skills by reference to a stored or pre-recorded musical sequence, comprising:
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audible speaker means for presenting audio to the student, visual display means for presenting live images to the student, a compact disk including audio and visual information, a compact disk player for reading the information stored on the compact disk, providing audio to the audible speaker means and visual images, means for receiving a monophonic reference source from the compact disk and producing an image visually representing a sequence of pitch values, the monophonic reference source comprising desired pitches to be achieved by the student, means for providing an audible tone reference to the student in unison with the monophonic reference source and sharing the same fundamental sequence of tones as the monophonic reference source, pickup means for picking up intonations made by the student in attempting to follow the audible tone reference, pitch tracker means receiving a signal from pickup means, for analyzing and tracking the pitch of the student'"'"'s intonations and for generating a pitch track signal, and computer means for receiving pitch track signals from the pitch tracker means and for producing an image visually representing a temporal history of the series of intonations made by the student, image mixing means for combining a plurality of images to be viewed simultaneously by the student on the visual display means, where the plurality of images include the visual image of the sequence of desired pitches, the temporal history of student intonations, and the compact disk visual images. - View Dependent Claims (36, 37, 38, 39, 40)
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Specification