Yamaha Corporation

Nippon Gakki Seizo Kabushiki Kaisha

Yasushi Kurakake

Shigehiko Mizuno

Yutaka Hasegawa

Kosei Terada

Tsuyoshi Futamase

Kensuke Ide

Shuzo Karakawa

Takashi Kunii

Hideo Suzuki

Kotaro Mizuno

Takuya Nakata

Masahiko Hasebe

Yoshiko Fukushima

Takeshi Adachi

Akira Yamauchi

Junichi Mishima

Yasuhiko Asahi

Masaki Kudo

Manabu Kawada

Akira Tozuka

Masahiro Koyama

Toshiyuki Ito

Kenichiro Saito

Yasuhiko Okamura

Yasushi Sakurai

Mitsuo Hori

Toshiyukii Ito

Hasebe Masahiko

Satoshi Uehara

A sound control apparatus is provided in a portable terminal for sounding a music tone in association with operation of the portable terminal, which is controlled by a main CPU. In the sound control apparatus, a memory memorizes music information representing a music tone and configuration information associated to a timbre of the music tone. An information acquiring section acquires the music information and the configuration information from the memory. A tone generating section is configured by the acquired configuration information to create a timbre specified by the configuration information. The tone generating section operates according to the acquired music information to generate the music tone being represented by the music information and having the specified timbre. A dedicated CPU is provided separately from the main CPU for controlling the memory, the information acquiring section and the tone generating section.

Portable telephony apparatus with music tone generator

A method is designed for searching contents information presented by a plurality of information sites over a network based on a query sent from a client terminal to a searching server through the network. The method is carried out by the computer-implemented steps of registering information sites which present contents information involving various items and actions related to each other, initiating the client terminal to transmit a query to the searching server through the network, the query containing an item keyword indicating an item as a target of searching and an action keyword indicating an action to be made on the item, operating the searching server according to the query to search for one or more of the registered information sites having contents information matching the query, and to send back directory information indicative of locations of the searched information sites to the client terminal, and operating the client terminal according to the directory information for accessing the searched information sites, thereby enabling a user to make the action on the item.

Method of searching information site by item keyword and action keyword

A song text information input system allows a user to easily input song text control information for controlling the display manner of song texts on the screen without having preknowledge of specific rules for control and use of character codes. The system displays a song text input window that contains a song text expansion area and switch buttons corresponding to a change-line switch and a change-page switch respectively. Using a keyboard, the user is able to sequentially input characters of a song text, which are displayed in the song text expansion area on the screen. As for entry of the song text control information, the user operates specific keys of the keyboard or clicks the switch buttons with a mouse to input special marks such as a change-line mark '/' and a change-page mark '<', which correspond to specific control character codes.

Apparatus and method for inputting song text information displayed on computer screen

There is input type information defining a type of portable terminal as well as various music composing parameters. Automatic music composition process is carried out on the basis of the input type information and music composing parameters, so as to generate musical composition data suitable for reproduction on a portable terminal of the type indicated by the type information. Balance in predetermined musical characteristics of the generated musical composition data can also be achieved by adjusting the predetermined musical characteristics in accordance with the type of portable terminal. It is also possible to convert the generated musical composition data into a predetermined data format suiting the type of a portable terminal to be used. The generated musical composition data may be transmitted online to the portable terminal.

Apparatus and method for automatically generating musical composition data for use on portable terminal

In a memory, there are prestored melody information of a given music piece and other information representative of a plurality of accompaniment patterns suitable for the music piece. For every predetermined performance section (composed of, for example, two measures) of the music piece, a particular accompaniment pattern is randomly selected from among the prestored accompaniment patterns suitable for the music piece. Accompaniment performance information for the music piece is provided by combining the accompaniment patterns randomly selected for the individual performance sections.

Performance information making device and method based on random selection of accompaniment patterns

A method is designed for displaying a visual image of a music system that is constructed to play at least one performance part with a particular timbre and that is applied with an acoustic effect, an accompaniment style and the like. The method is carried out by the steps of analyzing data associated to the music system to discriminate the acoustic effect, the accompaniment style and the like applied to the music system and to discriminate the particular timbre allotted to the performance part of the music system, providing a picture of a scenery setting in matching with the discriminated acoustic effect, the accompaniment style and the like such that the picture of the scenery setting visualizes a situation and environment in which the music system should be played with the acoustic effect, the accompaniment style and the like, providing an icon in correspondence to the discriminated particular timbre such that the icon symbolizes playing of the performance part with the allotted timbre, and arranging the icon of the performance part in the picture of the scenery setting to thereby synthesize the visual image of the music system.

Method of visualizing music system by combination of scenery picture and

A music apparatus is constructed for reproducing multimedia events including musical events and visual events arranged in synchronization to the musical events. In the music apparatus, a storage device provides a data structure composed of music information which determines a sequence of the musical events, image progression information which determines a sequence of the visual events in synchronization to the sequence of the musical events, and event information which represents the visual events involved in the image progression information. A tone generator processes the music information to generate musical tones in correspondence to the sequence of the musical events. An image synthesizer operates in synchronization to the tone generator for sequentially processing the event information according to the image progression information to synthesize images in correspondence to the sequence of the visual events. The synthesized images are displayed along the progression of the musical tones to thereby reproduce the multimedia events.

Apparatus for editing and reproducing visual events along musical events

A lyrics display apparatus for indicating the words of a song on a screen of a display device, which is designed to memorize a lyrics data including a first line-change code for defining a predetermined number of words to be indicated on one line and a second line-change code for defining a segmental position of the words indicated on the line, to set a first display mode when the screen of the display device is able to indicate the number of words defined by the first line-change code on the one line, to set a second display mode when the screen of said display device is unable to indicate the number of words defined by the first line-change code on the one line, to control the display device in such a manner that the words defined by the first line-change code are indicated on the one line at the first display mode and that the line of the words defined by the first line-change code is changed to another line at the segmental position defined by the second line-change code at the second display mode.

Lyrics display apparatus

A terminal apparatus is connectable to a host station and is responsive to a command to execute an application program to treat music data. In the terminal apparatus, a local storage locally stores an old version of software containing music data and various application programs which are selectively executed to treat the music data. An interface is optionally activated prior to execution of an application program for communication with the host station having a remote storage which remotely stores a new version of software including music data and various application programs which are made available latest by the host station. A controller operates when the interface establishes the communication with the host station for downloading the new version from the remote storage of the host station and for transferring the downloaded new version to the local storage so as to renew the old version stocked in the local storage by the new version. A processor responds to the command for selectively executing the various application programs to treat the music data based on the new version when the interface has been activated and otherwise for selectively executing the various application programs to treat the music data based on the old version when the interface has not been activated. A display graphically presents a map containing various objects corresponding to the various application programs. A pointing tool is manipulated for pointing one of the various objects on the display so as to select one of the various application programs corresponding to the pointed object to thereby input the command.

Music data processing apparatus with communication interface and graphic

A music data processing system having: a storage unit for storing performance data and text data or auxiliary data in a first storage format or in a second storage format; a first data search unit for searching the text data or auxiliary data stored in the first storage unit; a second data search unit for searching the text data or auxiliary data stored in the second storage unit; and a processing unit for processing text data or auxiliary data if the text data or auxiliary data of the first storage format can be searched by said first data search unit, and if the text data or auxiliary data of the first storage format cannot be searched, processing text data or auxiliary data if the text data or auxiliary data of the second storage format can be searched by the second data search unit.

Music data processing system with concurrent reproduction of performance

In an automatic performance apparatus for creating music piece data by combining automatic performance pattern data, a plurality of automatic performance patterns are stored in advance, and display elements corresponding to these automatic performance patterns are prepared. An operation for displaying these display elements on a display device and connecting them by lines is performed. The order of automatic performance patterns is determined in correspondence with the order of the elements connected by the lines. With this operation, music piece data can be easily created and modified. In an automatic accompaniment edit apparatus for creating/editing chord progress data for an automatic accompaniment operation, chords or chord progress patterns suited for each style are stored in correspondence with a plurality of styles. When a user selects a style, chords or chord progress patterns suited for the selected style are informed. With this control, the user can know chords or chord progress patterns suited for the style even if he or she does not have a sufficient knowledge about chords or chord progress patterns. In addition, the user can create chord progress data for an automatic accompaniment operation by selecting chords or chord progress patterns from the informed chords or chord progress patterns.

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Hamamatsu, Japan

Yasushi Kurakake