Canon Kabushiki Kaisha

Yoshisuke Teshima

Kenichi Nagasawa

Hirokazu Negishi

Toshihiro Sugikubo

A music search system easily operable by a user to search for a musical piece with accuracy, a method for operating the system, and a recording medium for use with the system. A plurality of music search factors can be successively input to the system, and one or more candidate pieces are presented based on effective inputs in the input music search factors. A user can efficiently supply the system with various sorts of music search information, and can obtain an optimal search result by using a search method particularly suitable for search by each sort of information. Input score information is reproduced according to the input operation, so that the user can immediately confirm most ambiguous score information when using the score information as search information, thereby reducing the probability of the system making an unnecessary search. A presentation form in which a candidate piece is displayed can be selected from a plurality of forms, thereby enabling the user to recognize candidate pieces in various forms, from which the user will select necessary one by various methods. Thus, the user can select any musical piece in an optimal way according to his or her preference. The degrees of matching of a plurality of candidate pieces to each of musical piece search factors are evaluated and information relating to the evaluation results is simultaneously displayed, thereby suggesting, to a user, musical pieces from which one searched for by the user is probable to be found. Also, the system is substantially free from selecting failure.

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Yokohama, Japan

Yoshisuke Teshima