Electronic musical instrument having a function of dividing performance information into phrases and displaying keys to be operated for each phrase

Abstract

Plural key-displaying elements are provided in corresponding relation to plural keys. A series of performance information is divided into plural phrases, namely sections, and for each of the phrases, the displays corresponding to keys to be performed within the phrase are together lit, so as to guide a player about keys to be depressed. There is provided a phrase dividing device or program for automatically dividing a series of performance information into phrases on the basis of the contents of the information, so that a phrase-by-phrase key-depression instructing display can be effected. All the displaying elements corresponding to keys to be depressed within a phrase are lit, and as the performance progresses, the displaying element corresponding to each of the keys to be next depressed is changed from the lit state over to a blinking state. Key-depression instructing display for keys to be performed in a next phrase may be initiated at appropriate timing when the instructing display is being effected for the current phrase. In such a case, the displaying state may be sequentially changed from a specific key in the current phrase to another specific key in the next phrase. The phrase dividing operation may be performed appropriately in accordance with any of various determination criteria such as tone pitch information and other performance information, or in response to an operational state of a pedal operator.